Viewing House's And Questions???

lettucekl

Hi all, am new to the forums and am in the early stages of buy my first home. I have gotten a few 'quotes' from some high steet banks to get a rough i dea of what i can and can not borrow and the early signs seem to be a shared equity mortgage is best suit to my situation, as will be buying on my own and earn just shy of 30k a year.

Now before i go and have a look at a few places i wanted to get an idea of what sort of question i should be asking when viewing houses, just so i dont look completely clueless as to what im actually doing. This is all rather daunting to me, and the closest ive come to this sort of thing before its getting a loan for 15k for my car, but this is on a much bigger scale (130K) so am very anxious about the whole situation, and keep trying to find excuses not to go into the minefield world of house buying :huh:

So any help would be much appreciated

kirwell81

You could go in to a viewing with a hundred questions but it all depends on what is important to you.

Do you already know the area that you are moving to or should you be asking about transport, schools, local pubs/restaurants, shopping etc, if it's not a suburban area what the parking etc is like.

When it comes to the house itself when I bought I asked about things like improvements they had made to the house i.e how many years ago the kitchen and double glazing were installed. I also asked about the neighbours and their relationship with them. If it's important to you, you could ask about things like broadbrand speeds too.

The questions you ask will probably be different with every house you view. Good luck with your search.
K

lettucekl

Thanks for the reply, i should of mentioned that i will be looking a new builds, hence the share equity mortgage.

betmunch

A question you should have asked in the banks is will they use the Shared Equity scheme. I would double check that before looking at the properties.

As for questions about the houses, I would ask about bills, specifically council tax as it should be set now. On a second hand property I would ask about their utility bills as well.

JoolzS

If you are only looking at new builds then the main question is whether or not you love the place enough to see yourself living there for 10+ years.

If you are just buying a place because "it's what you should do" - then don't!

Julie

lettucekl

Thanks for the input....

betmunch wrote: »

A question you should have asked in the banks is will they use the Shared Equity scheme. I would double check that before looking at the properties.

Yeah Natwest said they do shared equity schemes

JoolzS wrote: »

If you are only looking at new builds then the main question is whether or not you love the place enough to see yourself living there for 10+ years.

Why do you say 10+ years, does anyone stay in the first property that long?

the_realist wrote: »

The internet is not short of information or advice or people who have been in shared ownership and are now in desperate situations.

Hang on i thought shared equity was completely different from shared ownership. The way i understood it when Natwest explained it to me was, that with shared equity the home is compelety yours, you just have 2 parties funding the mortgage, with share ownership, you dont own the home all yourself out right?

BitterAndTwisted

I second The Realist's warnings about shared equity/ownership. They are not a sensible solution for everyone, especially those who might need to sell up and move in the short-term, possibly the long-term as well. I wouldn't touch one with a barge-pole.

On a salary of £30k per annum you really should be looking at getting some substantial savings under your belt. Like 20%-25% of a wholly-owned property and another £5k for the conveyancing, legal and moving expenses.

lettucekl

Damned if you do and damned if you dont then

Well my aim, if i did go down the shared equity route, would be to pay that off within 5 years so there would be no intrest would be included.

the_realist wrote: »

Shared Equity Mortgages are a great product to help buyers get on the ladder. However, the catch with shared equity loans is that when it comes to selling the house, the buyer has to part with a proportion of any increase in value to the loan provider.

Thats swings and round abouts though, as id still make on my portion of the agreement so it would cancel each other out really