Auctiontimez (by Lotte)

So, a couple of us are off to the house auction where Mould Mansion will probably be sold, in about half an hour. In the highly unlikely event that it doesn't sell, I will post in about 2 hours with many CAPS and excited exclamation marks, because that's the only situation in which we have a tiny chance of getting the place.

However, if I reset the blog layout to have lots of black and crows and skeletons on it, the house sold for far too much money and I'm highly depressed and listening to Cradle of Filth. My hair and fingernails are probably also black.

NB: We're all coming to terms with the fact that Mould Mansion isn't right for us, so neither of these things happen, it's because the house sold to some other bugger and I'm too lazy to whine about it on the internets.

House Viewing: Rebound House and Liberties Lodge

Two quick updates about house viewings we have had in the last few days. I'm afraid there are no pictures as both houses are occupied, and although this means you often get to nose about in other people's book collections, it also means you can't take photos and post them on the tubes. Sad times.

Anyway, these were both unsuitable - on paper and in reality - but they did remind us that there are more houses in the world and that we will find one soon, honest. Rebound House (I couldn't think of a pithier name) was a reasonably bog standard Swansea terrace. Three stories high, split into 3 flats and currently a HMO, it was one of the nicer versions of rented accommodation to be seen locally. This lack of mange was reflected in the price tag, unfortunately, but had it been gorgeous we could possibly have stretched to it.

Alas, a thorough look round led us to the inevitable conclusion that it just isn't big enough for us at present, let alone having any space to expand. Biscuits of doom. The undeniably keen estate agent seemed to enjoy telling us that we could never possibly get a house to fit us in the area, and we'd have to settle for something smaller. Alas, we know this not to be the case, and I'm afraid I went home wishing that Mould Mansion could somehow be ours, yet again.

 Liberties Lodge is called that because the vendor is, quite frankly, taking liberties. This was a strange house for us. Set in (what appeared to be) large grounds approximately 5 miles out of Swansea, it's an ex care home with 16 bed rooms. These are all rented out, although they share only one kitchen, but because it's out of town and only on two storeys it is exempt from HMO legislation. Nice.

Although there were a ridiculous number of rooms and a surfeit of conservatories, there was also a smell of mildew, little natural light, and the Strange Case of The Missing Garden. The vendor also owns the property next door, and her drive runs through the garden of the Lodge. She has, in her wisdom, decided to keep the driveway (not unreasonable) and all the garden on the other side of it. Essentially Liberties Lodge sits on the little island of it's own garden, marooned in a sea of someone else's. Bizarre. I hope she finds someone who's not keen on gardening to buy this place from her, but it clearly won't be us.

A couple of us are going to the auction on Wednesday to see what Mould Mansion goes for. This might be slightly torturous, but I can't resist my own morbid curiosity to see what might have been. And of course, it may not even sell. Hope springs eternal, eh?

And in the meantime, the search continues, so if anyone happens to find a 7 or 8 bedroom house down the back of the sofa, please do let us know.

Hannah

Moulder and Wiser

Dear readers, I am gutted to let you know that we have had to abandon the quest for Mould Mansion.

I can't pretend this is a post I'm pleased to write, but I will be doing my best to focus on the positive. Frankly, there's nothing else for it. After the most frenetic period of activity in the year long history of Golem Housing Co-op, we had a meeting last night to formally agree that we could not realistically go to the auction for Mould Mansion. The mood was curiously upbeat, which I suspect was mostly down to the relief of finally knowing something for certain after so many weeks of uncertainty. It's just a shame that the certainty was that we are likely to remain an un-housed co-op for some time.

To re-cap, Sven spotted the magnificent mouldering edifice that is MM on Rightmove some while back. Some of us were keen, others less so. Why was the start price so low? Did we really want to deal with the vagaries of the auction process? Could we possibly ever afford such a large house? A viewing was arranged for those of us keen to have a closer look, and we duly saw that though undeniably mouldy, it was (spacially, at the very least) the perfect house for us.

Excitement set in and a second viewing was arranged. Could we, dare we go for it? More viewings and more discussion led to the unavoidable conclusion that we had to try, and so off we embarked on the incredible rigmarole that is attempting to buy a house.

