To those BUYING in these difficult times....

JuniorSherlock

Orpheo wrote: »

This is a stupid, stupid argument considering the amount of interest you pay on a mortgage over the term. Every few months that I don't buy the house price falls are paying my rent. This year I have saved my annual rent plus mortgage interest twice over just by not buying.

The argument that paying rent is dead money is about as valid as the argument that buying potatoes is dead money. Absolute rubbish.

Furthermore, I don't pay my landlord out of my savings, I pay rent out of my income. Currently, the interest on my savings each month is 25% of my rent. The upshot being that I pay only slightly more in rent than I would if I bought at the top of my current price range, but I have no additional costs whatsoever towards upkeep of the property. Meanwhile, house prices fall, my deposit grows. Sweet.

It's certainly NOT a stupid argument. We've been renting for 7 years now, if you pay £600pcm for 7 years you will have paid around £50k. That's not coming off your mortgage, that's going into someone else's pocket. At least with a mortgage you can pay some of it off early if you can, every bit is lessening your debt and you know that when you get to retirement age, hopefully your mortgage is paid off. If you are still renting, that just carries on. How do you pay the rent once you've retired?

Yes your deposit might grow, but in the last few years interest rates have been very low so you certainly aren't getting much interest on that money. We lost around £6k of our savings by putting it into a investment whose shares fell dramatically. Since then we've spread it around ISAs and high interest savings accounts but we've not recouped that money.

Buying a house for investments purposes may no longer be a wise idea, but personally I'm all for that because it's investors who drive up prices. If you want to buy a house to make it a home, I don't see that there is a bad time.

BTW, made the offer on Tuesday, still not heard. Just spoke to EA who say they will chase it up but the repo company have to go through the bank etc. Only good news is that no-one else has shown any interest in the house.

dizziblonde

We're now (as usual) waiting for the relevant people to send the next sets of relevant bits of paper around. Now the final price has been agreed upon we need the mortgage co to print out a new offer doc to send us since the amount's changed slightly after the survey, need the EA to send the revised final price details to the solicitors so they can put together their final sets of documentation (which they've told us can take about a week) and then hopefully we can move toward exchanging contracts - not sure how long we have to wait from there till completion though.

rosspwilliams

rosspwilliams wrote: »

I have just spoken to our broker and he has told me that our mortgage has been approved today :j

Just waiting for various chains to start moving now.

Still waiting on movements in the chain. Although our offer was accepted 6 weeks ago today, nothing has really happened. The couple that we are buying off have found somewhere, but the people that they are buying off are still looking. It's so frustrating.

As part of our mortgage, we had a free valuation for 30 days after the mortgage was offered and if we don't take this up the mortgage will be withdrawn. We are giving it another week and then having the valuation done to avoid re-applying. If we have to pay for £300 for another valuation so beit I guess. We have also started to look around again. All happening at a really annoying time, as I have a few business trips coming up, so won't be around much over the next couple of weeks. :mad:

westlondonbuyer

zizu73 wrote: »

Why would probate be more at risk of gazundring?

The proceeds of probate sales are usually bequests to relatives - the vendor doesn't need to sell at a certain price in order to move to their next house, for example. So executors are often much more flexible on price. And probably want to sell quickly to release the funds. Unscrupulous buyers take advantage of the situation, I guess.

Orpheo

JuniorSherlock wrote: »

It's certainly NOT a stupid argument. We've been renting for 7 years now, if you pay £600pcm for 7 years you will have paid around £50k. That's not coming off your mortgage, that's going into someone else's pocket. At least with a mortgage you can pay some of it off early if you can, every bit is lessening your debt and you know that when you get to retirement age, hopefully your mortgage is paid off. If you are still renting, that just carries on. How do you pay the rent once you've retired?

Yes your deposit might grow, but in the last few years interest rates have been very low so you certainly aren't getting much interest on that money. We lost around £6k of our savings by putting it into a investment whose shares fell dramatically. Since then we've spread it around ISAs and high interest savings accounts but we've not recouped that money.

