I am a home owner! It is official.

Well, trying not to get too excited as I know these things can fall through at any time but what the hell, got to celebrate and I’m allowed to be excited!

I went to see a place last week (2-bed flat) and although it was not what I thought I would go for (a purpose built) there was just something about it that I really liked and I feel that I have got myself a bargain.

But as I have always said, it’s not about the money, it’s about finding somewhere to put my mark on and have my own place – though it is, of course, comforting that it could be a good investment.

It is in a great location and in a very well kept building and I was really pleased that I went to see it again at a different time.

Being there at 6.30pm gave me a chance to see the sort of people coming and going and there were a few professionals about my age which was positive and made me even more keen on it.

Knowing that there are people my age living there is good in terms of resale. And it’s got a balcony – outside space – bliss! And a brand new bathroom!

I put the offer in four days ago and have only just heard so have been sweating out the waiting game all weekend. I called them this morning and they said that they hadn’t been able to get hold of the vendor at all.

After my last experience I was thinking that no news was definitely bad news but I was wrong.

I still can’t believe it! I am in shock and have no idea what I need to do next. I keep thinking about colour schemes and a new kitchen but I really need to focus on speaking to the bank, the solicitor and doing some sums.

The BBC is going to be most upset that they missed that call – the shock on my face and then a teary eye would have made good telly!

I am off to calm down and think seriously about what I need to do to make this happen.

Well, it’s been a week since our moving out/moving in adventures, and my, what a bundle of fun it’s been.

We’ve had tears, we’ve had a tantrum – more about that later – and we’ve even had tentative excitement about the new house: we think we’re going to like living there! 

A week in, and it’s beginning to feel less like we’ve opened up a franchise of Big Yellow Storage and more like a place fit for habitation.

That said, an entire half of our living room is still choc-a-bloc with unpacked boxes, and the bedrooms and kitchen are only about a quarter done. Our bathroom is smashing, though. 

But there’s one problem that’s even bigger than the fact that my recent life has been dominated by boxes.  I can’t get my front door key to work.

I discovered this on my inaugural attempt last Saturday, when I’d headed ‘home’ after my weeping final exit from our old house. 

Adding insult to injury in a big fat dollop, I had my wedding dress in tow. No way had I been letting that go in the removal van the day before.  

At first, I was quite tickled by the irony of this: had I not been so prissy, my most precious sartorial possession would have been safely hanging in the wardrobe rather than folded up in a bag on the doorstep beside me.

That amusement was pretty short-lived, though.  After about 30 minutes of being stranded outside, my internal mood barometer was firmly pointing towards ‘rage’ – hence the aforementioned tantrum.

Eventually, my husband had to come to my rescue – a mission he accomplished simply by inserting his key into the lock whence the door glided open like a dream.

I’ve had just the one successful attempt since; every other night it’s taken me at least ten minutes of huffing and puffing and contorting myself into odd angles against the doorframe before I’ve been able to get inside.

I’m actually feeling a bit paranoid about it: I don’t think the house likes me.

Anyone see Grand Designs last night? We’ve written about Earthships – homes made from tyres filled with rammed earth – several times in the past so it was interesting to see the process in action.

The couple involved said they wouldn’t get planning permission for this in Britain, but there is a development of Earthships planned in Brighton. Has it been scrapped, we wonder?

The Daddy of all Earthship developments is in Taos, New Mexico where Mike Reynolds, the wild eyed, long haired visionary who invented the off-grid tyre house, still lives.

British director Oliver Hodge recently made a brilliant documentary – Garbage Warrior - about Reynolds, an intense and driven character who rages apocalyptically in the desert like some denim-clad refugee from Woodstock.

Reynolds fought an epic battle with the local planners to build his eco-outpost, had his architecture licence taken away, and finally gained acceptance when he built homes for tsunami victims on the Andaman Islands.

He’s a contradictory, inspiring, and at times heroic figure, but he’s definitely not given to eco orthodoxies:

“If humanity takes the planet down the tubes … I’m dead! I’m just trying to save my own ass. And that’s a powerful force!”

Not quite on message with Friends of the Earth there, Mike …

Tearing down the highway on his motorbike, raging against government interference, building with old car parts  … this is an eco warrior you can actually imagine Jeremy Clarkson getting along with – and there aren’t too many of those in the world!

We’re all abuzz here at FindaProperty.com thanks to the launch of our new FindaProperty.com: Rental Index.

It’s the first comprehensive measure of rental asking prices available and has been prepared using a methodology devised by top housing market statisticians Calnea Analytics – they produce the official Land Registry index, so this, we’re happy to say, is a report you can really trust.

The graph powerfully demonstrates the relationship between supply and rents – as the first rises and rises, the second heads south.