And this is where the process defeated us, for at the end of the day, for all of our enthusiasm and determination, we cannot manufacture time. Quotes take time, valuations and surveys take time, finding investors takes time, and fitting all of these things into a workable business plan which gets approved by mortgage companies all takes precious time, which, in the end, we did not have. With a normal house sale there would be time to do these things consecutively, but with the auction deadline looming, we were forced to do them all at once.

Clearly, this approach did not work, but I feel proud that we tried, and amazed at how much we have learned in so short a time.

Focusing on the positive, (which I promised I would do), we all now have a clearer idea of the complexities of the house-buying process, and it's pitfalls. We have built relationships with surveyors, builders and trades people of all sorts, solicitors, guarantors and investors which will stand us in great stead when we next see a suitable property. We have all learnt that we can push ourselves to get things done to tight deadlines, have three meetings a week and not go mad (even when two golems are at work on dissertations). On a personal level, I have learnt more about damp and insulation than I, for one, ever expected to know. I can give you a rundown of energy-saving home improvements by cost and effectiveness in a way that the geek in me is unspeakably proud of.

Most importantly, we are all still friends. We still eat together. We still fill our meetings with innuendo. We still make pots of tea and hold babies for each other when needed, and we still want to continue in the unpredictably emotional process of buying a house together, which is surely the most positive thing of all.


Onwise and Upwise

To fend off dejection and ensure that our collective thoughts remained focussed on finding a house in which we all shall live, those non-dissertationing golems amongst us will be turning our energies towards one of the major stumbling blocks we face as a co-op: The Housing Act 2004. This mighty embuggerance legislates for Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs). It's meant to protect tenants from unscrupulous absentee landlords, sub-standard and dangerous living conditions, and other such perils of rented accomodation.

For this, we applaud it. But our applause ends abruptly when we consider that it also applies to housing co-ops. As a co-op you are both tenant and landlord, and as such, mightily unlikely to keep yourself in sub-standard living conditions. Not only this, but certain characters at Westminster have openly admitted that housing co-ops were never meant to be included in this law. Indeed, there was meant to be an exemption for them, but somehow it got forgotten. A minor oops in bureaucratic terms rendered many co-ops illegal overnight, and the co-op movement has been trying to get this situation rectified ever since.

Some golems have already been lending their weight to a campaign by Friendly Housing Action to get an amendment made to the Housing Act, and in the pursuit of a home to call our own, we will now be working on ways to persuade Swansea Council to clarify the situation in our local area. If you're interested in the issue and want to help out, then do get in touch.

Hannah

The Calm Before The Storm

The mood here at Golem HQ has been a strange one of late. After a flurry of activity, late night meetings and intense bursts of decision making, we are left to wait for other elements of the house-buying process to slowly grind into place. Completely out of our control, we can only hope that they respect our tight timescale and get a blimmin' move on.

Ahem.

This week, amongst other things, we commissioned a survey of Mould Mansion, and are awaiting the results with baited breath. 

There will undoubtedly be surprises, but rather like waiting for the MOT result on an old rust bucket of a car, it's inevitably going to be worse than imagined. You panic when the mechanic does that sharp intake of breath that only mechanics (and builders, I suspect) can do, and brace yourself for the worst. When it comes, you suddenly look at your car as though it were some death-trap on wheels which could tear itself apart from the inside at any moment, and wonder how you ever got it to the garage in one piece. How have you survived your daily travels in this perilous conveyance?

Then you take a step back, breathe deeply and realise that the car is no more dangerous than it was yesterday. The difference now is that you know that the suspension is shot, the exhaust needs welding and the head gasket is blown. You know the cause of the strange banging noise when you go around tight corners, and why you can only park on hills below a certain gradient.

None of this information makes the car more dangerous, and when you can stop panicking for long enough to appreciate it, the exhaust clears and you feel better for knowing what is wrong and how to fix it. Even if there is nothing for it but to scrap the car, the certainty can be an unfathomably welcome relief. 

This rather lengthy allegory is meant to demonstrate the atmosphere here at Golem HQ when the survey is mentioned, and how I hope it will be responded to once it is received. None of us has even been involved in this process before, and I, for one, had never expected it to be so emotionally involved as it is. And as we wait for the diagnosis of Mould Mansion's health, it is hard to stop imagining what we will do if we manage to get our mitts on it. The garden is being planned, Sven and I are getting over excited about insulation and DIY solar air heating, and Lloyd is contemplating the best places for sound proofing in his bedroom/studio. Indeed, we have to keep imagining and dreaming these things, because if we do win the Mansion at the auction, we will have only 28 days until we get the keys, and that 28 days will be a period of such intensive physical and mental activity that there will be no time for dreaming.

