FTB lost in London!!!

maryjane01

OK, here is my suggestion, a bit above your price range but it is a buyers market so you can bargain them down, right?

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-24281336.html?pageNumber=3&backToListURL=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Ffind.html%3FlocationIdentifier%3DOUTCODE%255E2313%26maxDaysSinceAdded%3D14%26includeSSTC%3Dtrue%26_includeSSTC%3Don%26index%3D20&locationIdentifier=OUTCODE^2313&radius=0.0

There are a few mid size estates there but you are right near some quite posh private housing so it is not too bad around there. Your nearest stations are Blackheath (zone 3) and Lewisham (Zone 2 for a cheaper ticket). You are first stop for getting to Canary Wharf on the DLR from Lewisham, and 10 minutes on the overground to London bridge from Lewisham (about 13 minutes from blackheath) so easy to get to Borough. There are cafes and pubs for going out in Blackheath 15 minutes walk, 15 minutes walk for loads of practical shops in Lewisham (Primark, M&S TK Maxx, Peacocks, a great Italian deli, Turkish Food centre, really cheap veggies on the street market), or there is Sainsbury's in Lee Green, also 15 minutes walk if you can't bear the thought of heading into Lewisham. Quentin Road (right near by to the east) is one of the most expensive streets in SE13, it is the part of Lewisham that people living there call 'Blackheath Borders'.

Forgot to add, you will have a really nice local less than 5 minutes away, the Dacre Arms, I am letting out a little local secret there!

Also, I would say Woolwich is still way too 'edgy' (a polite way of saying not particularly nice at all).

hethmar

Well Woolwich has had that reputation but have to say on my few visits down there recently I was very pleasently surprised by the changes. The guy in the next flat to son works at Canary Wharf and seems respectable

Still this is fun looking for a place for someone else isnt it

Sprintz

i'm usually observer but after seeing n'th number of FTB posting - how on earth did you lot manage to raise so much deposit! I'm twice your age and still have not where as near savings as you??

did you find out your credit rating in the end?

i am intrigued with this new generation...

nudda

chewmylegoff wrote: »

one thing that i will say, since you're working in Canary Wharf and talking about living south, is that i would seriously consider living somewhere which does not require you to use the northern line / jubilee line route to get to work. in fact you really just don't want to be trying to get on the jubilee line at london bridge unless you're going in early or late. i've given up on that route and now go up the victoria line to green park, after a number of 20+ minute waits on the platform in a shoving crowd.

oh come on its not that bad. Ive been going to CW from near heathrow for 2 years and yes it can get crowded a lot of times but its no biggie really.

patch3228

Yeah I found out the credit rating althow was back in Nov 2006 and I am wary of putting the score up as it is unrealistically high

I am tempted to pay and see what the current score is now ... but I think I will ask the Mortgage Advisor if she will do this anyway.


I ended up rescheduling the first meeting with Mortgage Advisor to next Friday as my OH has decided to take a half day at work to accompany me.


Just streamed Repossessions on iPlayer and it has bought us back down to earth with an almighty Bump. I guess Sprintz even with this deposit saved, there is still a fair bit of risk!

Prav

Doozergirl: it is wrong to say there is no difference between leasehold and SOF.

To OP: Owning a leasehold house or flat, buyers do not own their homes outright at all - you pay out a huge single lump sum to take possession of the space within the building i.e. they are buying the right to live in the property, typically for 99 or 125 years. And, in addition to the mortgage, leaseholders must pay a ground rent to the freeholder, as well as service charges for the management of the block.

Over time, all leasehold properties lose value, because, technically, they could revert to the freeholder at the end of the lease. Although this rarely happens (lessees usually either extend their leases or arrange to buy a share of the freehold), a lease with 75 or fewer years left to run can decrease the value of a flat, plus it makes it harder to get a mortgage on - something that will put potential buyers off when it comes to selling. As a general rule, the shorter the time remaining on your Lease, the more expensive it will be to extend.

With SOF you are own the a share of the freehold, depending on how many flat constitute the block; so if there were 6 flats you would own 1/6 of the freehold. But to define this, you need to have an agreement to ensure that each person is effectively leasing off themselves and the most common form of this is via a management company whereby all the 6 of you are directors, and that 'owns' the leasehold. Residents often use a limited company for collecting a central pool of cash for carrying out repairs and maintenance to common parts of the property, buildings insurance etc. and to define where the common areas are, and who is responsible for them etc. The main point is that as a director of the management company, you have a say in the service charges, as opposed to a pure leasehold flat when you could be paying extortionate fees to a badly run management company, who use shoddy workman etc etc. However, you need to make sure you maintain good relationships with the other residents to avoid potential disputes, which is obvious I guess.

