Here’s an interesting graph from Nationwide’s latest house price index (June) showing the decline in the amount of property currently on the market.
It’s using data from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and it doesn’t need a huge amount of explanation: basically, since the credit crunch, stock levels in the sales market have plummeted.
In RICS’ [...]

*** UPDATE 24/7/09 Alan has now done his plinth stint and very entertaining it was too. Well done sir! ***

Walk around Trafalgar square in Central London and you will notice that one of the plinths is lacking any customary statuary.
Known as (wait for it) “The Fourth Plinth” it was originally meant to [...]

Unlike Jocelyn some of us didn’t want to remortgage our homes and go to Glastonbury this year to spend four days in a soggy tent listening to the constant thump thump of the dance tents.

No sirree, that’s not for me. I stick two fingers up to Glasto and have instead created the Staying At Home [...]

Something very strange has happened, a huge reversal of fortunes, a massive volte-face by the missus - we are, after all, going for a flat.
It may have looked like I had lost this particular discussion - but not so.
Thanks to a flash of genius, and to ensure that my involvement in [...]

On the eve of my annual sojourn to Glastonbury, I’m keeping everything crossed that the current forecast of sun, sun, sun, holds true for the next five days.
My faith in meteorologists is such, however, that I’ll be taking my tartan wellies regardless of all the wee suns pictured on the BBC website.
Â
But why is it [...]

Our favourite shed blog, er, Shed Blog, has posted the rather fantastic new video for the official Shed Week song.
Sung with gusto by ‘Punks not Dad‘ it’s called, appropriately enough, ‘In Me Shed’.

Great video, great sentiment (it’s about all the things we do in our sheds) and pretty catchy in a ‘we know 3-ish chords [...]

My latest update could really be one sentence. No keys and more paperwork…
This feels like it is taking forever and I know people who are in chains/more complicated situations who have managed to exchange on their property before me. I’m jealous!
So, I received another bundle of paperwork through from the solicitor – three years of [...]

Last year, the road where I now live was runner-up in Brighton’s City In Bloom ‘Flowers In My Street’ competition.
This year, judging by the almost overnight appearance of brightly coloured, full-to-bursting window boxes – June is competition month - the green-fingered residents are gunning for first place.
Very pretty the flower-clad street is, too.  An absolute [...]

Fancy borrowing a neighbourly cup of sugar from Norman Cook?
Or do you like the idea of paddling in the surf on your own private beach before inviting Nick Berry round for sherry?
Then look no further my property finding funsters as it seems a house on ‘Millionaire’s Row‘ in Hove is for sale (although I think [...]

When I heard that Bournemouth Council was launching a retro-styled ‘beach pod’ development in Boscombe (designed by Wayne Hemingway) I had my doubts.
The beach pods are basically beach huts in Overstrand, a restored 1950s building – and who, in this market (who in their right mind!), would  fork out £65-90,000 for a place with a [...]