Buying a house for investments purposes may no longer be a wise idea, but personally I'm all for that because it's investors who drive up prices. If you want to buy a house to make it a home, I don't see that there is a bad time.

BTW, made the offer on Tuesday, still not heard. Just spoke to EA who say they will chase it up but the repo company have to go through the bank etc. Only good news is that no-one else has shown any interest in the house.

Yes it is a stupid argument. I bought a 12.5 kilo bag of potatoes for £4. It will help feed my family for several weeks. Is that dead money?
My rent will shelter my family for a month. Is that dead money?

The 600pcm wouldn't be coming off your mortgage either, a large portion of it would be interest payments.

A £125K mortgage over 25 years at 3% (an optimistic interest rate for an entire term) would give a monthly repayment of £598. Of that £312 pcm would be interest to the bank. £93,600 (dead money!) interest to the bank over the term assuming the IR doesn't increase! £26,208 (dead money!) interest over your 7 years. Not to mention the annual cost of buildings and contents insurance, boiler repairs, maintenance, new kitchen, bathroom, windows, roof, decorating, carpets and so on. Of course house prices only ever go up, except when they go down. Take care though, at 6% (the long-term average) those interest payments will be £625 per month, £187,500 over the term, £52,500 over 7 years, that's a lot of dead money. And don't try the argument about paying landlords' mortgages, your mortgage interest is paying the mortgages and bonuses of many bankers.

Let us not forget, I don't intend to rent forever. I have a good deposit of 50% and I will buy when I think the time is right. Not as an "investment" but as shelter for my family, a home, just as my rented house is at the moment.

SG27

Yes your deposit might grow, but in the last few years interest rates have been very low so you certainly aren't getting much interest on that money. We lost around £6k of our savings by putting it into a investment whose shares fell dramatically. Since then we've spread it around ISAs and high interest savings accounts but we've not recouped that money.

My key facts illustration says that for every £1 I borrow on the mortgage I pay back £1.77 so for every £100 I save for the deposit I'm actually saving another £77 in interest payments.

As long as prices are not rising and it seems to me they aren't the longer you wait the better. That's why we are not rushing. Just waiting for the right house and saving as much as we can.

riverboat2001

tim_n wrote: »

Got the call yesterday - we got it for the price we wanted to pay, £230k down from £298 bit of a jump from a flat to a 4 bedroom detached house but I'm not complaining! Except about the commute - location was sacrificed for size of garden!

You must have had nerves of still waiting for it to be accepted without chasing it.
How long between your offer and getting it accepted?
I've offered (Thursday last week) 240k on a house up for 280k, it's really nice and i could see us living there for quite sometime! The 240k has been rejected, but not 100% certain that it was passed onto seller (it was a verbal offer)

We are thinking of calling EA on Friday to see if there has been any movement

Liv1977

Hi everyone

FTB here and thought I'd share my experience with you all.

So, after 7 weeks and 20 viewings my offer on a property was accepted on 25th September. I offered 98% of the asking price as similar properties were going for much more.

Valuation and home buyers survey arranged and completed last week. Could have been done much sooner if HSBC hadn't ballsed it up (long story!) Received land plan and F&F list from solicitor today. All as what I was expecting i.e they were going to take the washing machine and fridge-freezer BUT, they are also going to take the TV ariel! Utter poo! Been doing some research and it's going to cost me around £100-250 to get one installed!:mad:

Now just waiting for solicitor to carry out the seaches and enquires. In the meantime, I'm looking at furniture websites as I have nothing apart from a mirror and some pots and pans!

Liv

dizziblonde

We're now back waiting for the mortgage underwriters to approve the revised loan value (since it was what they'd come back post-valuation and said they were prepared to loan they'd better do that one sharpish!) to sign the new formal offer forms and get that part completely sorted. Waiting for EA to send the final agreed price back to solicitors still... so basically... waiting.

Grimbal

Oh, I second the frustration of all the waiting that has to be done ! We're part way through selling, and have just started the process on buying. Our potential vendors have offerred on a place & are waiting to hear back. I just hope that it's soon!

Does anyone think that it's realistic to hope for a pre-Xmas completion (given a 3 house chain, and hopefully no surprises?)