So, with crossed fingers and crossed toes, we wait by the letterbox for the heavy tome of the survey to arrive, and until it does, I'll be planting fruit trees against the back garden wall.

Hannah

What we are up to in our personal lives. With visual aides.

Like A level students dashing to complete their coursework on time we lunge madly at mortgage providers, builders, loan stock people and the like, collecting together the necessaries. And we're doing pretty well, all in all. So far we have worked meetings, mortgages and more meetings around babies, protests, goth nights, university, jobs and chronic ill health. We are officially awesome.

Here, for you dearest invisible audience, is a summary of what's going on in the intimate private lives of Camp Golem.

Lloyd - An artists impression

Lloyd is getting on with his second year like a ninja. He's recording with a lovely and exceptional artist called Molly for about a month soon, his manipulation of sonic waves for audible pleasure continues to amaze and entertain. The advantage of a co-op set up is that we all live together, an so all get to be the test audience. Here is a song that he and the Glorious and talented Molly made last time she alighted at the Golem Citadel.

Find more molly zacharias songs at Myspace Music

Joe, the second of the three wise men at University, is approaching the end of the 3rd year, meaning assignments all over the place. He was recognised for all his LGBT activist efforts with the 'Greatest Contribution to Liberation' award from his uni, and quite right too. He is currently cooking us a big ol' dinner, potato wedges and home made veggie burgers for >9000 people. Shame there are only 7 of us.

No cuts to the NHS!

Mattie's still meandering along with work and a reasonable pace whilst being the co-ops pet typist and paper chaser. Turns out she's pretty skilled at pestering mortgage companies daily. She's also pretty excited at an impending MRI scan (nothing too seroius, dear readers), as she's seen Tron and has decided that there's a link between the two.

Sven is at the cruddy end of a fair amount assignments, but on the bright side is off on a day trip to Tenby. Something to do with old houses, I'll find out when I get my postcard, no doubt. He's been doing a pretty incredible job of keeping the business plan in shape and generally enthusing about insulation whilst being a highly amusing Pa to young Finn. As you do.

Overlockers hate everyone

Hannah now owns an Overlocker sewing machine. We are all terrified of it, as it follows none of the usual rules of sewing machines and could easily break at ANY MOMENT. Oh noverlocker! Her enthusiasm has lead to me having new and most excellent pants, Finn having excellent bibs and the co-op having glazing quotes.

Lotte is still fully ensconced in facilitating a gender revolution, changing pronouns, educating the masses while knitting a very nifty sock yarn blanket. The work they are doing online and beyond is proving popular and they're getting quite a following. They're also still writing the rather awesome Poly in Pictures web comic, and a co-op cooking blog. Read them, they're part of your 5 a day.

Snazzy Aardvark

Finn is doing very well, he's learning to sit up and we suspect giggles may be just around the corner. He has also forged a deep and hopefully lifelong bond with Misc. Corduroy Aardvark. He is mostly unfazed by the co-op based mayhem, as he is too busy trying to eat juice cartons. An up-cycler already.



So there, that is what we are up to, with visual aides.  Normal informative service will resume soon, but until then keep safe, be seen and have a good'un.

Mattie Rose

Anarchist task-division (by Lotte)

It is ALL going on. Srsly. There are a lot of things we need to do, and we've divided the tasks up in a fabulous and apparently random way.

Back in the early days of the co-op, I was somewhat apprehensive about organising something in an anarchistic fashion. If tasks were assigned according to personal skills and enthusiasm, I thought that there'd be an unfair division of labour. Some people will be naturally more enthusiastic about helping the co-op, and some people will just sit back and let them take that work on. Perhaps some things just wouldn't get done. I thought this would annoy me, and it was one of my (few) anxieties.

However, this is so far not the case. Other people see things differently, I'm sure, but this is why I think it works so well at the moment.

Everyone in the co-op is really passionate about getting this project off the ground. Failure isn't an option! If something needs doing, someone has to do it, and so someone will volunteer. This might not always be the case, but it is now.

Also, some people in the co-op can't volunteer for much because they have a lot of work to do in their own life and/or they don't have the energy to spare. This is what I thought I'd get annoyed about, but actually, that's fine too. We all know each other well enough to know that if we can't take on much work it's because of other factors that can't be helped, and so I don't resent people who can't work. This seems to have happened without me noticing.