Over the past six months the number of rental properties advertised on FindaProperty.com has almost doubled (up 43% between September 2008 and February 2009). Over the past month stock levels have risen by 8%. Rents, as a consequence, have fallen.

Check out the full FindaProperty.com: Rental Index in all its technicolour glory.

What’s happening to rents in your area? We’d love to hear from you.

Via our FindaProperty Twitter page I heard about an interesting url: http://www.kirstieslostring.co.uk/

Our resident SEO guru assumed it was a link to a dodgy porn site. He would.

Us naïve, simple, enlightened individuals know better. It’s a link through to a page broadcasting the fact that Kirstie Allsop has lost her engagement ring somewhere in Hackney.

The chances of finding it are probably as slim as Cheryl Cole, but we do like Kirstie here at Winging It. She’s like the posh older sister we never had, so we’re happy to help the search.

Once again, the url: http://www.kirstieslostring.co.uk/ – there’s even a reward!

We’ve been happily Twittering of late so it’s good to see us listed in The Times’ Top 20 British property profiles on Twitter.

Twitter ye not?  Well you really should check it out – it’s surprisingly addictive. We’re here – get in touch!

FindaProperty Twitter

At last, our reluctant moving saga is almost at an end, and I’m happy to report that great progress has been made in the past week, despite a bit of a false start.

Last weekend, we decided to postpone Valentine’s Day even though it was our first one as a married couple. (Should I be concerned…??!)

Instead, we’d invited some friends round ‘for a final Saturday night chez nous’ but with the ulterior motive of presenting them with a great big wad of newspapers and a pile of kitchenware to wrap up.

In retrospect, we should have started off the production line before we brought out the booze; in the end, not a jot of work was done but at least a jolly good time was had by all.

Somewhat inevitably, the ensuing hangover also rendered any packing activity on Sunday utterly impossible.

But panic, it seems, is a wonderful motivator, and we have been nothing short of magnificent in our efforts over the past few evenings.

True, we’d left ourselves with zero choice but to spend hours every night engaged in frenzied bouts of boxing-up – but adopting such a last minute approach has kept my emotions at bay which, believe me, is absolutely miraculous.

We’re also leaving our actual farewells until the very final moment: although we’re moving in to the new place tonight, we don’t have to hand in our old keys till tomorrow, so we’re going back then for a last – nooo, I can’t bear it!! – wander around.

Which means – for one night and one night only – we can claim to be part of the two-homes clique.  Just a pity we don’t own either of them…

This week’s linear action comes from our in-house statisticians who tell us that FindaProperty.com’s traffic has increased by 63.9 per cent since December 08 and currently stands at a whopping 2.8 million unique visitors.

Sales channel traffic is close to 2 million unique visitors and rental channel traffic stands at over 1.1 million unique visitors (some people visit both).

However, this monthly stat needs to be kept in context – scrupulous chaps that they are, our boffins point out that it’s partly due to December being a typically quiet month and January being a typically busy month.

That said, year-on-year visitor numbers are up by 11.9 per cent, which given current market conditions ain’t half bad.

We’ve been asking our users what makes a home … which made me think of this: Crosby Stills & Nash’s blissed out hymn to home life with the one you lurv.

Apparently Graham Nash wrote it while living with Joni Mitchell in Laurel Canyon way back in 1970 …  and you don’t get any more loved up and laid back than that.

Very sweet it is too, with a simple catchy chorus that, if this clip is anything to go by, seems to inspire collective crooning … so altogether now – sing along with the happy flower children!  …

“Our house, is a very, very, very fine house, with two cats in the yard…”

Send us your top home-related song suggestions/Youtube videos and we’ll post them here.

We’d love to know what home means to you, so please visit the main site’s What makes a home? page and post your views.

And soooo, the end is near, it’s time to faaaace, the final cuuurtain.

Oh god, that reminds me, I need to wash the curtains. Yet another thing to add to the ever-increasing list of Stuff To Be Done before we move out of our house in a week’s time.

Number one, of course, should really be packing.  But, CDs aside, we haven’t even begun to bung things into boxes.

This is not like me.  Normally by now, I’d be halfway through the process, tedious though it always is.

My aforementioned list would be shrinking not growing, covered in smug ticks of achievement.

And I’d probably have some colour co-ordinated labelling system in place to make the whole thing slightly less painful at the other end.

Alas, not this time. So I’m presuming that my utter lack of motivation is down to still being in denial over the impending move.

Sadly though, the reality is that time’s running out fast, especially as we have three storeys’ worth of possessions to pack up.

Plus the carpets need to be cleaned. The fridge defrosted. The oven scrubbed. And those goddamned curtains have to be washed.

Aaaaagh!  Does anyone know the ins and outs of Squatters’ Rights??