My Homebuy Direct experience

DVardysShadow

madeupname1 wrote: »

If you've seen the housing market over decades, you will have seen that the house price trend has been overwhelmingly up. My parents bought their home, a 3 bedroom terrace in south west london zone 3, in 1979 for £16,000. Since then we have had several booms and bust, but at no point as the price dropped to that level or the equivalent level taking into account inflation. Indeed the value of the house as increased 25 times since then, even with the latest crash. I don't think anyone is expecting anything like the same level of house price inflation in the future but personally I think anyone who is expecting a sustained 50 to 60% drop is going to be waiting a long time. Not least because, there is a large pool of people out there waiting for prices to come down so that they can get onto the ladder or invest at a low price.

You stripped my quote of of its context.

and I have previously seen this same stage of the housing market, after a boom, when the schemes such as you have bought into are rolled out to maintain houseprices which had shot up to unsustainable levels in the years immediately prior.

These schemes are part of the reason why the trend is so overwhelmingly up.

chauhja

Ive recently gone through the Homebuy Direct Scheme to purchase a property through persimmon homes. I am at the stage where the bank has sent in their surveyor, who has surveyed valued the property 10k less then the persimmon purchase price. Persimmon where going to through in carpets and vinyly for the whole house prior to the valuation, however, because of the surveyors devaluation, they are no longer giving us this incentive. Can I complain about this? They are saying they have no where in writing that this has been agreed. I am frustrated at this as I am a first time buyer and would like to pro actively do something about this. Please advise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks

SelbyJay_2

Has anybody else noticed that it's the same handful of people that slate these types of schemes? They all stick together and "like" each other's comments. No need to mention names, but i'm sure you know who i mean. They're like some coven of doom and gloom.

The fact is, HBD and shared ownerships schemes DO work. They arent for everybody and, like with ANY property investment, there is ALWAYS the risk of loosing.

You can bark all you want about developers and aforementioned schemes keeping prices inflated, but can you REALLY see prices coming back down to an affordable level? Affordable considering the average salary in this county is about £25k?

If you can believe that prices will EVER drop this much then you are in serious need of some psychiatric care.

poppy10_2

SelbyJay wrote: »

The fact is, HBD and shared ownerships schemes DO work. They arent for everybody and, like with ANY property investment, there is ALWAYS the risk of loosing.

What, like the £4,000 you have lost on your SO flat in less than a month?

SelbyJay wrote: »

You can bark all you want about developers and aforementioned schemes keeping prices inflated, but can you REALLY see prices coming back down to an affordable level? Affordable considering the average salary in this county is about £25k?

If you can believe that prices will EVER drop this much then you are in serious need of some psychiatric care.

I'd argue that if you really believe current house prices are sustainable given the average salary you just quoted, then you are the one who needs their head examined. If people aren't earning enough, where is the extra money going to come from? Until now it has just been borrowed as part of a global credit binge, but those days are over.

Muhasib

poppy10 wrote: »

What, like the £4,000 you have lost on your SO flat in less than a month?

I'd argue that if you really believe current house prices are sustainable given the average salary you just quoted, then you are the one who needs their head examined. If people aren't earning enough, where is the extra money going to come from? Until now it has just been borrowed as part of a global credit binge, but those days are over.

Both views could be correct - SelbyJay said prices wouldn't come back down to the average salary, he didn't explicitly say that current prices were sustainable either so they could drop a lesser amount. Again this is straying into the territory of the house prices board rather than 'my homebuy experience'.

Pinzy

Congrats on the house OP! :T It's looking great! (Feeling quite jealous! )

Looks like you got a good deal. All very well people having opinions on what you "should" be paying, but in actual real life, those are the prices that are out there, and you've knocked £9k off, which is a darn sight more savvy than a lot of others!:beer:

As with everything, different schemes work for different people. The most important thing is research research research!

Happy house moving!

SelbyJay_2

The flat was overvalued by estate agents in the first place and i foolishly took their advice. I'd hardly say i'm the first person to ever have done that! Hardly anything is selling in this area at the moment but i'm now confident i have the right price. Only time will tell.

The days of borrowing 10 times your salary should be over as that was irresponsible. That's where shared ownership is a good idea. It's so highly unlikely that prices will ever drop to such an extent where you can buy a house for 3 times your salary, as well as saving the HUGE deposit. So you buy half now and buy half later. Isnt that the whole point of credit? Letting you make a purchase in manageable, affordable, chunks?

Massive drops in property values would have a devastating effect on 10s of millions of homeowners, plunging them in to negative equity which would massively affect confidence in the country's economy, which is already shakey. Is this really what the country needs?

It's a wonderful, idealistic, view to think that property will ever be that cheap again, but, along with borrowing 10 times your salary, i believe those days are gone. Get over it and find an alternative way to achieve your goals...like shared ownership and HBD : )

smartie5

Also, we are a couple but appealed against the 2 bed limit and were given a 3 bed grant so we won't need to move for aaages :j


Hi tb1105,
My boyfriend and myself are currently going through the same scheme as you ( I am also a teacher) with Persimmon homes. We have just been told we can't have a 3 bed house as we are a couple and only entitled to a 2 bed!
We are going to appeal this decsion and just wondered if you had any tips of things you said to get your 3 bed house?
Also Persimmon told us we couldn't have any 'extras' like carpets or turf thrown in and also told us that as we were going through the scheme there was no movement on the actual price of the house itself!

You seem to ave got a great deal and hope you are very happy in your house. Good luck for the move this weekend:T

kaych

well done I am sure you will enjoy your home very much!
Doesn't really matter what the others say, if you think it's worth it, then it is.
I think the scheme technically helps people to get on the property ladder earlier as lesser deposit is required. Whereas without using the scheme, you would have to save a couple more years in order to have sufficient deposit... honestly I would rather have the house now than 5 years later...

cocomonkey_2

update on homebuy process:

Thought I would give an update of our homebuy story - been assessed and pleasantly surprised to be granted 25pc under the scheme - which means we can get the better mortgage rate. We earn basic salary close to £60k however make as much as you can of your outgoings as they take this into consideration. Buying a 3 bed house from redrow for £169,995. Been approved by Halifax for our mortgage so awaiting valuation soon. You need a lot of patience on this scheme as you want things to happen overnight - it's now been 5 weeks since we reserved our property and only just about getting to valuation stage. Well worth it though to persevere - we are getting a lovely house and would need to stump up about £40k on deposit on our own - we fully intend and can afford to buy the equity loan back asap and as our mortgage is very manageable (only £100 a month more than we are paying on rent of a two bed flat!) we can start saving straight away to start buying back within the five year interest free period. We won't move before five years anyway I imagine.

Any questions pls ask

Coco