To those BUYING in these difficult times....

SilverSix

Figured I would post my story so far up on these boards as I find myself lurking here quite a bit!

I'm 21 and will be buying my first house with inheritance from my fathers death almost 2 years ago. A 15% LTV mortgage has been agreed and we are holding the application off for a little while as I will explain futher on.

I can't say I've been impressed with Estate Agents. Only a couple were actually very good and kept me in the loop and well informed. Others were useless, unable to contact vendors, rude, forgetfull and generally a waste of time. I had one show me round a property at the end of the day who didn't even introduce himself or ask my name, kept his hands in his pockets the wholetime and was pretty much on his mobile to his mates the entire time too. Others it took me a week of calling to find out that the reason I was unable to view was due to the vendor having blocked viewings while they settled personal matters, why they couldn't tell me this the first time I don't know. In the space of a week I found myself so stressed out and frustrated that my blood pressure was through the roof and I also found myself needing to yawn every 30-40 seconds but unable to actually complete the yawn (there's a condition for this but I can't remember what it's called)! Looking back it wasn't even really that stressful a situation at all!

Initially I'd looked at a location about a 25 mile commute to work due to getting more for my money however I had then thought this was probably a bit too far and was looking at ones in the 10-15 mile radius where I then had the problems with EA's. So I eventually went back to looking in the first area and found several new builds I liked the look of. I narrowed the development down and went in to my building society to have an AIP printed out and let them know of my plans.

I arranged a viewing for the show homes and took my mother along with me (as you do) to speak to the sales rep and see if any of the build I wanted were still available in the location I wanted. It turns out only 2 were left! One was actually built side on to the plot and had a strange layout because of this. The other was almost in the 'prime location' I'd been looking at though did have a few little 'notches' in the garden boundaries as opposed to being a standard rectangle and was away from affordable housing looking out onto some nice fields. The build itself is a 4 bedroom detached however this particular one is actually semi-detached as it has a 3 storey town house build on to the right (first storey where the houses join is their carport leading to a garage(next to my kitchen wall) so is only actually joined by the second storey). It does have it's own supporting double thickness walls so noise should not be a problem.

Having only 2 plots left didn't leave me in a brilliant position to haggle as they were obviously selling very well. I went in pretty firm considering my position. She had said they can budge about 5% on price so I asked for nearer to 10/12.5% bearing in mind I planned to spend lots (white lie) on upgrades which is where they make their ridiculous profits. I left her to ring whoever was necessary and went for another wander round the show home. I came back to a £15,000 reduction (just over 5%) stamp duty paid and £1000 towards legals saving me a total of £23,800. I can't help but feel her initial valuation of the property was a little high due to it only being a semi, though it is probably one of the best locations on the development. I paid my reservation fee about 2/3 weeks ago, have been in touch with the solicitors and will be meeting the builder this Friday I guess we'll see what my MP values it at and adjust as necessary should it be valued lower. Due to it's location on the development once our area is complete the works traffic shouldn't be in the way or a problem.

Strangely when viewing existing builds I felt a bit anxious/doubtful that I'd be happy purchasing however with the new build I didn't have any of this and am quite confident I'll be happy there. A little bit of a commute but work to live not live to work right? The build is due to complete in October and I have a few lodgers in the pipeline. My mortgage application is being held to be submitted nearer to the time (rate is held for 3 months and the offer when produced for 6)

The worry & nerves have worn off now and I'm a little excited and extremely impatient! Saving as much as possible between now and then!

Sorry for the epic wall of text!

tyllwyd

BennyC wrote: »

... looking out onto some nice fields. ...

Best of luck for your new home! One thing did jump out at me - have you checked whether planning permission might be granted for another development on the fields? I know a few people who have bought new builds with nice views that got built over a few months later! Not necessarily a problem, but if that's a possibility better to go into it with your eyes open.

SilverSix

tyllwyd wrote: »

Best of luck for your new home! One thing did jump out at me - have you checked whether planning permission might be granted for another development on the fields? I know a few people who have bought new builds with nice views that got built over a few months later! Not necessarily a problem, but if that's a possibility better to go into it with your eyes open.

Thanks. Yeah I did ask this. As it's the first phase of the development the rest of the phases are planned to be to the north and east basically behind and out of the way of my property which faces west.

There's about 4-500 meters to the trees behind which runs a very infrequently used railway line, a slow one for haulage. As the development is having around 3-4000 homes built on it they have to leave enough greenbelt around it for recreational purposes etc. It's between 70/100 acres it'll be surrounded by so I'm quite confident it won't be built on but as you say there's no guarentee. As part of a checklist we went through when paying the deposit things like lampost placement, brick & tile colour, drains in the backgarden etc were all discussed.

I need to take a snap of the outline for the entire development next time I go actually.

Edit:
This is the first phase of the development which is the bottom left courner of the entire development. Mine marked with a red dot in the garden.

azkaban420

Hi all, got some news - Have exchanged today on a house we found through leafleting less than 4 weeks ago - am over the moon!!

Here's how it happened if you fancy a nose

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3045234

Hope I've linked it correctly!

Az

The_Drama_Llama

Congrats, azkaban - I might well follow your example soon...

Funkygibbon

Just had an offer of £145,000 accepted!! Off to sort everything out now!!

Grimbal

Funkygibbon wrote: »

Just had an offer of £145,000 accepted!! Off to sort everything out now!!

Oooo - that's pretty close to where you wanted to end up wasn't it?

AFM: feeling despondent as we lost out on that house to cash buyers

sonastin

I'm really frustrated today. I asked my mortgage advisor to check with the lender that they'd be alright to lend on a property with all the problems this one has before I submitted an application. They said it didn't matter as long as the valuation sums add up. When the application went in, I asked the mortgage advisor to make sure that the valuer was aware that the garage needed demolishing and the loft conversion wasn't signed off so should be valued as a loft.

Mortgage offer arrived today and the valuation report says "conveyancer to confirm that loft conversion has all the right building regs sign off" (or words to that effect) and the conditions of offer say see item x of the valuation report. So now it appears that a signed off loft conversion is a condition of the mortgage despite telling the lender beforehand that it wasn't signed off. I'm worried now that this house is unmortgageable and I'm not going to be able to buy it after all these months. Solicitor is going to write to them once he gets the copy of the mortgage offer but I'm really panicking now.

Catatonia

How are things going with you, Sonastin?

My purchase seems to be being delayed endlessly by rubbish solicitors who don't respond to emails.

Funkygibbon

We got our Mortgage approved this morning!! I'm a little lost in what happens next now! Good luck to everyone else!!