AVOID My Choice Homebuy!!!

wymondham

dorsetmum wrote: »

Mychoice Homebuy and Ownhome seem to have quite a lot of bad press on here. Do people really feel that this is not a sensible way forward? I am not particularly financially savy (although trying to be!) and am lured in by the idea of having our own place. We have always rented, and currently pay £700/month for our rental. If we wait a year or so, will the housing market really come down to make it more affordable for us?

I'm very nervous about the idea of a scheme that could potentially leave us with negative equity. We are more interested in the open market than a new build, although the mortgage advisor we spoke to at the affordable housing event said that a lot of the new build developers are agreeing to price cuts up to 25% to sell their houses.

Any thoughts on our situation would be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advice.

There are lots of posts on pros/cons of these schemes, along with how the economy is turning and house prices falling. There should be enough to give you a pretty good insight into what is likely to occur and the pitfalls..

wymondham

Chris2685 wrote: »

OK, we have had it approved and can now proceed to do all the regular stuff! Survey, mortgage approval, conveyancing, etc...

Kinda exciting, also kinda scary to be spending all this money in a falling market!

I am confident it will be worth it in the end! :beer:

Chris, glad it came through for you... hope the rest works out for you!

Chris2685

Me too, it is pretty scary for me.. It's a kind of do we don't we... I think it will work out for the best though, because we really do like the house and location, and with the scheme we will be paying per month for a 3 bed place what we would be for renting a 2 bed in the same area, plus the payments will go some way towards paying off the mortgage.

All I have to worry about now is not losing my job!

wymondham

Chris2685 wrote: »

All I have to worry about now is not losing my job!

Me to - just had a fortnight off and I've been told there will be less people there when I get back! :eek:

Chris2685

Well I'm pretty safe at the moment because there's loads of work on in our place, but to be honest I'm going to be looking for a better paid job anyway once we get settled now that I've got my degree.

It has been useful to join these forums and read what all the bears are saying, and all of the theories of what is going to happen.

The way I see it is that houses never really used to be bought as an 'investment' until recently, and I don't see us needing to move out of this place for a good 10 years at least - dependent on the neighbours or unforeseen circumstances of course!

Northants_Simon

We applied for Homebuy way back in May on the advice of an estate agent. We received the "you have been accepted" letter, but was never told how much money we could get. The estate agent pretty much forced us into a particular property, saying the money was running out and we'd better be quick. So we put in our offer and started the process of buying the house.

Then we received a call from the estate agent saying the money had run out and we wouldn't get the Homebuy loan. Then a couple of weeks later we got another call saying they had found the money and we could go ahead.

We paid for the survey (Homebuy insist you get a Homebuyers survey which costs around £500 to £600) and found some expensive faults with the house. Plus we found a few other issues which put us off buying the house. We called the Homebuy agent to ask if we could select another house at the same value and was told no, we should be grateful we could buy anything and obviously aren't desperate to buy if we didn't want that house. Well a few months passed by and we got the contracts through. We then thought we are making a huge mistake buying this house and called Homebuy again. This time they said we could transfer the loan to a property of the same value.

Having had the offer on the second house accepted we had to resubmit the house details to Homebuy. As yet we have no official confirmation we can buy the second house, which is almost exactly the same as the first house (same size, number of bedrooms and the same price).

Although we are very gratful we got the loan (which in our case is only for 15%), we did feel that Homebuy took the attitude we should buy anything, even if it needed thousands of pounds spending on it. Where as we wanted to buy something that didn't require any work as if we had the money for repairs we wouldn't need the Homebuy loan.

chocl8princess

Right first things first, congrats Chris in getting through, until i came here i thought my problems with them were a one off...guess not.


After one more occasion where my housemates (i have seen cleaner pigs) pi%%ed me off, i seearched online and came across the scheme. My HA is Catalyst. after sending the application through in June i got an email back saying i would hear from them in 8 days time (of course in an ideal world).

So after 2 weeks of no word, i called and was told that i had been accepted and the acceptance letter was on its way out. Received the letter which was a provisional figures letter end of June/begining of July.

Soon as i got back from my holiday in NY i started looking. Found a house put an offer in and it was accepted, all this was done on 5th August 2008 (i don't waste time).

My IFA was already in place, my convenyancers are my firm of solicitors so that wa sin place, all we had to do was wait for Catalyst to come through with the formal acceptance letter. My God i did wait. Between 6th August and 16th September i literally HOUNDED them on a daily basis fo my letter. Its taken so long i am thankful my vendors haven't pulle dout because its only later on this week my valuation is going to be done!! can you believe that, almost 2 months after offer was accepted.

they took so long, not only do i not have to pay stamp duty anymore but, i have actually received my contract already which you don't normally get until everything has come through.

My advice is to be relentless and HARASS like you have never done before. As some one pointed out, they are there to be paid to dealw ith the applications not fob you off with the million and one excuses.

Oh and once the formal acceptance letter comes through, you have 7 weeks to complete otherwise the funding either cannot be guranteed or you loose it altogther. Its almost funny, they take ages to approve an application then have the nerve to give you a deadline.

For me personally, if you can't but outright, this is a better alternative and much better than shared ownership which jus sounds like an entry into debt hell. I also did not have to buy a new buid (absolutely hate them).

Chris2685

Thanks for the info chocl8princess
I decided to pull out in the end, it was taking far too long even after Catalyst had sent the approval. Plus the economy has been blown to !!!! and basically decided that it is pointless stressing ourselves out so much to buy in this type of market...

If you're bored, read all about my decision here:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=14347319&postcount=4

chocl8princess

Fair enough Chris, gotta make the right decisioon for you. Thanks to all who thanked me.

Ian_Griffiths_Halifax

chocl8princess wrote: »

Fair enough Chris, gotta make the right decisioon for you. Thanks to all who thanked me.

Thank you for thanking us for thanking you.