Gardening is the hottest self-care trend, but it has turned me into a killer | Arwa Mahdawi

Jeremy Corbyn has offered gardening tips to the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. For the sake of US politics, I hope her fingers are greener than mine

Jeremy Corbyn has been talking dirty to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter. Over the weekend, the congresswoman announced that she was getting involved in a community garden and asked her followers for some “sage words of advice”. Corbyn was happy to oblige, imparting tips on using lavender or comfrey to attract bees. “Best way to be healthy is to get your hands dirty – in the soil!” Corybn enthused. It was a wonderfully wholesome exchange.

To some extent, it was inevitable that 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez would take up horticulture. Gardening is all the rage among urban millennials; though due to the constraints of city-living it normally involves tending to houseplants rather than plots of land. According to a 2018 survey from Garden Research, a company that, well, researches gardens, “younger households reached an all-time high in gardening participation” and 18- to 34-year-olds account for almost a third of houseplant sales in the US. It’s a similar story in the UK – a 2018 report from Wyevale garden centres found that millennials are 88% more likely to keep plants in their bedrooms than those aged 65 and over.

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from Home And Garden | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Z0bbfW
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Gere Kavanaugh book: Exploring the boundaries of beauty

A new book looks at the life, work and career of the great Tennessee-born interior designer

• A Colorful Life: Gere Kavanaugh, Designer, by Louise Sandhaus and Kat Catmur (Princeton Architectural Press, £28.99)

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from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2IkEd3X
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Top 10 must-haves on buyers’ wish lists revealed

It turns out we're a nation of car lovers who crave extra space.

from Property blog http://bit.ly/2WXCDsN
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Has My House Price Gone UP?

A lovely couple contacted me recently for advice.  Let’s call them Paul and Claire. They were thinking of selling their cottage in Norfolk, and had just invited the pre-requisite three estate agents round to value their house.

Agent one had valued it at £300,000, which was about the price they had themselves been thinking.  So far, so good.

Agent two turned up, and asked them who which other agents had been round.  Wanting to be honest, they told him.  He then valued their cottage at £325,000, which they were quite pleased about.  If they could get that little bit extra for their house, they could afford something nicer than they had been looking at. Things were getting better.

Agent three turned up, and again asked which other agents had been round, and again, in the spirit of transparency, they told her. She promptly gave them a valuation that nearly made them fall off their chairs: £350,000.  Surely it wasn’t worth that much??

That evening, Paul and Claire popped into see a neighbour, who was also planning on selling her house. When they told her the story, she was delighted.  Her house was a little bigger, and had a better plot. “I’ll put mine on for £375,000 then”, she remarked, excitedly.

The next morning, Paul and Claire called me.

They were confused by the valuations, and concerned that their cottage simply wasn’t worth that amount.  Reluctant to put it on the market at a price that would cause it to stick, but also fearful of giving it away when they could have got more for it, they were utterly bewildered at what to do next.

I explained to them what was going on: simply put, estate agents are running out of properties to sell.  This lack of ‘stock’ is causing a huge challenge for the industry.  Back in 2007, agents had too many properties, and they just weren’t selling.  Now, they don’t have enough to satisfy demand from buyers.  Is this supply/demand imbalance causing asking prices to rise? Yes, of course.  But estate agents are playing a significant part in this outcome too.

Whilst agents are competing so fiercely for new properties to sell, they are being compelled into ‘buying boards’; in other words, over-valuing properties just to get the client to sign with them.  Now it’s not as disingenuous as it may sound; after all, prices are indeed going up in many parts of the country (not so much in Norfolk perhaps), and buyers, faced with so little choice of properties, will often pay more than they want to in order to secure their next home.  With plenty of sellers willing to chance their arm and put their home on the market for an inflated figure, seduced by agents’ valuations and the tabloid headlines, we are actually all playing a part in this current state of play, with property prices going up, it would seem, daily.

Back to Paul and Claire.

We had a long discussion about the true ‘value’ of their cottage. Not a ‘test the market’ price, but also not a giveaway price either.  What we were aiming to do, was to find the price that the property would sell at in the timeline they wanted.

We looked at precedent: what had sold in the last six months in their area. We also trawled through properties currently on the market, spotting local trends and noting anything that was sticking.   After this exercise, Paul and Claire reluctantly concluded that the original valuation of £300,000 was in fact fair and reasonable.  They understandably felt disappointed, having in effect ‘lost’ £50,000, but more confident that their cottage would actually sell, and not stick on the market.

So did they sell?

They certainly did.  For the asking price too. They chose the first agent, had around half a dozen viewings, and accepted an asking price offer inside three weeks.  Could they have got more for their house? Perhaps. But perhaps not. Every week, I talk to sellers who have been trying to sell for months, and even years.  Paul and Claire weren’t prepared to risk that.  They just wanted to be able to afford to move into something bigger, and they achieved that.

