Diary of a first time buyer

peterae

Hi pardal51

Thats great news i hope it all goes well for you, it's amazing how time suddenly goes slow when you start buying .

where did you buy your house (as the price seems similar to what I am looking for)?

We are in the South East coast of England, i don't feel comfortable enough until the sale has gone through to say exactly where it is.
I wouldn't want someone on here Gazumping me.

The problem is: if you borrow the whole amount would you still be able to "live" or would you just have money to repay the mortgage? i understand this is one of the main problems with loads of people.

We were lucky we already knew roughly what we wanted, we didn't really want to spend more than we had to, we will also need to spend money and time getting the place to look how we want it to.

To be honest, how much you knock them down is a calculated risk as to how much you really want the property, and i weighed it up quiet carefully, we had been monitoring this area for a few months, and it seems that properties are having a hard time to sell, also being first time buyers and the property being empty put us in a stronger position than most, there was also a very good chance our deposit would make sure we got the mortgage approved also, again increasing the odds the seller would favor us for a quick sale.

right now i feel it's a buyers market theres been a lot of properties coming onto the market, and bearing in mind theres a chance the prices could drop over the next year or so, i had to make sure we were happy with the price we are going to pay, this was achieved by looking at similar properties and seeing how fast they sold, also looking at recent data on the land registry was also giving me an idea of what they were selling at.

We were also quiet lucky in that we were not restricted to one particular area, we could have also moved 5 miles away and still been close to my work and still bought in a nice area, but different town, so we had quiet a bit of choice.

The main worry for me was the fact the 2nd bedroom was not functional and i had trouble with the fact they were asking money for a 2 bedroom , not a 1 bedroom with a study, which is really what the property was, we do need a 2 bed as my daughter 'Grown up and left' may come to stay for a few weeks from time to time.

peterae

26th July
Phoned my Solicitor today, she wasn't there but her secretary answered.
The contract is in the process of being typed up.
We should hopefully have this tomorrow.

Something i noticed also is that the Estate agent has the property up 'Under Offer'

I tried ringing him but he was not there, i was a bit annoyed as i thought it should be Sold STC because we have had our offer accepted, looks like they are still looking for a buyer to me.

peterae

27th July
Just been notified my accounts are ready, am going to pick them up at 3pm today and run them round to the estate agent.

Batchy

Good luck with your sale 4 weeks will be a push, make sure you are on top of everything, and it shouldnt be a problem.
Fingers crossed it all works out for you.

I also am in the process of buying, I understand what people say about it being stressful, the sale itself is not stressful, its just the question I keep asking myself over the property and whether I should wait longer and buy cheaper (maybe, but it could be more expensive), however, my response to myself is, YES, you could get a cheaper property potentially, but downside risk it could end up being more expensive also, but NO, it wont be this property! So, this keeps me motivated, as I really want THIS PARTICULAR ONE.

Best of british luck!, regards

peterae

Cheers Batchy

Good luck with your buy also, indeed i am sort of sitting here waiting for it to fall through for one reason or another.

It could be the longest 4 weeks of my life LOL.

God's speed, fingers crossed and anything else that helps..

I just dont know how people keep it together when theres a long chain.

peterae

27th July
This afternoon i got my Accounts and passed them onto the guy at Britannia for him to take a copy.
Just waiting on a reference from my accountant and my partners work now.

One other problem i found today.
I switched my current account to Coop from Intelligent Finance, most of my money is in an account with Ing Direct, and i found today the ING account has not been linked to my new coop account and i therefore cannot get to the money

Apparently i have to send a coop cheque to ING with my account details on the back to link it to the coop account.
This could take 5 working days to do GULP.
Not yet sure when i need to pay the deposit but i guess i should find out soon enough.

peterae

28th July
This morning we received a copy of the Land registry details for the property from my Solicitor, there are some convents which restrict various things, and it also shows us that we are responsible for one of the long fences down the right hand side of the property.

If we want to make alterations we need prior consent from the original developer, i have checked companies house and they are still in buisness.

I've got to say so far i am very impressed with Britannia, each time i have a question my Adviser has either spoken directly with me, or phoned me straight back and answered my questions and also been available for me to drop documents into him with very little notice:T

peterae

29th July
Had confirmation that my Mrs works had a reference from the Britannia yesterday, so i hope they've filled that out and sent it back today.

I had a chat with my solicitor today to discuss the covenant on the land registry document, Basically it restricts what you can do with the property, it goes on about not running business and not putting sheds up without permission from the original developer, you cant's even have an aerial on the chimney and any alterations need to go through the developer also.

He basically said it's not a real concern, it dates from 1965 and the developer probably doesn't have any interests in this area anymore, and he said i bet if you look at all the other properties in the development you would find extensions , sheds and conservatory which are very unlikely to have permission.
He is going to do some checks just to see anyway.

em-1986_2

hope it all works out for you!!

I have offered on a property first time buyer and they have rejected it hope they come back to me like yours did!

peterae

Thanks em-1986

Good luck & Fingers crossed for you, i found how hard it can be to offer less on a property you like, hopefully you have weighted it all up with whats available in your area and whats been selling at what prices.

It's really funny how the first half of the year just flew by and as soon as i started buying this property it's like slow motion LOL