So this is it, crunch time. I learned yesterday that my landlord wants to sell his flat/my home and yours truly has been served with two months notice! So what to do?
Find something else to rent? Head back to Preston where the people are friendlier and the beer is better? Get a mortgage? Hang on. Did I just say get a mortgage?
Is that not something your parents do. Does that not involve: solicitors, estate agents, surveyors and an endless procession of people just looking for a gullible first time buyer to rip off. Responsibility, commitment, unfathomable amounts of money and time and a bank who pretty much own everything really come to mind. Bank shareholders getting rich from my interest repayments. Oh no thank you sir. But does that not happen anyway whether I am paying my own mortgage or one which belongs to someone else?
Sure it’s the dream of many, but honestly the notion of really owning property has never really appealed to me. As that bloke in Crocodile Dundee said, it is like two flees arguing over the dog they live on. You cannot take it with you when you die. So unless you want to have something for your kids to inherit, what is the point?
Well I guess the point is to accrue some equity. Although I have never been terribly good at that either. I am not very proficient at this Capitalism lark. I mean what about all those varieties of food in the supermarket? Just give me something that I can taste and is vaguely nutritious; Friends with whom I can laugh; A roof over my head and so on.
Having said that I spoke to an independent adviser today and he seemed to think that my getting a mortgage was not completely out of the question. So watch this space!