I have a vision!

This morning I woke up with the notion that it is time to buy a home.

To that end I got up and walked the length of the Stroud Green Road and Crouch Hill and registered with every estate agency I found.

One estate agent called me just 10 minutes after I had left his office and told me, "My 2:30 has cancelled, would I like to look at some places? (It was a terrible lie, but I humoured him. I am such a cynic!)

So on day one of the search for a new shell, this little crab got to look at a couple of places one on Ashley Road and one on Stapleton Hall Road.

Since I didn't have a camera or notepad to hand (and with my known tendency to merge things in my head if I don't take copious notes), I arranged to go and look again at both properties tomorrow.

Ashley road I was not too keen on, it had lots of built in storage space, but the kitchen was awful, I would have had to swap the bathroom and kitchen so the kitchen was bigger and hence usable, don't think I'll be progressing on that one somehow.

I really like the look of the Stapleton Hall Road place, it's a four bedroom maisonette, on the second, third and fourth floor of a converted Victorian residence. One of the bedrooms has been converted into an office (excellent, just what I need), the master bedroom has an en suite shower room and a walk in wardrobe. The guest bedroom is sizeable, and the single bedroom is comfortably big enough for my daughter when she visits at the weekends. The living room is huge and has a double door through to the kitchen which is the same size with a really nice fitted kitchen including a big five ring stove. Lots and lots of space I really like space! Finally it is right next to a train station that will get me into The City in 13-15 minutes! Yay!

Obviously this is only the second place I have seen so I have to keep some perspective.

I have just come off the phone with a specialist IFA who deals primarily with contractors like myself, time to sort out a mortgage. The plan is to get a tracker mortgage with a offset account option, with the minimum deposit allowed. Then whack my not inconsiderable savings into the offset account and minimise the interest I'm paying while still keeping the flexibility to get my money out if I decide to buy another place. This way I don't have to go though the polava of a remortgage to get the cash out again, but I still get a very low cost mortgage without committing my funds to the deposit.