The process of buying a house

pie81

Yep, the main thing to do here is to choose and apply for your mortgage. the survey can't happen until you have a mortgage lined up as it will be the mortgage provider who organises the survey. and you may well find that your seller gets nervous if you don't get your survey done quite soon.

So get speaking to brokers. I recommend London & Country who are independent fee free whole of market brokers and found me a good deal. They won't advise on your pension though

The other thing that can and should be done at the same time is to pick a solicitor. you can google loads of cheap conveyancing firms but the cheapo ones can often be sloooow. ask family and friends if they can recommend anyone.

SunnySusie

Well Im buying now, just exchanged, completing next week! If you like it and can afford it then why not I say! I bought my 1st place in 2005 when prices were rocketing and everyone said I was a fool, just sold it for 20k profit without spending a penny on it. If I'm a fool then I'm a happy one !

Get yourself a solicitor. They tend to be good at guiding you through it all. On my 1st purchase I used a cheap factory style remote processing company that churn through loads of these. They are cheap but you'll deal with a call centre and never speak to the solicitor. To be honest it worked well, but this time I paid more for a local independent one who was always available to chat. A much better experience but more pricey so take ya pick!

As above, the first thing to do is get your mortgage drawn up and formalised, and get the surveys started eventually resulting in the mortgage offer. From there the solicitor does a load of searches and finally pulls up a contract for you. This gets exchanged, a week or two later you complete!

Good luck !

kai666

Harry_Powell wrote: »

I am afraid of all the "Don't buy yet you fool, the crash has only just started" and "You'll be buying into negative equity, you idiot, wait 5 years until the market has bottomed!" type comments that I've seen others receive on here.

I've come clean though now.

If you are happy to buy, and can afford it, go for it. Lots of people have vested interests on this board, and so are not going to give a truely objective response

Some people think prices will continue to drop, others think prices will rise, while still more think things are now bumping along the bottom.

2 of those 3 groups will be wrong

I bought back in May, have no regrets. Got the house i wanted in the location I wanted, if the prices drop more then thats life. There will never be a perfect time to buy.

I would rather have the perfect house as possible, than the the cheapest house possible

Harry_Powell

I actually believe that prices will fall a bit further, but we got a bargain on our house and we don't want to rent anymore.