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The House Thread


dann2707

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I'm now officially out of the flat I shared with Danny and Duncan for the past 7 years, as much as that place sucked (rotting floors, uninterested landlord, 4 flights of stairs and no lift, busy traffic and rough area) it was sad to see it go.

I'm currently staying at Jane's mum's house, it's a small two bedroom place but they've been really accommodating. It's still quite a change up from having a 4 bedroom flat to myself like I've had this last year with Danny and Duncan escaping the city for lockdown.

Jane has a call with a mortgage advisor later, we've sent in all our numbers and are waiting to see what kind of loan we can get. It's quite nerve wrecking as we're not exactly prime candidates for the best loan with us both being self employed and not big earners and myself never had finance or a loan before so my credit score isn't the best it could be. The only plus is I have saved a decent amount last year plus my parents have given us some money towards a deposit which will be a massive help.

I've been looking at what's available and it doesn't fill me with hope. I don't really mind having a smaller place but all the cheaper houses are so depressing and in such shit areas, I'd hate to live in a house/location that I hated. Fingers crossed for a decent loan and a house I actually like. 

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Good luck with the hunt Ali, we have just moved into our second purchased home and albeit I have found home moving one of the most stressful periods it only lasts for a few months and once you are through it you have the security and something you can call yours which I have always liked. We found that when we have bought the last 2 it’s best to make sure you have straight in your head what your priorities are around location, space etc as we found it tough to always tick every box. We were just us 2 in the first house so priorities were a bit easier and the focus was buy something that if shit hit the fan and we were stuck there we could have enough space and be somewhere familiar when we first bought together. 5 years down the road and with a toddler and a baby on the way our priorities shifted to having enough space for a family, good schools - and the.Lyn the final one which was a compromise which was a detached house - our last neighbour was a bit odd and it put us off being attached to another house. The reason that ended up being the compromise is it meant we couldn’t afford where we set out to buy so shifted location and managed to tick everybox bar being near Stanstead which means a bit of plane noise. For us having everything we wanted and some planes were our compromise - for others they may hate the idea of planes and rather be in semi detached but it really helped when we understood and ordered our priorities to tailor the search.

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Must feel good to be out of the flat Ali, hard moving away from living with mates though. 

Our flat has been on purple bricks, Right move and i think Zoopla for a week now. We listed it at the top end of what we thought we could get for it, thinking people would put an offer in and we would accept lower. Due to how Rightmove algorithm works we were advised not to go between 25k increments as this means your listing doesn't show up on the first page of search results as you can only search in those brackets. So we went with the upper bracket. We had a viewing booked within an hour of going live and that all went ok, (haven't heard from them since) but since then we have had no more bookings. 

Am i just being impatient in thinking i would have had a load of viewings by now, or have i put people off by going in at the higher price. 

Has anyone paid list for a property or have you always put an offer in?

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21 minutes ago, Joe Aston said:

Has anyone paid list for a property or have you always put an offer in?

We put an offer in, which was rejected, then we went in at asking price.

It depends on the property imo, we saw some that were listed at 300k and we wouldn't have paid more than 280k for and because we found the house we're currently buying, we didn't put an offer in at all (EDIT: On those higher price ones I mean).

Hard to say without seeing your place, knowing the area and stuff, but we went in at asking on this place because it's very reasonable for the area and is fully re-done inside - new kitchen, new bathrooms, new windows, all decorated, nice wood floor downstairs. Two other people wanted it and it's well worth the asking price.

If you list something a bit higher, knowing it's not worth that, I'd still expect people to put offers in. To put it another way, we weren't put off houses outside of our budget, because if they were overpriced, we'd just stick a lowball offer in... Luck just meant we didn't have to.

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28 minutes ago, Joe Aston said:

Am i just being impatient in thinking i would have had a load of viewings by now, or have i put people off by going in at the higher price.

May be worth bearing in mind what the mortgage market is like at the moment, and the position of people who are likely to be buying a flat. If it's going to attract more first time buyers, it could be that they're struggling to find a suitable mortgage that will allow them to get close to the amount you're listing it for. I keep seeing on the news that there are more mortgages becoming available, and that is true, but they're not going to be suitable or available for most (in our experience).

We're looking to move, but the rates/mortgages we're getting are dogshit compared to what we were looking at after our first mortgage advisor meeting in Feb 2020. We've had to fairly drastically lower what we were looking to spend purely because the monthly payments would be too much for us. That's despite both of us still being in work, no drop in incmoe, not having any changes since the last meeting we had, being able to put in a 10% deposit, etc. To try and get a mortgage that gives us monthly repayments that are workable we're having to step up to doing a 15% deposit which is going to take us a bit of time to sort out.