Perhaps our obsession with the value of our houses will never go away.  But with the amount of data that is now available to us, sellers have a responsibility to make sure that the price we ask is reasonable, and fair. Yes, putting a house on the market at an over-inflated price can occasionally produce a windfall for the seller, but at what cost?  Their neighbours will then believe their house is worth more, buyers will then be compelled to ask more for theirs, and so the huge price hikes go on.

Of course, this is the way the free market economy works.  The laws of supply and demand create a roller coaster of prices that since the 1970s, has shaped the property market in the UK.  But remember, we have a choice.  We can choose to accept what we believe is an over-optimistic valuation by an over-eager agent, or we can sit back and consider, “is my house really worth this?”

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

What to read next  Are You Ready to Move On? 

What to do next: Sign up to my Selling Secrets http://www.home-truths.co.uk/selling-secret

The post Has My House Price Gone UP? appeared first on Home Truths.

from Home Truths http://bit.ly/2YZxPFa
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Has My House Price Gone UP?

A lovely couple contacted me recently for advice.  Let’s call them Paul and Claire. They were thinking of selling their cottage in Norfolk, and had just invited the pre-requisite three estate agents round to value their house.

Agent one had valued it at £300,000, which was about the price they had themselves been thinking.  So far, so good.

Agent two turned up, and asked them who which other agents had been round.  Wanting to be honest, they told him.  He then valued their cottage at £325,000, which they were quite pleased about.  If they could get that little bit extra for their house, they could afford something nicer than they had been looking at. Things were getting better.

Agent three turned up, and again asked which other agents had been round, and again, in the spirit of transparency, they told her. She promptly gave them a valuation that nearly made them fall off their chairs: £350,000.  Surely it wasn’t worth that much??

That evening, Paul and Claire popped into see a neighbour, who was also planning on selling her house. When they told her the story, she was delighted.  Her house was a little bigger, and had a better plot. “I’ll put mine on for £375,000 then”, she remarked, excitedly.

The next morning, Paul and Claire called me.

They were confused by the valuations, and concerned that their cottage simply wasn’t worth that amount.  Reluctant to put it on the market at a price that would cause it to stick, but also fearful of giving it away when they could have got more for it, they were utterly bewildered at what to do next.

I explained to them what was going on: simply put, estate agents are running out of properties to sell.  This lack of ‘stock’ is causing a huge challenge for the industry.  Back in 2007, agents had too many properties, and they just weren’t selling.  Now, they don’t have enough to satisfy demand from buyers.  Is this supply/demand imbalance causing asking prices to rise? Yes, of course.  But estate agents are playing a significant part in this outcome too.

Whilst agents are competing so fiercely for new properties to sell, they are being compelled into ‘buying boards’; in other words, over-valuing properties just to get the client to sign with them.  Now it’s not as disingenuous as it may sound; after all, prices are indeed going up in many parts of the country (not so much in Norfolk perhaps), and buyers, faced with so little choice of properties, will often pay more than they want to in order to secure their next home.  With plenty of sellers willing to chance their arm and put their home on the market for an inflated figure, seduced by agents’ valuations and the tabloid headlines, we are actually all playing a part in this current state of play, with property prices going up, it would seem, daily.

Back to Paul and Claire.

We had a long discussion about the true ‘value’ of their cottage. Not a ‘test the market’ price, but also not a giveaway price either.  What we were aiming to do, was to find the price that the property would sell at in the timeline they wanted.

We looked at precedent: what had sold in the last six months in their area. We also trawled through properties currently on the market, spotting local trends and noting anything that was sticking.   After this exercise, Paul and Claire reluctantly concluded that the original valuation of £300,000 was in fact fair and reasonable.  They understandably felt disappointed, having in effect ‘lost’ £50,000, but more confident that their cottage would actually sell, and not stick on the market.

So did they sell?

They certainly did.  For the asking price too. They chose the first agent, had around half a dozen viewings, and accepted an asking price offer inside three weeks.  Could they have got more for their house? Perhaps. But perhaps not. Every week, I talk to sellers who have been trying to sell for months, and even years.  Paul and Claire weren’t prepared to risk that.  They just wanted to be able to afford to move into something bigger, and they achieved that.

Perhaps our obsession with the value of our houses will never go away.  But with the amount of data that is now available to us, sellers have a responsibility to make sure that the price we ask is reasonable, and fair. Yes, putting a house on the market at an over-inflated price can occasionally produce a windfall for the seller, but at what cost?  Their neighbours will then believe their house is worth more, buyers will then be compelled to ask more for theirs, and so the huge price hikes go on.

Of course, this is the way the free market economy works.  The laws of supply and demand create a roller coaster of prices that since the 1970s, has shaped the property market in the UK.  But remember, we have a choice.  We can choose to accept what we believe is an over-optimistic valuation by an over-eager agent, or we can sit back and consider, “is my house really worth this?”

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

What to read next  Are You Ready to Move On? 

What to do next: Sign up to my Selling Secrets http://www.home-truths.co.uk/selling-secret

The post Has My House Price Gone UP? appeared first on Home Truths.

from Home Truths http://bit.ly/2KlmNa2
via IFTTT

Has My House Price Gone UP?

