The FTB club

Xinpei

Hi there,
After reading this forum (and various others!), I get the feeling there are quite a few FTB's out there in process of buying a house! I am a FTB myself with my husband and we are now waiting for the solicitor's to prepare something for us to sign which will hopefully lead to exchange of contracts soon.

Like some of the FTB's on this forum, I am feeling a little beat because of all the doom and gloom and suffering from the worst of all nightmares - the possibility of negative equity! Is any other FTB as anxious as I am?

Please feel free to join this thread if you are a FTB (or not...)! I hope we can all exchange advice and opinions on buying our first houses and share our experiences! How did you decide this is the time to buy and how are your feelings thus far? Where are you at in your buying process?? Will you be moving in with barely no furniture (like we are!)? Are you confused with the myraid of insurances your mortgage advisor is talking about?

Hope to hear from you lot soon!

sacol4940

Xinpei wrote: »

Hi there,
After reading this forum (and various others!), I get the feeling there are quite a few FTB's out there in process of buying a house! I am a FTB myself with my husband and we are now waiting for the solicitor's to prepare something for us to sign which will hopefully lead to exchange of contracts soon.

Like some of the FTB's on this forum, I am feeling a little beat because of all the doom and gloom and suffering from the worst of all nightmares - the possibility of negative equity! Is any other FTB as anxious as I am?

Please feel free to join this thread if you are a FTB (or not...)! I hope we can all exchange advice and opinions on buying our first houses and share our experiences! How did you decide this is the time to buy and how are your feelings thus far? Where are you at in your buying process?? Will you be moving in with barely no furniture (like we are!)? Are you confused with the myraid of insurances your mortgage advisor is talking about?

Hope to hear from you lot soon!

Hi myself and my bf are FTBs and we had our offer accepted on a house on Monday. So far its going fine, no probs as yet but you never know whats going to happen do you? I'm trying not to get too excited just in case it falls through but its hard.

We thought that it might be the best time for us to buy seeing as the prices are low and we have a decent deposit saved - many ppl on this forum may disagree on ur decision but each to there own.

We're going to see our IFA tonight to sort out which mortgage is best for us (we've already been told that we wont have a problem getting one) and im probably going to get confused with everything he says so ill be asking a fair few questions me thinks lol.

Furniture wise, we have a few bits like a bed and a telly but no living room furniture - my bf's mate is lending us a blow up settee untill we get a proper one - could be interesting lol.

Even with all the stories you read on here im still trying to optimistic about things, you have to be dont you?

twirlypinky

I'm not sure if I'm a FTB or not.

At 18 I bought a house with my then bf. We got married, sold the house and moved to another 100 miles away.

We then split up and tried to sell the house and failed, kept on reducing the asking price to the point where the equity once all debts were paid off would leave me with less in total than it was costing me per month to live there. So i handed him the keys and walked away.

We're now divorced and I'm paying back the bit of personal debt that we owed to my grandad (for the deposit on first house) and my dad to get out of former marital home and deposit on flat, plus divorce costs.

Once I've paid this off (by Nov this year) I'll be saving for a deposit on what will be my first house alone.

It's going to take bloody ages!

russ21282

I'm technically not a FTB, but kinda of am. I bought a house with a friend before we went to uni, but now i'm getting a place with my GF (We're keeping the old place to rent out, so nothing to sell)

I'm not too bothered about the doom and gloom as we are buying a home, not an investment. We are only buying off my GFs income though, so we have the greater wage as contingency if the worst happens.

I do think a lot of people make it all sound a lot worse than it is, "this could happen", "what if this happens?" etc. I'm not against being prepared for the worst, but i think people spouting off what they have read in a newspapers doesn't help matters, at the end of the day nobody knows what's going to happen, so we should all get on with our lives

Luckily we have pretty much everything we need furniture-wise, so no added expense there.

We had an offer accepted last week 13% less than asking. Survey should be done this week, so fingers crossed!

rs82uk

NOOO fellow FTB refuse to buy at these inflated prices if we all refuse to buy then the prices will come down further.

TopKat*1

I am a FTB, Im in the process of buying, offer has been accepted (20k below asking price) I feel it is a great deal but am very very very nervous and trying not too get excited as i think someone is going to come in higher than us, cant even sleep at night

sacol4940

rsootarsing wrote: »

NOOO fellow FTB refuse to buy at these inflated prices if we all refuse to buy then the prices will come down further.

if we're happy with the prices we're paying then whats the problem?

sacol4940

TopKat*1 wrote: »

I am a FTB, Im in the process of buying, offer has been accepted (20k below asking price) I feel it is a great deal but am very very very nervous and trying not too get excited as i think someone is going to come in higher than us, cant even sleep at night

i know the feeling TopKat, my chest pounds everytime i think about it

things_are_looking_up

We had our offer accepted 2 weeks ago, mortgage secured, we have been waiting for ages, this house came up at the right price so we made a offer and they accepted.

We offered the asking price, but its was 30,000 pound cheaper than similar properties in the same area, and the fall in house prices by me have been minimal.

We bumped into a lot of other people viewing when we where looking, just glad its all over now hopefully, and we can get on with our lives in our first house.

We was going to wait, but the way ftb's have statrted to come back by us we thought we better get in there quick.

good luck to everyone else whos took the plunge aswell;)

bobbadog

My partner and I are FTB's - we exchanged contracts today! So far so good, nice easy process

Xinpei

Welcome to everyone.. It great hearing from other FTB's.. I love your nick things_are_looking_up lol!
Congrats on the contract exchange bobbadog, what types of insurance did you get for your mortgage?? We are looking at MPP, critical illness and of course home and buildings. The broker is arranging these for us and it looks like it will cost £120/month in total (!). Not sure if this is about what everyone else is paying??

TopKat, I'd say try not to worry about other bidders but I know how emotional it can get! Think about your position as a FTB and all ready to proceed. If your offer has been accepted, tell the EA to take it off market and that should prevent any more viewings!

About the comment about not buying at inflated prices, Personally, we really need to buy - living with in laws at the moment, love them to bits but need to get on with our lives without worrying about spinning our laundry dry before putting them in the dryer because father-in-law kicks up a BIG fuss about 10 more min in dryer. (we do pay our rent at market prices too so we're not sponging off them!) Prices in our region has fallen to a level where we can now afford a house we like and can see ourselves in for some years to come.