FTB, making an offer on new build tomorrow - advice needed please!

penguine

Pete, I'm so glad you slowed down and thought through the financial implications carefully before you leapt into this ... it took guts for you to keep coming back to the thread and listening to people's opinions even when things were getting a bit heated in here! Just hang in there and seriously think about renting if you can't stand your current cramped living conditions any longer. You're going to be so much better off for not having bought this property. All the best to you and your gf for the future!

EagerLearner

Well done Pete for listening to all the folks here. I am in the same boat as you, except it's a rented cramped 1 bedroom that we are dying to move from, but for now will continue to pay rent (and no maintenance or house related insurances) and no worries about mortgages etc.

The more deposit the better, so we have agreed to each add even more savings than before, to make a decent pot.

Good luck.

pete96

bostin wrote: »

Is this the development on the southern side of Eastleigh (next door to Lakeside Country Park)? If so, only a handful of these (over 400 to be built) have actually sold and there are over 400 houses still to be built. For £150k you can get a 3 bed in one of the Victorian terraces which is what we are looking at buying instead.
Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions about the site(s).
Bost

Yes thats the one mate!

Thanks for all the supporting posts. We're both now even more excited about the prospects of building our saving and possibly being able to afford a nice 3 bed house next year!

I hope this thread helps other people in the same boat.

gfplux

Hello Pete96,
This has been a great thread with lots of good advise.
You say you have learned a lot and I am sure many others have also.
HOWEVER
Why not call the nice lady from Barratt and increase you offer a little. You can then begin to learn a little more about negotiating and we all can learn how desperate or not Barratt are.
Call her on Monday morning.
good luck

Kez100

Don't do that, Pete. Bad Karma - what goes around comes around.

It won't tell anybody anything because Barratts will negotiate differently depending on the location and next month the data will be out of date anyway as the market improves or - far more likely - gets worse.

It will be exciting watching your savings grow. Respect to you both.

neverdespairgirl

pete96 wrote: »

We plan to buy with more serious intentions in 2-3 years.

There is your major problem. The betting is strong that it will be worth less than you pay for it in 2-3 years' time, so you would be in negative equity and stuck there.

ruinen

Pete,

I just found this thread and read my way through it. Would be interesting to know if the Sales Person came back and accepted that £150k offer. Also interesting to know what the list prices are now 5 months later and whether your savings are higher than £1k

pete96

Hi ruinen,

I've just recently started coming back on MSE, what with recent events.

That £150K offer wasn't excepted in the end, and a believe that was the last plot in the development and has now sold (not sure for how much). All i can say now is i'm over the moon i'm still where i am now! More then happy to sit tight. Our joint savings are now around £2.5K, still way short of what we need, and at that rate it could be 5+ years before we have enough to buy anything. Needing a serious drop in house prices really.

Still have a job too which is good, but we were supposed to be going down to a 4 day week this month, but this has been pushed back by a month through increased work loads. The company also made 2 redundancies back in Nov of people in my position

RetroBob

OMG I was having palpitations reading this thread. Thank god and well done that you didn't go ahead. Keep saving!

I was in your position two years ago and could have bought a crappy little flat for £100k and would have struggled. I resolved to keep saving, keep that credit rating as clean as a whistle. Now I have a 25% deposit, and about to apply for a very affordable 5 year fixed deal on a 2 bed semi in a lovely area 2 minutes from work so I don't need to waste money on a car.

I hope to god it goes through!

strawberries1

angrypirate wrote: »

Ive got a nifty little spreadsheet that works this all out. A mortgage of 135k taken out at an interest rate of 7% over 25 years has monthly payment of £954. After 12months you would have paid £11,449.80 but the total amount paid off the mortgage will only be £2066. That means £9,383 has gone on interest. Imagine if you are renting a similar property. Say you pay £600 a month. That means after 1 year in the property you would have forked out £7200 and the difference (£11449-£7200) is £4249 that you can have in savings putting towards the same house you can buy in a year which will probably be reduced by 10k. In the currently climate of falling house prices, renting is not dead money. Save yourself a good deposit mate.

Also, I expect interest rates to go up again in the near future and more and more people to slip into negative equity. Ask yourself when looking at mortgages, "can I afford this if interest rates are 9%, 11% etc etc. At 9%, the months repayments on the figures above are £1,132 per month and 11% its £1323. Can you afford this??

PS - to give you an idea, im 27, got 80k savings for a deposit (ive work abroad for a bit and came back last March) and Im not going to buy for a while, probably at least 18months.

Hello angrypirate, have you bought your property now?
I'm wondering if I sld just keep renting for now and hold out buying my 1st ppty for a little longer.