To understand this brief post, you will need to read my previous post on this blog and the first comment that has been made. I have decided to write a new post, rather than just a comment, as it raises some issues I face from time to time and I'd like to deal with them once and for all.
This is my answer to the comment:
One problem with my latest critic is that she has drawn a conclusion (that I am rubbish in business and make 'odd' decisions) without knowing all the facts, so I shall now outline the points I feel are relevant.
When we were buying our 'house from hell', several years ago, house prices were increasing rapidly each month; this is why the seller started to regret having agreed to such a cheap price of £50,000 for a large 4-bedroom house. Also, at the time, the area where the house was located was not particularly 'rough' and we didn't have a crystal ball to show us that it would go downhill in the future.
By the time we completed on the house it was probably worth about £55,000 (and we paid £53,000). A year later it was worth about £75,000 and a few years after that was valued by a mortgage company at £115,000. If we had offered an extra £500 to seal the deal the seller would have laughed in our faces. I reckon the £3,000 was about the minimum extra to clinch the deal; maybe I was wrong - maybe I could have offered £2,000? No-one will ever know. But that's all small fry in terms of what we gained by the increase in value of the house.
The other issue I would like to draw attention to is the tendency these days for some people to assume that when you are buyer you are king; that you can beat a seller down, insult them with 'cheeky offers' and so on and they'll roll over and agree to anything. My experience tells me that this is not the case. In the rising market in which we bought most of our houses, we often paid the asking price or just a couple of thousand shy of it (and sometimes were in direct competition with others also looking to buy the same properties). We did very well out of this.
What's more, the commentator has also missed the point of what I try to achieve with my writing. I put some of the bare figures in for those who are interested, but mine is primarily a holistic account and much more concerned with the psychological implications of being a landlord.
This all, of course, leads me to question the motives of people who comment on my blog in a way in which they try to put me down, whilst puffing themselves up. What's behind it? Do they need reassurance that they're successful, that they're better than other people? Is that what's behind it? I'd be interested in alternative theories people might have. It's an important question as there is so much posturing going on on the internet, in addition to the insults and the bullying.