Even the people who don't do much still do something, and it's something essential. If it wasn't done, we'd be doomed, I tell you, dooooooooomed. Like, I'm a bit of a hermit and can't go out and about to meet people and make lots of organising phone calls, but I can learn about and understand things thoroughly and be a point of contact. So I've happily taken on the task of organising the solicitor, and if it gets more social/travelly, someone else can help me. Others are good with numbers and have attention to detail and will handle the financial aspect of things; others are good at talking and knowing who to talk to, so they're handling the people-organising. And even the people who aren't doing any of this don't worry me, as there's always plenty of varied stuff to do, and they'll find ways to help later on in the process. Even now, everyone's cooking for the co-op, and I think that helps more than we all realise.

Some people are taking on loads of stuff, because they feel able and because they're good at it; hopefully later on when we're settled in a home, be it Mould Mansion or somewhere else, they can take a well-earned break and let others keep things ticking over.

So things are a little quiet here, blogwise. But IRL, we're doing loads. We've got something co-op-related going on every day for the next three days, and that's just what we've planned so far.

It's all very exciting, and we've not even put in an offer!

Golems Are Go!

After getting to grips with posting regularly on the blog, it may seem like we went quiet on you again rather suddenly. All I can say is, we've been too busy to blog, and this week has been one of the busiest in our short history for one very good reason: we've decided to make an offer on Mould Mansion.

I'm not sure we ever thought the right house would come along, but now it has, we are having to mobilise very quickly to try and make it ours. There is so much to do, and it's at times like these that I am most accutely aware of how lucky we are to have six people sharing the work. There are quotes to obtain, appointments to make, spreadsheets to tweak, and emails and phone calls flying off in all directions. Two of the six golems are in the last few months of their degrees, with dissertations to work on and coursework to hand in. Another works full-time and is fitting all the co-op work and meetings in around the job. One has uni work and has just been offered an amazing, time-consuming, career-furthering project which will run over the next few months. My days are usually spent juggling a small baby in one hand and a basket of washing in the other. The last of us needs to rest a lot, and has to manage their time very carefully. But thankfully we can distribute the things that need to be done between us, depending on what people find the easiest to manage along with their other commitments. This is one of the many reasons that co-ops are awesome.

As part of this epic activity, we need to make sure we have the finance in place to buy the house and to make it the lovely (for which read: habitable) home we all envisage. That means knowing that if our offer is accepted we know what we need to do to fix it up, how much it will cost, and how we are going to pay for it.

And this, dear reader, is where you can get involved with this brilliant adventure.

We are looking for further loanstock, and for guarantors willing to provide a guarantee for sections of the loan we will be applying for from Radical Routes. For loanstock, you can loan anything from £500 up, and choose your own investment period (3 years plus) and interest rate (up to 4%). Further details can be found on our loanstock page. Loanstock is unsecured, but co-ops are typically a very safe investment, and by investing in a co-op you will be helping to provide long-term affordable housing which no individuals can personally profit from. Ethical or what?

For guarantors, we would only need you to put your name to £1000 of our loan, and you would only be actually required to provide the money if the housing co-op failed, the house was sold and it's sale price did not cover our outstanding debts (thankfully a rare occurrence, and an even rarer one for co-ops which are part of Radical Routes). You can offer to guarantee more than this if you wish, though to guarantee over £1,000 you will need to provide proof of savings. As soon as is possible we are planning to have the house revalued so that the guarantees are no longer needed, so this is more of a temporary back up so that we can get started than something we imagine being called upon. When we have raised the value of the house, your guarantee has supported us without you having to pay a penny, sothis is a fantastic way for anyone who would love to help us out but has no money to buy loanstock with to get involved. Happy times.

If you're interested in helping us out with either loanstock or a guarantee, then please contact us. We're happy to talk about it and answer your questions, and if you decide it's not for you, that's no problem at all. These are very exciting times, and if we can make an offer that is accepted by the vendor, things are only going to get more exciting. Sharing these developments on the blog is hopefully something that might get some of you more interested in co-ops, and if even one of you chooses to get more involved with the co-operative movement in whatever way, then all of our rambling has been well worth it.

That's it. Ramble over. I'm off to read more about different types of insulation, just in case;-)

Hannah