... or 'Why are Estate Agents so bloody awkward'

We have started looking for somewhere else to live. We really don't want to be renting forever because it's never your house so you're more or less stuck with the way things are. We can't install central heating or move the bathroom to upstairs or do any of the other things we want to do (such as sort out the kitchen wall properly).

We spent a while talking to mortgage advisors this morning so we need to wait to find out how much we can borrow. We know that almost certainly we'll need to move away from Earlsdon because it's a fairly expensive area. Small two-bedroomed terraced houses like ours are around £20,000 more expensive here than in other parts of the city.

On a number of occasions we have seen houses advertised on Estate Agents websites or in their windows and asked about them. In the majority of occasions they have already been sold. Why the hell can't they mark them as such or remove the adverts. It would take a matter of seconds to stick a 'sold' sticker on the advert or to take them off the website but they just can't be bothered. I wouldn't be surprised if they did it deliberately to get people interested. It really is so feckin' annoying and wasted so much of our time.

After making at least 5 or 6 enquiries we've only managed to view one property. It was much bigger than our current place but was at right at our upper limit. It'll be sold before we're in a position to make an offer though so we're effectively back at square one again.