FTB - Advice & reassurance needed!!!!

lynzpower

where abouts in the UK are you looking to buy?

zippygeorgeandben

kirstyreanne wrote: »

Hi all,

Thanks for your replies!



As for current house prices, I've been watching the properties on rightmove in our area (South Wales) & a lot of them have dropped around £10k with starting prices of around £100-120k. There's been a definite slow down in houses that are actually selling in our area & I do think that several sellers will probably be willing to accept quite low offers.

Read the thread! Tsk Tsk!!

kirstyreanne

lynzpower wrote: »

where abouts in the UK are you looking to buy?

Hi Lynzpower,

We're looking to buy in a small town in South Wales about 30 minutes from Newport.

Thanks

kirstyreanne

lincroft1710 wrote: »

In your orig post, you say you haven't found anything yet. What sort of property are you looking for?

Hi Lincroft,

All we want really are 4 sound walls, a decent roof & a garden to sit out in in the summer with a minimum of 2 beds. Vague I know but we just want it to feel right (think I've been watching too many Location, Location, Locations!!!).

We've looked at various houses but they either seem to need a lot of work which we won't have the spare cash for or the rooms are extremely small (we're not looking for a mansion just something comfortable that we can grow into).

There is one house we've seen that my grandparents are going to have a look at for us because there is some damp that needs addressing & we need to know if it's a big job or not. Only thing is it's up for £135k & we're keepingour fingers crossed that he'll be willing to sell for the maximum of £110k!!!

neverdespairgirl

kirstyreanne wrote: »

While I appreciate your comments about renting, but the places available for rent at the moment cost the same per month as would the mortgages we've been looking at which is why we see it as dead money.

What is the same price? The rent and the interest-only part of the mortgage, or the rent and a repayment mortgage? Don't forget the costs of owning that you don't pay renting, such as the boiler going on the blink or painting the outside.

Even if renting is, say, £100 a month more than repayment plus maintaining it, if you are losing £500 a month off the equity, the sums still aren't great.

lynzpower

I agree with NDgirl.

Put it this way - on a 5% mortgage ( and we all know how few there are aof those right now!) - over 25 years a 250k flat will cost 500k. 250k of this is INTEREST to the banks.

This is the biggest dead money there is.

I dont have the hangups about buying as others do, but I do hate mortgage interest with a passion and make it my mission, never again to pay a bank, but for them to pay me. I have lived like this for over 18months now, and hope to pay at least 65% cash for my next mortgage.


theres nothing wrong with mortgages, but you DO have to accept that mortgage interest, valuations, arrangment fees, higher lending charges, stamp duty is nothing more than dead money- you dont see any benefit from these really do you? its a preliminary charges to help you get into debt- no more no less. . And its a stack more dead money than renting.


Said that , if you accept that, and are happy to pay these then fine, but dont pretend that they arnt dead money- cos they well and truly are.

lincroft1710

I think a drop of £25K which is almost 20% of the asking price is a little optimistic - but you may be lucky! If it does have damp then you need to be very careful as to its cause and its cost to remedy, sometimes it isn't as bad as some companies would have you believe. It does seem though, that at the moment the sort of house you want is a bit above your budget. Renting is dead money -BUT- only in a rising or steady market, NOT in a falling one. in a year you'll probably be able to afford the house you want as its price will have dropped.

kirstyreanne

Hi all,

You've definitely given me food for thought but my partner is dead set against renting & will not be persuaded.

ND Girl we're comparing the cost of renting against a repayment mortgage as we have decided that we will neither take out an interest only mortgage or spread it over a longer term.

Rentals are few & far between in our town & average around £500-550 pcm. we have decided that we won't pay over £600 pcm on our mortgage & therefore capping total mortgages with this in mind. Also, we're not looking at a 95%ltv as we have enough deposit to put at least 10% down straight away.

Lynzpower - I agree that all the fees are in fact dead money but they will all have to be paid (with the exception of stamp duty as we are buying below the threshold for our area) whenever we do buy.

ruggedtoast

FTB - Advice & reassurance needed!!!!

Reassurance provided. I can absolutely assure you with 100% certainty that this is a terrible time to buy.

zippygeorgeandben

It sounds to me like your OH is refusing to listen to you regarding renting so perhaps you should be giving your future with him alot of thought before purchasing a property together.

Believe me kirstyreanne, if you end up in negative equity, struggling to survive, he'll wish he had listened to you then.

Ben