A lovely couple contacted me recently for advice.  Let’s call them Paul and Claire. They were thinking of selling their cottage in Norfolk, and had just invited the pre-requisite three estate agents round to value their house.

Agent one had valued it at £300,000, which was about the price they had themselves been thinking.  So far, so good.

Agent two turned up, and asked them who which other agents had been round.  Wanting to be honest, they told him.  He then valued their cottage at £325,000, which they were quite pleased about.  If they could get that little bit extra for their house, they could afford something nicer than they had been looking at. Things were getting better.

Agent three turned up, and again asked which other agents had been round, and again, in the spirit of transparency, they told her. She promptly gave them a valuation that nearly made them fall off their chairs: £350,000.  Surely it wasn’t worth that much??

That evening, Paul and Claire popped into see a neighbour, who was also planning on selling her house. When they told her the story, she was delighted.  Her house was a little bigger, and had a better plot. “I’ll put mine on for £375,000 then”, she remarked, excitedly.

The next morning, Paul and Claire called me.

They were confused by the valuations, and concerned that their cottage simply wasn’t worth that amount.  Reluctant to put it on the market at a price that would cause it to stick, but also fearful of giving it away when they could have got more for it, they were utterly bewildered at what to do next.

I explained to them what was going on: simply put, estate agents are running out of properties to sell.  This lack of ‘stock’ is causing a huge challenge for the industry.  Back in 2007, agents had too many properties, and they just weren’t selling.  Now, they don’t have enough to satisfy demand from buyers.  Is this supply/demand imbalance causing asking prices to rise? Yes, of course.  But estate agents are playing a significant part in this outcome too.

Whilst agents are competing so fiercely for new properties to sell, they are being compelled into ‘buying boards’; in other words, over-valuing properties just to get the client to sign with them.  Now it’s not as disingenuous as it may sound; after all, prices are indeed going up in many parts of the country (not so much in Norfolk perhaps), and buyers, faced with so little choice of properties, will often pay more than they want to in order to secure their next home.  With plenty of sellers willing to chance their arm and put their home on the market for an inflated figure, seduced by agents’ valuations and the tabloid headlines, we are actually all playing a part in this current state of play, with property prices going up, it would seem, daily.

Back to Paul and Claire.

We had a long discussion about the true ‘value’ of their cottage. Not a ‘test the market’ price, but also not a giveaway price either.  What we were aiming to do, was to find the price that the property would sell at in the timeline they wanted.

We looked at precedent: what had sold in the last six months in their area. We also trawled through properties currently on the market, spotting local trends and noting anything that was sticking.   After this exercise, Paul and Claire reluctantly concluded that the original valuation of £300,000 was in fact fair and reasonable.  They understandably felt disappointed, having in effect ‘lost’ £50,000, but more confident that their cottage would actually sell, and not stick on the market.

So did they sell?

They certainly did.  For the asking price too. They chose the first agent, had around half a dozen viewings, and accepted an asking price offer inside three weeks.  Could they have got more for their house? Perhaps. But perhaps not. Every week, I talk to sellers who have been trying to sell for months, and even years.  Paul and Claire weren’t prepared to risk that.  They just wanted to be able to afford to move into something bigger, and they achieved that.

Perhaps our obsession with the value of our houses will never go away.  But with the amount of data that is now available to us, sellers have a responsibility to make sure that the price we ask is reasonable, and fair. Yes, putting a house on the market at an over-inflated price can occasionally produce a windfall for the seller, but at what cost?  Their neighbours will then believe their house is worth more, buyers will then be compelled to ask more for theirs, and so the huge price hikes go on.

Of course, this is the way the free market economy works.  The laws of supply and demand create a roller coaster of prices that since the 1970s, has shaped the property market in the UK.  But remember, we have a choice.  We can choose to accept what we believe is an over-optimistic valuation by an over-eager agent, or we can sit back and consider, “is my house really worth this?”

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.

What to read next  Are You Ready to Move On? 

What to do next: Sign up to my Selling Secrets http://www.home-truths.co.uk/selling-secret

The post Has My House Price Gone UP? appeared first on Home Truths.

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Seasons of the witch: as women we nurture the riches of earth, food and health

The correlation of the feminine to nature, repressive for so long, can be a source of power

In the past few months I have started putting down roots. It’s a cliche but it’s literally what I’m doing. I spend my weekends transforming the tired old lawn into garden beds, layering woodchips, straw and horse shit I’ve shovelled from the paddocks next door into rich soil to grow my lettuces and kale. I have always loved gardening but now, more than ever, working with the earth has taken on an element of the spiritual.

As a teenager, like many suburban white girls, I got way into Wicca, that gentle, nature-centred neo-pagan religion beloved by would-be witches everywhere. Much later, in my early 20s, I revisited witchcraft, finding an unstructured feminine spirituality that helped me make sense of the world.

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from Home And Garden | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2P1kyar
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