We’re currently running an advertising campaign featuring real people talking about their idea of home … we’d love to know what it means to you, so please visit the main site’s What makes a home? page and post your views.

In the meantime … welcome to the big, fun, Winging It “What Makes A Home?” Quiz … specially designed by our team of quiz masters to tickle your cerebral cortex in a way it’s never been tickled before…

Ok, so this week we have something a bit different: mad German musician feeds stock market results into Microsoft’s Songsmith program and generates graphs set to music …

True, it all sounds horribly cheerful and cheesy but maybe that’s the point: if I was a stockbroker, this infuriating muzak would be enough to push me over the edge … though I hate to think what the diabolical contraption would play if it was fed a graph of my plunging descent to the pavement.

“Crisis sounds so cool!”, says composer Johannes Kreidlerc of his “melodien aus Aktienkurven, arrangiert mit der Microsoft Komponiersoftware ‘Songsmith’.

To which the only sane reply is: come back Kraftwerk, all is forgiven…

Thanks to Metro’s always amusing Ridiculant blog for this one.

Ok, look, I’m not completely mad - I do know that finance is a big issue at the moment, and that many people are concerned about job security. But it’s not all doom and gloom.

Lenders are beginning to loosen up just a smidgen - and if you have the money to hand, the market is starting to look enticing.

So - drum roll please! - here are my 10 bad-ass reasons for buying now:

1. Prices are falling within reach - they’re down £35,000 on average since last year, says the Nationwide.

2. Lenders are beginning to loosen up - more are now offering LTVs at 80-90 per cent.

3. Affordability has improved significantly and is close to its long-term trend.

4. You’ll get poor returns on savings at the moment so your deposit isn’t going to grow much.

5. Interest rates are at an all-time low - and mortgage rates, already historically low, are edging down too.

6. Buyers are relatively thin on the ground so there’s less competition out there. Vendors are keen to do a deal – there’s an average of 12 per cent currently being haggled off asking prices.

7. There’s a growing consensus that prices are beginning to bottom out – and not just among agents. Capital Economics thinks this will happen in H2 2009. So the window of opportunity is narrowing.

8. Market activity could pick up (albeit modestly) if mortgage backed securities free up lending – a scheme will be launched in April. Also talk of the post office and local authorities offering mortgages.

9. The increase of the stamp duty threshold to £175,000 has cut cost of entry to market.

10. Better to buy before the bottom than end up on the wrong side of a rising market – and things could pick up quite quickly as falling prices and increased lending draw in more buyers.

Completely mad? If you’re waiting on the sidelines, when do you think will be the right time to buy?

View of St Nicholas’ Church from the FindaProperty.com Brighton office

An army of snowmen snowpeople!

Slip sliding away

The old Dyke Road Workhouse

SEO gurus don’t do hats

Got any snowy pics that you’d like to share? Send them to editorial@findaproperty.com and we’ll put the best up on the blog.

Ok people, there’s maybe four or five inches of snow out there and the country has come to a standstill. But the Government never sleeps.

I’ve just had a press release from the DCLG explaining that the snow is a great opportunity to help meet the Government’s housing targets.

Housing minister Margaret Beckett says:

“Snow is the ultimate eco-friendly material and the large quantities of it currently blanketing the country can be put to good use.

“So today we are announcing a new initiative to create a series of genuine eco friendly snow-based communities across the country.

“Igloo-towns will be at least 5-20,000 homes. They are intended to exploit the potential to create a complete new settlement and achieve zero carbon development using the best design and architecture.”

Dan Cruickshank has been enlisted to produce a special Government video explaining how to get off your ass and help yourself by making a house out of snow.

Here’s whispering Dan in action paying homage to “the celestial dome, symbol of the sun in this icy land.”

I didn’t get the flat and I’m heartbroken (bit dramatic but there were tears!).

I know there will be others but I loved that flat and I had set my heart on it being mine.

Need to erase it from my mind, burn all pictures of it and move on. It wasn’t ‘the one’.

It all fell apart like this: I put in another offer based on the estimate of what the vendor was going to have to pay to extend the lease.

That was matched by the investor (boo!) and I knew her situation was always going to more appealing than mine, so I upped my offer and waited…and waited.

No news is good news, I kept telling myself, but the agent went very quiet – not something they’re famous for!

The investor, damn it, then put in a better offer without requiring the lease extension, and the fact that they didn’t need a mortgage valuation meant that it was snapped up.

I didn’t really stand a chance did I?

Would I have been this upset if it was another first-time buyer that had piped me to the post? Who knows?

