Anyone want to support each other while saving to move up the ladder?

uropachild

Hi there! I wondered if anyone else is in the same boat as my husband and i and would like to share the journey to affording a bigger house?

We are currently in a 3 bedroom semi and although the house is in a lovely location it's just not big enough for our future family. We would like to have two children of our own and then probably foster / possibly adopt later on down the line.

Although the house is plenty big enough for us now i figured that we should really start to seriously save and start looking at moving as soon as possible. The bigger our family gets and the older the kids are, the more expensive they will get no doubt!

We did attempt to do a part exchange on a new build property, but the developers were unfortunately not willing to move on their list price, even though the house was a stock plot and it's their financial end of year in December. We thought now would have been the time to get a great deal, but maybe they are selling too well for that.

There are plenty of 4 bedroomed detached houses in the area, so we should be able to find something we like. I just fancied the no hassle, no DIY required of a new build.

So, anyone else in the same boat? Want to share money saving / house moving preparation tips? Are you bothering to improve your house before you put it on the market? Is there a point in doing that these days?

I'd love to talk to others in the same situation.


Original post:

Is there a place on this forum where i can keep a journal and talk to others about saving to move house?

The other half and i want to move to a bigger house without moving to a massively bigger mortgage. We're hoping to have saved enough to make a dint on that over the next couple of years .

:money:

poppysarah

You could start your own thread.

uropachild

Okay then, i think i will edit this to be just that. Thank you!

pinkshoes

I would move up the chain, but can't find anything to buy at the moment, so not worth putting mine on the market.

Perhaps next year more people will be willing to sell, so I've given up for now!!

nic_santorini

We went to buy a new build and you are right, they don't budge on the book price if you are exchanging, but if you went in with your house sold you will find they budge by £20k or so, which means the house just is not worth that much. . They offered us stupid exchange money for ours which was quite frankly insulting . We ended up buying a 3 year old house and it is just like new but has all settled and we got it for a bargain too and have managed to make £25k in 14 weeks. Someone wants to buy the house we are in now already, but we can't be bothered to move again. It is a great time to move up, as there is more money off the bigger houses. I am sure there are deals to be made but watch out, all our new build housing estates were half bought and now they have given the reamining half to the council and now the private buyers who paid £250k plus for their houses can not sell theres because the estate has already gone to rack and ruin.

uropachild

pinkshoes, do you worry that by doing that you will miss out on "the" house because you haven't got a sale for yours first? That's what's concerning me. There are plenty of 4 beds round here, but like you said, not that many on the market. I worry that we hold out on putting ours on in the hope that someone puts something on that we're looking for and then that house - that we want - sells and we still don't have a buyer. Argh!

uropachild

nic, i'm glad you found a house you liked in the end. I would be happy with a "nearly new" as well. I just want something where i won't have to make major repairs or updates for a while. Our house that we're in needs new windows, ceilings plastering, new kitchen etc. I think why bother spending all that money on doing ours up when we could spend the money on moving instead.

uropachild

I'm making a spreadsheet for saving. I have all the months listed for the next two years with our estimated basic income and estimated basic outgoings in columns.

Without using our family allowance or working tax credits or accounting for my husbands overtime or my extra hours etc. we should be able to save 10K in two years.

Hmmm... That's not enough, but with overtime in and everything it should be better.

beccad

We're hoping to move up soon from our 2-bed flat. We've got a couple of bits to sort out here before we can put it on the market (just a lick of paint in the hall just to freshen up, and sort out our leaky loo!). We've done an awful lot of de-cluttering over the last few months, so now we just need to practise at staying tidy and give the place a thorough scrub.

Once we've sold this flat we're probably going to move in with DH's parents for a few months so we'll be able to save most of our income, plus it means we'll avoid being in a chain...

uropachild

beccad, it sounds like you've got the biggest part of the pre-moving stuff sorted - fixing all the stuff that needs fixing and clearing out the c r a p. We moved into our parents while we were buying the house we're in. The guy who bought our last house was going through a divorce and wanted out of his existing house fast and since he'd paid a decent price we moved into mum and dads for a while. It was fine. I was pregnant at the time, so i enjoyed being spoiled. Not being in a chain will put you in a better position when making offers too.

Well, we've done nothing more with moving this week. I am going to contact the estate agents who valued the house for the developers and speak to them about selling. I need to get a few more in too. I am hoping to not have to pay more than 1% in fees, so i figure i'll need to get a fair few valuations and quotes in order to achieve that.

I am still living half in fantasy land about this new build. Hoping that the developers will "see the light" and sell to us for what we wanted to pay. ::sigh:: Neeeeeever going to happen!

beccad

uropachild wrote: »

beccad, it sounds like you've got the biggest part of the pre-moving stuff sorted - fixing all the stuff that needs fixing and clearing out the c r a p. We moved into our parents while we were buying the house we're in. The guy who bought our last house was going through a divorce and wanted out of his existing house fast and since he'd paid a decent price we moved into mum and dads for a while. It was fine. I was pregnant at the time, so i enjoyed being spoiled. Not being in a chain will put you in a better position when making offers too.

It was SO boring having to do it, but it's much better now we're rid of everything. The worst bit about it is that we're not actually missing much of it :rotfl: I suspect once we're done and dusted having moved into our next property, we'll open up all those boxes and wonder why on earth we wanted to keep a lot of it!