The FTB club

lauren1983

Sorry to hear that Vkay. Everything seemed to be going smootly for you up to now.

When we sold our house we had to pay for an indemnity policy because work had been done by ourselves and therefore no certificates. Not sure but maybe they could do that in your situation.

So was the house a prefab before??

Again im sorry for your problems but i have a bit of news that i must share
We went to apply for our mortgage saturday and got a call today saying the underwriter had approved the mortgage subject to a valuation of the house !!!

I couldnt believe it has happened soooo fast :j

Hope everything works out for you soon!

lauren

VKay

That is great news Lauren- speeding through the whole process!!

In answer to yuor question the house was built in the 40s from something called Cornish unit- basically cheap materials and quick post war housing. in the 80s this was deemed to be substandard and the council had to rebuild many properties in timber frame. Now we need proof that this has been done properly to remove all the 'concrete cancer'. cornish unit is unmortgageable (well unless you go to a specialist lender and pay HUGE interest rates!) and most sell to cash buyers to let out -not us! If we don't get it sorted we will pull out and I guess be glad one day that our solicitor is a tough old bird (she's great!).

Keep us posted- it's good to hear your news and thanks for the comment about the indemnity thingy- worth thinking about in our situation.

HockeyDuo8083

hostman wrote: »

Oh right, that silly Scottish system.

:rotfl: It's all good though!So far...

driver85

hello, thought I would give you my story now that we (hopefully) have an offer accepted.

We decided at xmas this was the right time to buy, borrowing some money off the parents to give us a 15% deposit. Me and OH earn decent wages for our age and can borrow up to £170k. We've had to do some soul searching as to how much we wanted to spend vs what different price ranges would buy us. We were looking at properties which were vastly different on the market from £110k up to £150k!! If I was starting this process again I'd set a price before looking and stick to it. We've seen very different properties, some huge for the 2 of us, some fairly modest so it's been extremely confusing but the in the end we've decided not to stretch ourselves as we will prob want to move when we start a family (at least 5 years away).

We've had a lot of frustrations along the way, people have seemingly been about to agree a price then have said they've decided to rent. One seller has been stringing us along for 5 weeks without accepting out offer!! At times I've been really annoyed with the whole process and stopped being able to distinguish between like and love for property!

Anyway, we've finally found a 2 bed semi we really like, on the market at £131k, and after haggling with the vendors we've agreed a price of £121k - we're just waiting for them to get back to us with the final 'yes' tomorrow - fingers crossed!!

Good luck to everyone else - my advice is research what you can get in your area for various levels of budget then make a decision before you go look at any. Finally, you're the buyer - walk away if your not sure, you can always go back in a few weeks.

OfficeSpace

My girlfriend and I going through the process of buying our first house at the moment. Had our offer of £160k accepted on a 3 bed place that was up for £175k back on the 9th Jan. The seller is buying a new build and Bovis homes said they would knock £15k off the price if exchange was completed in 28 days...

Well we missed 28 days, but doesn't seem to have been a problem. We've got everything in place and have been twiddling out thumbs frankly. The garage that comes with the property is under a coachhouse thing and our solicitor has been waiting and waiting for details. Thankfully we've got some progress now as we got our contracts to sign the other day Hoping to move from 1st April!

If you want a stat to scare you... our seller bought the house new in Dec 2003 for £240k. She has lost £80k on the place in just over 5 years :O

Out of interest how much have people stretched themselves to buy? We had a 10% deposit and decided to push what we could afford and effectively skip the first rung on the ladder. We've hopefully got a place we can stay for a really long time now and raise a family. I just keep telling myself this is as poor as I'll get (probably!).

before_hollywood

HockeyDuo8083 wrote: »

edit: Before Hollywood: we were offered a £250K mortgage (OH is on a very high salary) but we thought this was crazy with the current economic climate. We had a £40K deposit and now only need a £98K mortgage.
I would say cut your cloth to meet your needs. There is no point saddling yourself with unecessary debt.

thanks, i will remember that, i absolutely hate debt and a mortgage is a necessary evil

Wickedkitten

We aren't stretching at all. Almost 20% deposit and 3x salary.

Xinpei

What would be stretching?? We are borrowing less than 2.5 times our combined income.. I presume this is calculated with gross salaries? (you would think I should know this by now!)

Xinpei

OfficeSpace wrote: »

I just keep telling myself this is as poor as I'll get (probably!).

I felt really deflated yesterday after doing the same day bank transfer to our solicitors (21 grand!! :eek: ) Luckily I got paid last night as well so not too empty now......

SwissLe

I had a 30% deposit and was planning to pay £100,000 but only ended up spending £98,000. This means I have had spare cash for survey fees, solicitor fees, ground rent and a years management fees in the bank.

I have only gone just over 3x my basic salary for the mortgage, however, my girlfriend will be living with me and contributing to the house so it's going to be cheaper than where I am renting - in theory