House Buying - Moneysaving Tips

alexer

Hi,
Home buying money saving tips include creating a budget, saving for a down payment, checking your credit report and score, researching loan options, getting pre-qualified, knowing your local housing market and comparing mortgage lenders.

tenantfile

Thanks Andrewsmith for giving such information.
I am looking to buy a house. I saw a semi-detached house advertisement that do not need much refurbishment.It is quite far from city centre, about 20 hours by train. Can you tell me, how can I negotiate for this.

Pupnik

Hi, my partner and I are first time buyers interested in a house and have put an offer in for a price we are happy with (although we would probably be prepared to raise it a bit if pressed). We have a 50% deposit and a mortgage in principle, we are renting on a flexible contract so can start to move whenever. I feel like we are in a good position to buy and have fallen a little bit in love with the property, and the mortgage will be a lot less than our monthly rent. The trouble is someone has put an offer in at the same price that we have, but the vendor told me that this person had put the offer in about a month ago and it has not moved any further because this person- bizarrely enough, does not actually have a deposit! I was pretty surprised by this, apparently she is planning to borrow money from family members but has not yet come up with the goods. I would assume that without a deposit she also does not have a mortgage in principle so I'm surprised she was so keen to put an offer in- especially as the estate agent arranged for us to see a mortgage advisor before we started looking so we could know how much we could afford/ borrow. We have not yet heard back about our offer as the vendor is away and the EA has not been able to get to her.

At the moment I am worrying that this other buyer might still be in the running, and that the EA might contact her and might get her to finalise her deposit and raise her offer. Does anyone have any tips on how to handle this situation if it occurs? In a perfect world our offer will be accepted, surveys will be good, the house will go off the market and we can buy it, but this isn't a perfect world, sadly! Perhaps I should have given an ultimatum so that our offer has to be accepted by a certain date (so the other buyer does not get a chance to get things together) but I did not realise this was common practice before I came here. Would it be too late to now say that they only have a set amount of time left with our offer before we move on? Not that I want to move on, but I don't really want them knowing just how keen we are, either.

Also, is it common for people with no deposit/ mortgage in place to make an offer on a house?! It just seems barmy to me! We did not even start looking until we had saved up enough for a reasonable deposit.

crazycatlady1984

Hi all,

New to the site, this is my first post and just looking for a bit of advice!

Myself and OH are currently buying our first home - exciting and nervewracking!! Offer has been accepted, but now the acceptance has come back stating that there are a few things wrong in the house - nothing major, a few lights dont work, the hob doesnt work etc, and basically that I have to accept that to buy it!

I'm not too happy about this, as we are paying a lot of money, there are a couple of other things needing done to the house, and I don't fancy the money and inconvenience of having to get tradesmen, electricians etc out to fix this.

I feel they should get these fixed - anyone got an opinion on this?

Any advice would be much appreciated!!:)

Pupnik

Well, with the lights thing it could just be the switch, especially if they are on a dimmer as they break a lot, in which case you can repair it pretty easily for just a few pounds. If it is actual wiring then find out how much it would cost to repair and see if you can negotiate on the price. Not sure about the hob- is the oven fitted into the kitchen or free standing? If it is free standing, were you planning on keeping? I just ask because the one I am buying has a really old cooker with a broken grill (vendor is very upfront) so I had already factored into the fact we would be buying one. I can imagine it would be annoying if you thought it was a brand new cooker though. If it is attached that is doubly annoying as it will be more costly to replace.

crazycatlady1984

I have no idea to be honest, thats the difficulty! If it something very small, you would think they would just fix it, and if it is something big, that they don't want to get involved in, I would hope they would take money off the agreed price?

Ah well, time will tell! Just struggling to get much advise out of my solicitor so on my own a bit! I have asked solicitor to put it to their solicicitor that I want it fixed, so we'll see.

Although they also have a clause in their acceptance stating that if we dont complete, we owe them money (the amount of the deposit or something) and then if the house then sells for less than the px we had agreed, we owe them the balance???!! plus daily interest for every day we dont pay??!!! Does anybody know if this is standard? Or is this just an incredibly tough solicitor?

ashaput

Have you tried to talk about this to them? If they are good people they should be willing to fix the "ruin" things in that home
I just hope you haven't handed some money for the home. Just try to assure them that it is no way for you to give some money for the home with bad facilities like that. Good luck and sorry for my messy English.

johnpaul74

Hey chaps,

Me and the missus went to a FA yesterday and discussed a mortgage with a lendfer who advised us on Gifted Vendor Deposit. Is this a worthy scheme? The fact that it allows us to have a interest rate at 4.69% as opposed to 5.99% is an incentive in itself.

We have, however, found a struggle with interpreting the scheme as the day progressed. The fact that we would lay down 10% on a house at £100k, where does the 5% gift come in?

seanysean23

I think that when buying a house, one way in which you could potentially save money is by getting a surveyor to have a look at the house. This way you can see if there is anything that is likely to go wrong with the house either now or in a few years and can think about how much this would cost you. Surveyors can generally find things that most of us wont even notice. It may also mean that you can re-negotiate the price of the house if the surveyer finds faults with it. I personally have used CollierStevens,does anyone have any ideas of who else is good to use?

crazycatlady1984

Hey guys, sellers solicitors have advised that these things "will not be repaired", with no mention of a reduction in price!

However, these issues now pale in comparison to the fact that it has now come to light that, due a right of access of the neighbours, we would not be able to use the driveway.

Firstly really quite annoyed that they did not tell us about this; concerned about what else they havent told us; and concerned about the problems we will have when we eventually try to sell.

We have been parking out on the street for years, so its not a huge issue to us, not not happy to say the same price for what we thought had driveway and what turns out does not.

Added to this is the fact that the conveyancing compnay im using are abysmal. I have only had contact with a paralegal who seems to think I'm being petty and pedantic by wanting to see the deeds and have clarification on the driveway issue. Not a happy bunny at all!

Have called the solicitor and left voicemail asking to make appointment to speak to him about these issues, no response as yet.....