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Daft Over-Speccing In Cornwall


Mrs Bear

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HOLA441

A bit reminiscent of Ye (in)famous Old Bakehouse, though not quite on the same scale

Couple bought Cornish farmhouse for £627K at the peak '...which you do if you are idiots,' as female half of the couple admits, and then spent a fortune doing it up. A 'natural' swimming pool at £70K and a glass room at £60k, were just part of it.

'Really and truly, it should be on the market for £1.2M, but because of where it is, and because there are a lot of nice houses on offer at the same time, it's £795K.' lol

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HOLA442
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HOLA448

To be fair pretty tasteful, something like that would be my dream house. Definantly worth £150-200,000 (i.e. about 10 times the average salary in the area).

Not so sure about the "natural" swimmingpool, looks more like a pond!!

And the "glass room"? Is that the greenhouse on the side? :)

Edited by reddog
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HOLA449

Moved house 26 times in their married lives, and first time 'they've lost money'. Time for a hpcer victim breakdown; 'the banks missold them, media, only wanted a home'.

Link http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/style/homes_and_gardens/Improve/article1617207.ece

They paid £627,000 for their new home. “We bought at the top of the market, which you always do when you are idiots,” she says. [..]The couple started by stripping the house back to basics. They won’t reveal how much that cost, only that the builder’s bill came in at a full three times his estimate. “But he did see solutions, rather than problems,” says Harry, who remains sanguine about the whole debacle. “It’s only money, after all.” [..]Really and truly, it should be on sale for £1.2m, but because of where it is, and because there are a lot of nice houses on offer at the same time, it’s £795,000. “This is the first time we’ve lost money, but it’s going to be good value for somebody.”

Property http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52451966.html

£627,500 Detached, Freehold 31 Aug 2006
£410,000 Detached, Freehold 15 Aug 2002

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Really and truly, it should be on sale for £1.2m, but because of where it is, and because there are a lot of nice houses on offer at the same time, it’s £795,000. “This is the first time we’ve lost money, but it’s going to be good value for somebody.”

£3/4+ of a million pounds for some remote part in Cornwall. Only a HPIer or pure-forgiveness 'buyers have guns at their heads' HPCer could see it that way, imo.

Reality in the way of £1.2m forever hpi-ing... £795K now.. 'good value'.

Edited by Venger
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HOLA4415

Not enough land for my liking.

Love the pool though, I do want one or those as I'd never pay the fortune it costs to heat a normal one.

Because of the way they cycle water through large shallow areas natural swimming ponds can apparently reach summer water temperatures of 22-8°C in Southern Britain so they're pretty much heated when you most want to use them anyway. They're fundamentally just ponds with the right balance of plants and shallow areas to deep plant free swimming areas, with the addition of a solar water pump. There's absolutely no reason why they should cost £70k, or in fact any more than you would expect to spend digging out a regular pond. I suspect this couple paid a lot of money to a natural swimming pond company to do it for them instead of taking a relatively small amount of time to learn about how natural swimming ponds work and either do it for themselves or hire general contractors at a substantially lower cost.

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Oh I mission d that they spend 70k. That's crazy. I would spend a few k on hiring a digger for a week to do mine. I'd love a normal outdoor heated pool, would be amazing in the winter, but that's crazy money to heat and a lot of energy to maintain.

I live in the south west, I did way more wild swimming in london though.

70k will still buy you a house in some parts of the country so yeah, absolutely insane.

I think the main benefit of having that kind of pool is that it is effectively heated during the summer, but entirely through solar energy and water circulation, and that it is right there on your doorstep (and of course getting to mess around with a digger for a few days when building it ;)).

Otherwise wild swimming probably has to win, for surrounding scenery if nothing else.

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HOLA4418

A quick google - as Im not sure what a natual swimming pool is. A river??

https://www.onthemarket.com/details/1583714/

?

I really quite like that and it's 0.8 or so acres. The pond is a folly IMHO but otherwise the one thing that would stop me is the price of £795k! Just how many people are going to pay that for a 4 bed home...

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HOLA4419

Moved house 26 times in their married lives, and first time 'they've lost money'. Time for a hpcer victim breakdown; 'the banks missold them, media, only wanted a home'.

Link http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/style/homes_and_gardens/Improve/article1617207.ece

Property http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52451966.html

Very nice gaff. Now why the hell don't they just live in it instead of selling and moving all the time! What are they trying to make money for - to buy a bigger house that they can finally die in? I just don't get this mentality - although it seems many people are obsessed with this folly in the UK.
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HOLA4420

Very nice gaff. Now why the hell don't they just live in it instead of selling and moving all the time! What are they trying to make money for - to buy a bigger house that they can finally die in? I just don't get this mentality - although it seems many people are obsessed with this folly in the UK.

If they think it's now 'worth' £1.2M and the renovation cost 3 times that planned maybe they have some debts to pay?

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HOLA4421

Very nice gaff. Now why the hell don't they just live in it instead of selling and moving all the time! What are they trying to make money for - to buy a bigger house that they can finally die in? I just don't get this mentality - although it seems many people are obsessed with this folly in the UK.

Article said that they had always planned to downsize 'at some stage' and a house 'she had always coveted' came up in the Hampshire village where she grew up and where her father still lives. Hence trying to sell the Cornish one.

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Article said that they had always planned to downsize 'at some stage' and a house 'she had always coveted' came up in the Hampshire village where she grew up and where her father still lives. Hence trying to sell the Cornish one.

Some people are always on the move, and not necessarily to make money. My mother was always restless and after a few years in one place would be wanting to move. Came in handy when she had dementia and wouldn't settle in her care home - I kept telling her I was looking for a nice little flat for her, and once I found a really nice one we'd go and have a look together. Worked like a charm over and over.

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Well I will have a wild pool once I get my forever house, will be a self made one however. Difficult affording somewhere in the south with a decent amount of land.

I don't think this one Cornwall is hugely expensive for what it is, more than I'd pay for it.

I like this http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-53034770.html . but its guide is still 25% more than I'd pay for it and don't love that in 9 acres the house is on the border next to next doors farm buildings.

The description includes "Workshop building with inspection pit & livestock lean-too shed" so perhaps those come with the property and could therefore be removed if unwanted?

I'd quite like to do something like that myself (including the self made wild pool, I think the solar heated summer swimming is worth it if you build it yourself and swim regularly) but I suspect that agricultural land prices, especially for smaller parcels of land that are uneconomical for commercial farming, are in as much of a bubble as house prices and so are likely to fall in price in a HPC along with the properties that they're attached too.

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HOLA4424

They're listing price of everything it seems. Anyone can spend-hard. It doesn't equal HPI+++++++++.

Aga £7,000. Kitchen bespoke hand-painted units £30,000. Calor gas tank (buried) £8,000. Gartenart natural swimming pool (£70,000): “Because we’d moved from the coast, I felt it would be nice to have a pool, so on a hot summer’s day, the family would have water, space and peace.” [..]conifers for privacy, replacement gates, paving round house in Indian sandstone (£18,000).

Too many risks for a swimming pool for families with young children imo. And don't they need cleaning and maintenance? When my parents moved area in mid 80s, first chore we had to do was dig out the pond, for they were worried about risks of baby sister falling into it when left alone in garden. I'm safe and boring, but would only swim in pool with lifeguard watching over. £70K? Could take so many family holidays for that over a lifetime... including swimming in sulphur hot springs in Canada (lifeguard watching over).

Edited by Venger
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