The flat below...

Well, it’s certainly been an interesting weekend! We learnt just yesterday that our neighbour who lives in the flat below us is considering moving. This leaves Roz and me with several burning issues.

The building which we own used to be 2 flats, however, the part that we own, i.e. the second floor, has a loft conversion, effectively making it a maisonette. The flat below us is owned by someone else, but it has always been a dream of ours to eventually purchase this so that we could own the entire building.

If we did own the entire building this would allow us several opportunities:

We could convert the whole of the building to a single dwelling
We could let out the bottom flat for additional income
We could eventually keep the bottom flat to be used either by Elliot when he is older or either of our parents should they need it when they are older

The problem is, quite simply, money. At present I’m on a reasonable salary, and Roz is a full time Mum, so at present we are getting by okay, but are certainly not flush with money. However, we would not be able to afford a second mortgage on our current income and I’m a little doubtful that any of the banks would lend us the additional money. The only possible option would be to buy the flat with the intension of letting it for a few years until Roz returns to work and my salary increases. Alternatively, it may be that Roz may have to return to work earlier than we had anticipated, but if that was the case, childminding would then become a further issue.

So as you can imagine there have by a number of thoughts swimming through our heads yesterday, with no solid conclusions. We hope to arrange to speak to a few mortgage advisors shortly, which hopefully should be able to give us an idea of whether it is viable to purchase to flat. There is also the very likely possibility that our neighbour may decide not to move.

In a sense it would be a shame if our neighbour moves, we have always got on with her very well and her moving would result in either: A) Additional financial concerns if we managed to buy her flat or B) The possibility of a new neighbour who could potentially be less considerate and therefore lessen the enjoyment of our home. Then again, I guess there’s no way to stop life from moving on, after all life is all about change.

All of these additional concerns and considerations really put other things in shadow, but then again, I can’t really ignore everything else…

Games I’m playing:
Harvest Moon
Well a lot has happened. Bessy my original cow stopped her supply of milk and as such I have had to arrange for her to get pregnant. My second cow Alice is still too young to produce milk, so my farm has been hit by financial strain.

I reached the end of the first year and have finally got married to Muffy. The game is now set 3 years later and I now have a son (unsurprisingly called Elliot). Unfortunately this means that I now have to support a family as well as myself and the farm. Whoever would have thought that farming would be such hard work :)