That's just us, but I imagine there are going to be quite a few people in the same boat, especially with the restrictions being put in by mortgage companies for anyone on furlough.

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You may also be a little late for the bump the stamp duty relief was giving as I haven’t heard of any extension and to complete a chain between now and the 31st would be tough. If there isn’t an extension it’ll likely be a quieter market whilst people get used to the fact the stamp duty is back. From a buyers perspective I always assumed you should get a house below asking unless it looks really competitive against its comparisons so there maybe something in pricing yourself out whilst other properties similar to yours are on the market at more competitive prices as people may be thinking they’ll get a few % off of them also and once they are in the door of the other properties if they see what they like you’ve lost out. I would say for now you’ll have to stick with it for atleast a month to see how it goes and then consider what you want to do. It maybe a better idea to hold for a few months as the market will pick up again likely once restrictions start to lift and could be a better time? (Unless you are in a rush of course)

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On 04/02/2021 at 2:20 PM, Ali C said:


I've been looking at what's available and it doesn't fill me with hope. I don't really mind having a smaller place but all the cheaper houses are so depressing and in such shit areas, I'd hate to live in a house/location that I hated. Fingers crossed for a decent loan and a house I actually like. 

 Buy an absolute shitter in a nice place if you can. You can always make a shit place nice but the other way round is a bit harder.

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2 hours ago, monkeyseemonkeydo said:

You haven't met my kids... They'll make a nice place shit in about 3 seconds...

Wait till they're older, teenagers are quite happy living in a room ankle deep in shit without any issues, only come out of their pit for food and occasionally to use the bathroom :huh:

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14 hours ago, forteh said:

Wait till they're older, teenagers are quite happy living in a room ankle deep in shit without any issues, only come out of their pit for food and occasionally to use the bathroom :huh:

So what I'm hearing is "more riding time"?

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1 hour ago, Mark W said:

So what I'm hearing is "more riding time"?

Unfortunately I've not ridden any bikes in anger in a couple of years now, getting old, babies and life do that!

I have learned to snowboard, started climbing and currently building a campervan in the last two years ago so not just wasted time :)

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I realised that my partners grandma has a sizeable chunk of property that goes unused, I thought about how it could be ideal for us to use it to think outside the box and build our own house. She loved the idea and wants to make it happen. So we may potentially have an incredibly exciting project on our hands. I now have to do some research into costs and ideas and get the ball rolling.

The best part is it’s in a location next to the best riding spot on Vancouver island. Would mean I’d have to invest in a downhill bike and shuttle rig. ^_^

 

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1 hour ago, Duncy H said:

I realised that my partners grandma has a sizeable chunk of property that goes unused, I thought about how it could be ideal for us to use it to think outside the box and build our own house. She loved the idea and wants to make it happen. So we may potentially have an incredibly exciting project on our hands. I now have to do some research into costs and ideas and get the ball rolling.

The best part is it’s in a location next to the best riding spot on Vancouver island. Would mean I’d have to invest in a downhill bike and shuttle rig. ^_^

 

‘Have to’ 

Sounds awesome man, hope it works out for you. 

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22 hours ago, forteh said:

Unfortunately I've not ridden any bikes in anger in a couple of years now, getting old, babies and life do that!

I have learned to snowboard, started climbing and currently building a campervan in the last two years ago so not just wasted time :)

Campervan pics? 

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On 06/02/2021 at 8:51 AM, Ben Swales said:

‘Have to’ 

Sounds awesome man, hope it works out for you. 


Well it would be rude not too ha. I’ve learnt of a few other things that make the plan to build even more feasible so it’s starting to feel very exciting. I’m definitely into the idea of building in an alternative way and not going for crazy big scale as a means to have a very small if not no mortgage at all. If anyone can share some wisdom or techniques on such things I’d be all ears.

Edited by Duncy H
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Mortgage meeting today, got 15k fixed rate for 5 years @1.69% then variable or rejig. Taken it over 30 years to keep costs low to start with, by the time the fixed rate is up then we'll have almost 300 quid of cash spare (currently tied up in other debts) which can be hammered into this new one.

Not going to miss 50 quid a month and we're getting a half hour floor plan extension, new windows and some rewiring work if needed.

Paid 62k for the house, local market value of 161k, adding the extension will only put that up :)

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