House Buying - Moneysaving Tips

PruHarrison

Great tips! I suggested that to one of my friend & really he ask me to join this group. As well, he was appreciated your tips.

Gad_subone

Real estate is a huge investment, prepare yourself with some pointers before you purchase the house of your dreams.

bylromarha

Quick Q.

When buying, you have to have buildings insurance in place for exchange.

How do you get this without paying for more days than you need, if exchange date is unknown?

I only ask as we sold my late mum's house earlier this year and actual exchange date was a week after solicitors 1st told us it would be. Don't fancy paying for a week more insurance than needed.

kingstreet

Haletruck wrote: »

1) Know Your Budget is the most important, or you will get in a very big trouble!

Right. That's your ten posts.

Spamaway!

Damson

I recently saw a post ref: JKM, and I purchased through them 2 years ago. From start to finish it was a nightmare, and as everyone reports, the concept is good, but the execution is dreadful. The main problems were the lack of an onsite project manager (as promised), and staff leaving regularly, resulting in no continuity. Handover dates were missed, a promised 6 week turnaround resulted in 10 weeks, and I had to move into rental accomodation due to the delays, resulting in additional costs. I asked for the removal of a dining room fireplace, and they removed the lounge one by mistake, and I ended up project managing the site myself, as the sub contractors kept leaving because of the chaos.Damson

emma.b123

Just thought I'd add my 2 penneth....
We're currently in the early stages of listing our first home for sale to then begin looking to upsize. We've been keeping tabs on the market (for both selling and buying purposes) over the last 4 months or so.
I don't work in the industry, but my job is in purchasing, so I have some experience in negotiations (albeit in a completely different field). It does puzzle me the extent of this very 'British' attitude towards negotiating... and whether certain offers would be 'embarassing' or 'causing offense' to the sellers! Obviously you need to do your homework and discover not only what you are wiling and able to offer, but what you think is reasonable - but by NO MEANS feel embarassed, or that you have to seek permission on what you should or shouldn't offer!
I even watched an episode of 'location, location, location' that aired last night. A retired couple put in an offer that was (if I recall) about 15% below asking. Phil made a song and dance about being embarassed about the offer, and even said the EA sounded cross with him for making that offer....and surprise surprise, the offer was accepted! I'm probably stating the glaringly obvious - but this is likely the biggest purchase of your life; and the matter of £££s should never be *phished* up the wall, because of shyness or some imagined etiquette about putting in offers.
On a related note, when we were buying our first home 5 years ago: we made an offer on a house (one with those silly "offers between x & y" listings.). We put in an offer about £5k below the lower end, to have a VERY shady EA intitially refuse to even submit the offer. We gently reminded them that they were legally/ethically obliged to submit the offer, which they did begrudgingly: and it was refused by the buyer. We left it at that, as a few days later we found the house we fell in love with, and are in today. To our amusement, we got a call from the same agent less than 2 weeks later, informing us that the seller was interested in discussing the offer that they initially refused to even submit!! I can't deny that we took pleasure in telling the agent to get lost!
...Long story short, the moral of the story is really to forget any hang ups or embarassment you have about making offers to agents or sellers. We as a nation seem to have this prudish hang up when it comes to money. Unless of course you are in the privileged position of being able to waste thousands on nothing but pride alone!!
Good luck all! x

longforgotten

We have our home on the market and recently had an offer of £20k less than it was on the market for.


We too took great pleasure in telling the prospective buyers to get lost


I stongly feel they wanted to take advantage of the fact we were keen to move and they had the cash.


It's dog eat dog out there !


I think a log cabin could well be the answer !!!

freeaction

In my opinion, a lot of the psychological stuff people talk about regarding the offering process, depends entirely on the vendor . If it's decent, reasonable people selling, then sometimes as much as the money, who they sell to matters....
:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:

pinkteapot

bylromarha wrote: »

Quick Q.

When buying, you have to have buildings insurance in place for exchange.

How do you get this without paying for more days than you need, if exchange date is unknown?

I only ask as we sold my late mum's house earlier this year and actual exchange date was a week after solicitors 1st told us it would be. Don't fancy paying for a week more insurance than needed.

I asked my solicitor this. She was happy for me to get quotes in advance, but then ring the insurer on the day (immediately after exchange) and start the policy. I had to get the insurer to email me the certificate (rather than wait for the post), then I forwarded it to the solicitor. See if your solicitor is happy for you to do this.

By the way, check first that the people you're buying from aren't insured with Hiscox. We have Hiscox home insurance and only just noticed that one of the policy benefits is buildings insurance for our buyers between exchange and completion! I.e. they don't have to arrange cover themselves. We didn't know this, or we'd have told our buyers and sent them copies of the policy for their solicitor.

danielhermann

Purchasing a house is a big ticket item and therefore it would do well to go through this post and comments in great detail to capitalise on cost reduction as envisaged in the article.
A good way of reducing costs during the time you hold the title is to asess the risks, minimize the risks and insure your property with an insurance company with a good track record. Will definitely help you in keeping costs down.