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First time buyer - to buy or not to buy - plus mortgage enquiries
jinglebell
Posts: 43 Forumite
Hi all,
I am new to this forum. Firstly thank you for reading this thread. Anyone with similar experience is welcome to share and help is very much appreciated!
My husband and I are first time buyers. My basic salary + allowance is 26k a year. My husband is a full time Phd student with funding- 1400 tax free per month ( with payslips) till 2011. We have a deposit of around 30k.
The reason why we want to buy now is that we have been paying a rent of 900 pounds a month for a year and a half now. We are both sick of paying for our landlord's mortgage. We applied Newbuild homebuy scheme and the flat we would like to consider is in west of London, zone 4.
It is a brand new two bed flat which doesnt come with parking space, however, parking space is fairly easy to find near the building. ( over 3 floors) The asking price is between 190k to 197k. Apart from lack of parking space, the flat is north facing, which means it doesnt have much sunlight coming in in the day.I had a quick look at the housing prices in the surrounding area, two bed flats can go as low as 18k with a similar condition.
My questions are:
1, Should we buy or should we keep renting? We are aiming to buy 60% share. Spoke to a couple of mortgage advisors, they all reckon that the repayment plus the rent and service charge will come similar if not less than our current rent.
2, With New build homebuy properties, is there any chance that we can put a lower offer than the asking price? Maybe 170k to start with? My concern is that the agent told me there is no room for price reduction and if I put a low offer, the flat may be gone to someone else as there are only a couple left.
3, Mortage side, can my husband get a mortgage?
4, My allowance part will only be shown on pay slips from next month and on as it was recently added as my income. Will banks take the allowance into account?
I am sorry there are so many questions. It is a big move for first time buyers. Please help!
I am new to this forum. Firstly thank you for reading this thread. Anyone with similar experience is welcome to share and help is very much appreciated!
My husband and I are first time buyers. My basic salary + allowance is 26k a year. My husband is a full time Phd student with funding- 1400 tax free per month ( with payslips) till 2011. We have a deposit of around 30k.
The reason why we want to buy now is that we have been paying a rent of 900 pounds a month for a year and a half now. We are both sick of paying for our landlord's mortgage. We applied Newbuild homebuy scheme and the flat we would like to consider is in west of London, zone 4.
It is a brand new two bed flat which doesnt come with parking space, however, parking space is fairly easy to find near the building. ( over 3 floors) The asking price is between 190k to 197k. Apart from lack of parking space, the flat is north facing, which means it doesnt have much sunlight coming in in the day.I had a quick look at the housing prices in the surrounding area, two bed flats can go as low as 18k with a similar condition.
My questions are:
1, Should we buy or should we keep renting? We are aiming to buy 60% share. Spoke to a couple of mortgage advisors, they all reckon that the repayment plus the rent and service charge will come similar if not less than our current rent.
2, With New build homebuy properties, is there any chance that we can put a lower offer than the asking price? Maybe 170k to start with? My concern is that the agent told me there is no room for price reduction and if I put a low offer, the flat may be gone to someone else as there are only a couple left.
3, Mortage side, can my husband get a mortgage?
4, My allowance part will only be shown on pay slips from next month and on as it was recently added as my income. Will banks take the allowance into account?
I am sorry there are so many questions. It is a big move for first time buyers. Please help!
0
Comments
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SO is a scam to keep prices high - realistically you should be able to afford that flat outright, but if people keep falling for the SO claptrap then people like yourself will never be able to afford a first time decent home.0
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Before I came to this forum, all I heard about homebuy schemes is that they help first time buyers get on the property ladder quicker.
After I read a few threads, I realized there are so many people who are not big fans of this kind of scheme.
It is a shame that I haven't heard any real opinions from people who are living in SO properties.
0 -
People are often blinkered/don't want to admit when what they've done is not quite right so I think that even when someone is not 100% happy about their SO scheme they'll claim it's great and worked well for them.
All this positive spin that you see is coming from one side with only one agenda - to keep house prices high/increase them. It's kind of strange that it's a bad thing when almost anything else goes up in price - clothes, petrol, food but when it's houses the government etc think it's great...0 -
It is true that SO is a way of letting people who don't have the money get on the property ladder. In my opinion, it should be difficult for a fulltime student to buy a house, but your income seems high and there shouldn't be a problem with getting a mortgage.
It is harder to get a mortgage for SO, and it is harder to sell in the future and since you still pay half rent, it may work out quite expensive.
How settled do you feel you are? Could you see yourselves living in that property for several years, say 6 or 8? If so, go for it. If you feel you would want a bigger house by then, I would be inclined to wait, save hard and buy in a couple of years time. (Although take into account what you'll be earning then and the likelihood of having jobs.)0 -
With both your earnings and your deposit I think you'll be able to get a £195k property OUTRIGHT with minimal problems depending on whether the lender doesn't mind your husbands 'studying'.....0
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