At the end of last year a survey was conducted about the most stressful life events you can go through. As you’d expect, the list was topped with things such as losing a loved one, financial struggles, failing relationships, taking exams and battling work issues. However, after those came ‘buying a house’. Anyone who has been through the process will know it comes with more than its fair share of stresses, pain points and worrying. From securing a mortgage and gazumping to chains collapsing and surveys revealing problems – the level of stresses can vary, but for most people, there’s moments of ..read more

For every person that is fastidious about their storage unit, visiting frequently and keeping on top of what’s inside, there will be others that haven’t visited their unit in quite some time. Sometimes people inherit a unit from a family member who has passed away. Or maybe it was used as a dumping ground when moving house or having building work done – and it has been left ever since, with everyone enjoying the clutter free extra space at home. Some people even buy abandoned storage units in the hope of finding some treasure inside! Whatever the reason – sorting out a storage unit can seem li ..read more

Whether you’re looking to sell or stay, a property is likely to be your most valuable asset. So, it definitely pays to take care of it and help it grow in value. And at a time when people are discussing a possible reduction in property values, due to the cost of living crisis, adding value has never been more important. So, what can you do to add value to your home? It’s a never ending quest to find more space in most houses. No matter what the size of your property it rarely seems to be quite enough. With young people staying at home longer to save deposits for their own home, parents who tho ..read more

Of course, cool is in the eye of the beholder. What one person finds cool, another may not. And that’s a good thing. But there are those universally cool things which the vast majority of us can all agree we like. David Attenborough. Chocolate. Yorkshire Tea. Bright blue seas lapping sparkling sands. Those kinds of things! So a story caught our eye which looked at the coolest places in the UK to live. There’s the Northern Quarter in Manchester, Southside in Edinburgh, Walthamstow in London. And at number 10 there’s also Chapel Allerton in Leeds! The article points out that Leeds has plenty of ..read more

You may be planning on spending Boxing Day in a food-induced stupor, having overindulged in the turkey and Quality Street. But it’s certainly not the case that everyone is. Did you know Boxing Day is one of the biggest days of the year for property searches? Perhaps it’s seeing how jam-packed the house is with stuff post-present opening and with visiting family. Perhaps it’s the thought of a new year and what people want to achieve. Maybe it’s having the chance to sit down and relax after a busy run up to the festive period. Whatever the reason, last year there were 51 million visits to Rightm ..read more

There’s lots of talk at the moment about house prices and whether they’re going to fall, whether the market will slow down, what interest rates might do and general predictions about a housing market no one is quite sure about. But regardless of what lies ahead, people will always want to move home. Some will need more space, some will be taking their first steps on to the property ladder and for others it might be time to downsize. Whatever your reason for selling a property, and whatever is happening in the wider market, you want to ensure you get the best possible price by presenting your c ..read more

There is something very appealing about buying a new build home. Owning a place where no one has lived before, where everything is pristine and new, where no DIY should be needed for a while certainly would sound great to many of us.   There are lots of other benefits to new homes too. There’s the opportunity to utilise Help to Buy or shared ownership schemes. There’s usually a 10-year build warranty. There’s the fact they have to be built to eco specifications which should mean they’re cheaper to heat. You can often choose many of your own fixtures and fittings and things like kitchens a ..read more

Moving house is taking longer than ever. Reports now say it takes on average 133 days from purchase to completion to buy a house – and 157 days to sell one. That’s up 60 per cent on ten years ago and the longest wait times on record. Much as Covid did admittedly add its delays, things still don’t seem to be anywhere near back to ‘normal’. Local authority searches are taking an age, solicitors are facing a huge backlog – it doesn’t seem like it will get better any time soon. Once you’ve put an offer in, you just want to get moving – it’s human nature. Plus, you might need to get things going at ..read more

‘A tidy desk is a tidy mind’ was a phrase that was often bandied about at school. So, what does a tip of an office say about you?! We hate to think… It’s easy for clutter in a workspace to become overwhelming. Even now many people are working remotely at least some of the time, our desks and workplaces have a tendency to attract ‘stuff’. Whether it’s stuff we daren’t get rid of ‘just in case’, other people’s stuff which ends up on our desk or stuff which is piled up because there’s nowhere else for it to go – it’s easy to acquire, and harder to get rid of! The fact we’re often not in the offic ..read more

Until 2020 – or possibly even 2021 – I don’t think many people ever really used the term ‘hybrid workforce’. Now it’s something we hear in everyday language. We can add it to the list of Covid-prompted terms to make it into our general dictionary! (hello furlough and lateral flow tests). Covid really has changed our ways of working for good. Despite what Boris Johnson, Elon Musk and Lord Sugar say, many companies have found remote or hybrid working has been a major benefit to come from the pandemic. Less demand for office space, lower rents, less time lost to commuting, better productivity and ..read more