Preparing to be a Single First Time Buyer

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Hi All,

I'm just starting out on career & property ladder and currently earning £24,500, which should rise to somewhere nearer £30,000 in the next year.

I've just signed for another rental property for another year at £600PCM, but i'm very concious that I don't want to 'throw my money away' in this way for too much longer (hence hanging around this site ). However I have been put off from buying this time because I don't think 3x my salary would get me anywhere I really want to live.

Currently i'm managing to do quite well on the savings front, and by this time next year I hope to have accumalated around £20,000 to put towards a boost into the house buying.

I'm wondering if MSE's have any advice on how best to position myself for buying at this time next year. Are there mortgages which favour themselves to first-time buyers who are progressing up the career ladder?

Currently its the battle between living somewhere really quite grotty vs. "loosing money" renting.

Thanks

Careful_girl

Hi there Undefined and Welcme to the Forums. Let me warn you that we all have our own opinion and you will be told many views. The question whether to buy or rent is dicussed frequently and you may want to look at other threads relating to the question.
I was in a similar situation to you about 10yrs ago and i bought my first house. i needed to put in central heating and tidy it up hugely. It meant that i bought something which increased in value quickly. I have then bought and sold alone and with my husband 5 times since then for a variety of reasons. I have put every penny i own into property as I enjoy living in nice areas and in nice houses.
My advice to you is to buy. However nobody can guarentee that interest rates will stay low of that property prices will not fall. Last thing i heard was that due to the govt not introducing the buyers pack, that prices would rise. I have been very lucky. I bought my first house when prices were low. If you buy my rule is buy something in a good area then try to get something which needs some tidying up. Lots of buyers don't seem to want to buy tatty houses, I buy ones with graffitti and orange carpets. Be careful choosing builders I came a cropper there!
Stick to the forums there are a huge number of highly informed people on here and you can take the advice which you believe to be the best. The differences of opinion can really help make decisions sometimes.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
CG.:j

PoorDave

You should be able to borrow at least 4x salary, if not 5x. It becomes a question of how much debt you're comfortable with or can afford.

I have a quick look on Nationwide (my lender), and they will lend you 98000 for approx £600pcm. Depends if this is enough to buy in your chosen area.

Do you have the means/potential to have a decent deposit?

Obviously £30k salary buys more house, but more debt

Prudent

I agree with careful girl that taking on a property that needs work can be a good starting point. When my marriage broke down four years ago I had three choices: rent, buy a property that ideally I wouldn't want , buy the kind of property I would want and do it up. I chose the latter. As I have only been able to do it as money became available, its taken time. I now have a nice home, decorated to my taste and worth double what I paid. It was a gamble because local property prices had just risen a lot and there was speculation they wouldn't rise further, but I am glad I took that gamble.

I should add that when I started I didn't even know how to use a drill.

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PoorDave wrote:

Do you have the means/potential to have a decent deposit?

As I said above, I hope to have about 20K to be able to put towards a deposit.

PoorDave wrote:

Obviously £30k salary buys more house, but more debt

I would be fairly cumfortable having the mortgage debt, especially as I currently don't have any outstanding debts to worry about. I generally seem to manage without spending a great deal, which allows funds to be used in investing in the mortgage.

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Prudent wrote:

I agree with careful girl that taking on a property that needs work can be a good starting point.

I do wholeheartly agree, it makes financial sense and indeed I expect is an enjoyable experience to craft a nice home.

Careful_girl

If you want to know more about the whole process there are some excellent sticky threads, some particularly for first time buyers. Have a look. Martin has stuff on the main site about mortgage searches but beware having set up my own mortgage 4 times myself successfully I ran into problems with a serach site this time. Read up on using brokers too. i set up my first mortgage with an independent financial advisor who was a family friend. He was very helpful there are good brokers who post on the site too.
It just may aid your decision if you know they types of properties you are comparing.
All the best,
CG.:beer:

Iwantahouse_2

I have a Mortgage 5xish my salary on a 40year repayment with A+L

MortgageMamma

Good advice as always from CG there.