I bet the other owners in the building would have preferred a hard working, quiet-ish buyer rather than the gamble of tenants. I wish that played a part in the decision making process.

Anyway, it’s gone and I need to get back out there. I am determined to find something even better.

And, it looks like I am going to have some viewing help in the form of a BBC camera crew who want to follow me around on my first-time buying journey - which is very exciting!

Will I become a reality TV star? Maybe I can negotiate with the big boss a nice little bonus based on the number of FindaProperty.com mentions I can get in?

That will certainly help with the deposit…

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Took a ramble over to readersheds.co.uk a few days ago, and my how they’ve grown!

What began as a bit of fun at the end of the garden has mushroomed into an internet phenomenon with forums, blogs, celebrity involvement, merchandising, flickr groups, and, I kid you not, TV shedcasts (yea!)

Uncle Wilco, the man behind the site, has just issued a call to all sheddies to enter 2009’s Shed of the Year competition …  if you love your shed, all you have to do is visit the site, upload two pics and you’re in.

Last year’s winner, Tim’s octagonal pub-in-a-shed extravaganza, provoked a great deal of drooling shed envy - as, of course, do the various Tardis sheds currently on the site (pic below).

But maybe you have something better at the end of your garden?

If so, you’ll have to convince this year’s judges: Sarah “there aren’t enough sheds in the world” Beeny; Trevor “I invented the wind-up radio in my shed” Bayliss, and, err, Chris “I have shed loads of money” Evans.

While you’re over at the site check out the shedblog, where you can read all about a man who buried his father under the garden shed … but not before he’d dressed the dearly departed as a sheikh. As you do.

Shedfolk. Gotta love em!

From the latest Hometrack report … while they rightly caution against calling the bottom of the market, this is an interesting trend:

This is getting more stressful and more complicated by the day.

I’ve been to do the mortgage bit and am thanking my parents for drumming into me the horrors of debt.

After a couple of seconds of nervous nail biting, the credit check returned a green flashing ‘accept’ sign and I am clean as a whistle (well, kind of).

But who to go with? Which deal is best? And how much shopping around should I do? (And let’s be honest, it’s not like proper shopping, is it…)

The lady at Nationwide was called Jane so thought that was a good sign but know I must NOT decide on mortgage lender based solely on financial consultant’s name…

I have been back for a second viewing and was unsure how I was going to feel about the flat, but the new love butterflies are still very much there and I am feeling really, really excited. I want this flat!

It’s got the perfect heart/head combo. I want to be there (heart) and I am confident it’s a sensible buy too (head). I feel out of my depth though with all this cliff-hanging negotiation, paper work and financial stuff.

At the moment I’m trying to work out my next move based on the cost of the vendor having to extend the lease (leasehold - who’s bright idea was that?) but I’m also fighting against an investor, who I wish would just go away (shoo, shoo!)

How typical that my ‘no chain, attractive buyer’ status would usually put me in the Naomi Campbell league, but up against this very annoying cash-rich shark I feel more like Posh Spice trying to hang out with Hollywood’s A-list.

And on top of my loss of attractiveness (which I’m trying not to take personally), I still need to find someone to give me a ‘gift’ to bump up the deposit.

Need some extra cash and fast! Clean answers on a postcard…

Just as Jane has kicked off a diary of her house buying adventures, I thought I’d be regaling you for weeks to come with tales of woe as I searched for a rented home.

But no!  Call it luck, call it fate, call it an over-saturated rental market – hell, call it whatever you like, I don’t care - because my other half and I have only gone and signed a 12-month contract on the second place we viewed.

We even managed to negotiate a monthly discount – result!

Now this may not sound that astounding to some people, but believe me, having danced this particular jig around various suburbs of Brighton on several occasions, I know from experience that it’s normally a far more complicated and frustrating routine.

But not this time.  No siree. This time we could easily have picked any one of the three places we looked at last weekend.

So, unless we’ve just been dreadfully unlucky in the past, I’m guessing it must have something to do with all those ‘reluctant landlords’ out there.  Thanks chaps, much appreciated!

However, happy as I am with our future abode and relieved that the search for it was so painless, I still really, really, really, REALLY don’t want to move out of my current much-loved home.

Indeed, Sussex residents may yet see me on South Today come the end of February.  I’ll be the one chained to a roof terrace doing a first-rate impression of Munch’s The Scream.

Calling all renters: how have you been finding the lettings market in your area? Send us your stories! Landlords: we’d like to hear your side of things too.