So a situation may exist where you see a flat that has a SOF but with a lease of say 75 years. However, this is not important because you are a director of the company that own the freehold, therefore you can together with the other residents arrange to extend the leasehold to up to 999 years. The costs involved in this are negligible - it's the cost of a lawyer to draw up the agreement divided by 6.

If you were a 'pure' leaseholder (i.e. leasing off an external person who owns the freehold) it can be thousands of pounds to extend the lease - depending on the lease left and the value of the property - this is usually a negotiation process between you and the freeholder - similar to negotiating the price of the property you bought.

'Pure' leaseholders can exercise the right to purchase the freehold, but that involves clubbing together with the other residents to take on the freeholder. And certain conditions need to be met before you can even do this, so may not be feasible.

Having a SOF does increase the marketability of the flat, and potentially an increase in value (although this might not necessarily be the case depending on whether you think the above points are important to you, and therefore worth the extra cost). The important point is that it gives you the control to influence any ongoing costs that will occur when owning a flat.

meester

patch3228 wrote: »

Hi,

This is my very first post and I am hoping to get some guidance/ observations on buying a property in London (most likely to be a flat).


More specifically, I would value your input regarding:

1. Home Buy Initiatives: are there any good ones out there for London or perhaps share any negative experiences?

2. Newspaper reports alarming stats that a ¼ of available mortgages will soon be asking for 40% deposits? I understand banks are cherry picking, but this is a tad extreme...

3. Is the majority of ex-council London flats all leasehold or are there significant groupings of freehold flats? Also, are there any significant groupings in London where you can find these ex-council flats not part of an estate?

4. Are there dedicated property websites that only sell repossessed flats? Or are repossessed properties mainly only available via the auction route...

Why would you not buy at auction? The last auction flat I looked out in Sarf London sold for HALF what estate agents had identical properties for tens of thousands more. FTB market is completely dead. You run the risk of massively overpaying by buying from an EA at the moment.

- I am 22 years old
- Graduated from Uni July 08 and Moved to London Aug 08
- Started working Sept 08 (in a still quite secure banking grad program)

You what? Banking, secure? People are being laid off left right and centre.

- My Debt = Student Loan £14K
- My Total Savings = £37K

---

à Savings [£17K], ISA [£17K], Premium Bonds [£3k]
- OH Total Savings = £15K

You can buy a flat outright at auction in Zone 3 for not much more than that.

patch3228

Hi Prav that seems a more viable option if there are fewer flats, which is what we are aiming to buy a part off as opposed to a big block. Would the main concern re: SOF be if 1 of the say 6 flat owners moves on/ struggles to pay, then any costs will be split amongst 5 making this messier and ultimately more expensive?

Yeah I will probe further down this Auction route, as I was probably too hasty to exclude...main things on my mind at the time were the 28 days to pay up after winning the bid. I was not certain whether mortgage deals would be pulled making it a risk to pay up within 28 days..?

Meester your right it is a bloodbath in the financial industry (especially canary wharf banking). However, I just meant I felt relatively safe for my personal case, as our bank has gone thru the grinder and shredded more jobs than several very large companies put together! The first to go were the contractors and middle mgt and the greatest investment/ potential would be the grads (lowest risk category). The bank is relatively safe as they are now secured against failure by govt and so *touch wood" I feel it is still quite a secure banking grad program.

I'm not being arrogant, just saying it's a lowered risk as I think all other industries will now be feeling the ripple effects and take the spotlight from the banks soon.

- Sorry for the rant, an idiot has just messaged me with a bit of bankers it's your fault spiel which has set me off...if you check out my first post I started Aug 08 and it all kicked off a few weeks after during my training period, so no I am not solely responsible!

hethmar

patch - to make your position even safer with your bank, could you get your mortgage with them?

patch3228

It would be ideal to take out a mortgage with the employer but they are HQ in US:

To apply, you must be a U.S. citizen or resident alien. And the property you purchase must be in the U.S.

So no can do I'm afraid :rolleyes:

Hethmar, not sure if you can answer this but would your son in Woolwich be able to give a rough idea of expenses he faced when he moved into his first flat there?

I am trying to do some forecasting of potential expenses (e.g. council tax, emergency repairs, home redecorating etc)

I am 100% confident of my entire financial standing, but this weekend I sat down properly with OH and really really drilled down on what we have to like the nearest £!!

Found out a serious surprise on OH financial standing and so now trying to forecast our potential monthly spend to re-evalute how much of our savings we should put up as deposit.

We are keen to keep the LTV to around 70% with a target property price of no more than £140,000 in total. As I said with the Repossessed documentary this has spooked us not to overstretch!