Bye bye, Bristol

The paperwork has been signed, the deposit has been paid, the contracts have been exchanged. Unless an act of god blows the building over or some part of the machinations of bureaucracy goes wrong, I’m going to be a homeowner. …Of a house 250 miles away from where I currently live. Ah. So I’m moving to Manchester, England’s definitive second city (suck it, Birmingham). For those not privy to the beeps lore, Manchester and its surrounds are where I lived and grew up before I moved to Bristol in 2010. My family live around there still, as do a lot of friends I’m still in varying levels of contact with. The main driver has really been that house prices in Bristol are kinda crazy bad value. I originally slammed a bunch of tables and citations here as if I needed to somehow justify this statement further, but I’m going to save you the suffering. Suffice to say, when it comes to an actual house (not a flat), the price difference between equivalent properties in each area is substantial.…