Blue Ridge Mountain is about 90 minutes north of Atlanta. Blue Ridge Mountain was actually voted number two by Smart Money Magazine as one of the top five places in the U.S. to buy a vacation home! I always wondered what the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia were like when I heard the song as a child. I have recently been checking out the area and at really appeals to me with the abundance of wildlife, flowers and trees. The views look spectacular and the area boasts some fantastic mountain cabins where you can get away from city life and enjoy the natural beauty of North Georgia. This is a very good area to think about investing in a property of your own. It has the rustic feel, but the properties are just gorgeous!

I am about to complete the purchase of another Buy to Let property and I received some good advice yesterday on how to manage the financial side of this and any other properties that I buy in the future. To keep the administration to a minimum, make sure that the rent is due three days before the mortgage payment is made. Use specially designed budgeting software and spreadsheets to account for all outgoings on the property, such as buildings insurance, safety checks and agents’ fees. And of course, the most interesting part is calculating future capital growth on your investments …..

I thought I knew a fair bit about mortgages but recently I almost ended up with a totally unsuitable loan that could have cost me a lot in fees and early repayment charges. After taking on mortgages for thirty years I really should have known better but we can all still take good advice. I wanted to release equity from my main property to enable me to invest elsewhere but at the time, which was the end of last year, I really wanted to sell it and take the money that way. Anyway I was persuaded that a remortgage was the best way to go. As self employed person I have a limited choice of lenders and I ended up dealing with a mortgage broker who was charging 1% of the advance for his work, and he found a loan that required an arrangement fee of £750. The real worry for me was that the deal was for a fixed rate - good in fluctuating rates - but if I needed to sell early I would have to pay a penalty of £7500. I really started to get a bad feeling about this and I pulled out: the house is now for sale!

As part of my re-education process I had a look at a website called rebuild.org, where there were three interesting stories about home equity loans, and how to get the best from them. It is best to know this first and avoid the mistakes that I made. Even though I did not proceed I did pay out a pointless valuation fee for the mortgage application.

At the moment the property market in the UK is still incredibly strong.  It has been said that you would have to work harder not to sell your house than to take an offer!  So at a time like this what exactly do estate agents add to the process?  They rarely advise sellers on presentation, mainly they just act as a message service.  So this is a good time to consider selling your or flat house privately online.  try the service from  Houseladder, where you advertise your house without an estate agent and save £000s. We sold our house there in less than 48 hours.  Houseladder - Sell or Let your home online. Save £000s. Create FREE Ad Now!

It is now five weeks since we completed the sale of our house in London, and the purchaser was a first time buyer who had no property to sell. The negotiations went very smoothly and we sold our house privately online through Houseladder, a website that allows you to advertise your house without an estate agent and save £000s. We posted the advertisement online on Thursday, and on Sunday a buyer came round to view and made an immediate offer. Houseladder - Sell or Let your home online. Save £000s. Create FREE Ad Now!

With the completion of the house move it is a chance to reflect on which companies made life easier - and which did not. Not only did we need to organise all the normal house utilities like meter reading, we also ordered new furniture and services for the new house. Here is the roll of honour - or dishonour.

Furniture -

1. Sofas from a company called CH enterprise. They held on to the items for us and delivered them the day after we moved in - very friendly, and the driver called us one hour before arriving with the goods.

2. table and chairs from The Furnishing Store. I bought via their eBay site, as I did with the sofas. These guys incurred the wrath of eBay when a difficult customer started a number of disputes against them. This caused me some worry when I tried to contact them for delivery and found the eBay shop was inactive. But I got through to the MD by phone and they also delivered the day after the move.

3. Coffee Table and TV stand from Pine and Oak Express. They also held the items for us until after the move, but their order did not arrive. I rang the next day and they found that the courier company has mislaid them. No problem for us: they sent two more out the same day using a different courier. 10/10.

After moving house there is a chance for any business person to reflect on the performance of all the companies involved. We decided to leave some furniture behind by agreement with the buyer and this was a chance to get the right furnishings to suit the new home. Some of them, like a new bed, were needed in the days before the move, since we knew we would not complete the purchase until the afternoon. That way they could be loaded on to the van in their original packing.
Bed frame - Bensons for Beds. Because nobody normally knows their completion date until a week in advance I had to defer delivery twice. No problem at all, and they sent a text message the night before to remind us about the delivery. Then the driver rang half an hour before arriving. He took the bed upstairs without complaint.

Mattress - a foam memory mattress that is conveniently rolled up for delivery. We ordered this on eBay four days before the move and it was sent the same day. One bad mark, though - my 76 year old Mum took delivery and the driver simply dumped the mattress in the middle of the hallway. She could not move it and had to wait for help.

I can recommend any house buyers or sellers in the UK to use this online house sales website where you can advertise your house without an estate agent and save 000s. We were sceptical when we posted our free ad. last Thursday - we had sacked our estate agent when he screwed up a deal with the sole viewer that he introduced to us, and we wnet on,ine for alternatives. After tapping our details in, I was prepared to appoint another estate agent on Monday. Sunday morning we got a viewing from our Free Houseladder ad, and she made us an offer on the spot!! Houseladder - Sell or Let your home online. Save £1000s. Create FREE Ad Now!