Please encourage me!

chelseablue

Hi

Me and my bf are saving for our first place and need some encouragement to keep going!

A house came up for sale a week ago near us: asking price £242,000 for a 2 bed ex LA house!! And its now SOLD STC in a week!

Im not starting a 'House Prices' thread just feeling a bit disheartened at the mo and need encouragement to keep saving!

Thanks

lynzpower

where abouts are you looking?

zag2me

My only advice is lower your expectations, a 2 bedroom house as your first purchase would be very impressive.

Most people start in a studio flat, or 1 bedroom flat.

[Deleted User]

Screw lowering your expectations, i'm completing on my first home today and buying with my gf. a 2 bed terrace in nice area costing 200k.

My advice.. find those areas within commuting distance from your work and look what is still financially viable.

chelseablue

Thanks for your replies

We're looking in Maidenhead in Berkshire.

There are cheaper houses than the one I mentioned but not where you'd feel safe after dark!

Probably sounds silly but only fancy doing this house buying malarky once! Id have no problem living in a flat but when we want to buy a house it'd cost even more dosh! We'd like to buy something that we can live in for years so one or two beds with room to extend.

Apart from that dont want much!

lynzpower

i think thats fairly good moneysaving- only one lot of removals/ stamp duty/ sols fees etc

the problem is its not in your reach? Is it? You said you dont feel safe after dark- how BAD are we talking here? Ive never known maidenhead to have any big crack/gun problems- unless they have drifted over from reading where i believe there was some problems of this ilk and some places were pretty rough. What are we talking about here?

Are you doing all the moneysaving & extra money making you can- selling what you dont need/ part time jobs/ battering down all your expenses.

( I never did any of this, and I damn well wish I had!)

chelseablue

Hi Lynzpower

There are areas in Maidenhead where they have problems with 'gangs' of youths smashing cars but I suppose you get that in most towns.

The only areas we could afford in Maidenhead are the council estates where people have brought. This is not a problem to me - grew up in a council house till Mum and Dad brought it - still live there with them now! so not at all snobby like that


I have two jobs - in an office during the day and in a shop two nights a week and all day saturday. Have recently changed my mobile contract from £25 a month to just £8 a month! I drive a 10 year old car. I think Im doing all I can to save money.

There was a house a few months ago for ONLY £195,000 that needed a lot of updating. Shame we didnt have any money saved then! Currently only have 5 grand - hoping to have £20,000 by the summer so will see what prices are like then (hopefully crashed lol!)

Not giving up yet!

MORPH3US

ringo_24601 wrote:

Screw lowering your expectations, i'm completing on my first home today and buying with my gf. a 2 bed terrace in nice area costing 200k.

My advice.. find those areas within commuting distance from your work and look what is still financially viable.

Yes and no....

Commuting is all well and good, but I worked out the other day that if I lived within walking (or cycling) distance of my work rather than 20 miles each way per day then I could get rid of my car completely.

Earning £20,000 a year in my current job but paying out about £2500+ for petrol, insurance, maintainance, tax is the equivalent of earning £16,000 a year and not having a car.......

So whilst it might be cheaper getting a house further away from your work, you have to carefully consider other pros and cons....... especially if you intend to live in a house a long time like the OP.

E.g. saving £2500 a year by not having to drive to work over 10 years = £25,000 plus interest (£6875 if in an ISA @ 5%) = over £30,000

Sorry, waffled on so much that I forgot what i'm talking about, hope it makes sense!

M

PosterBoy77

chelseablue wrote:

Hi

Me and my bf are saving for our first place and need some encouragement to keep going!

A house came up for sale a week ago near us: asking price £242,000 for a 2 bed ex LA house!! And its now SOLD STC in a week!

Im not starting a 'House Prices' thread just feeling a bit disheartened at the mo and need encouragement to keep saving!

Thanks

Saving is always a good thing, but why worry about buying right now? Why not rent somewhere and then bide your time with buying? Two interest rate increases have taken place in the last few months and there are probably one or two still on their way. The market will be likely to slow to some degree.

If you can rent somewhere for less than the interest on a mortgage which you can do in Maidenhead, you are not loosing money in renting, just any potential gains in a property. However, if you buy you have to make a gain just to break even as you will need to pay 1% stamp duty on anything over 125k and under 250k plus your other legal fees etc.

Keep saving, make sure you put your money into an ISA and or regular saver and any lump sums into ICESave or something. The right house will come along and keep saving in the meanwhile.

There are many landlords desperate to let properties these days, so you can often get good discounts off advertised rents too. My girlfriend and I are renting at the moment, saving money and not worrying about buying. Also have no worries about expenses such as fixing boilers etc. We also get to live in a much better area.

lynzpower

I agree with Mikael

We are selling our flat to rent. All being well ( dont want to tempt fate) we will be gaining a bit on the sale of th eplace, but the main reason was to a) avoid rising interest rates that we can ill afford and other general moneysaving.

We are ( hopefuly- keep em crossed) moving from a flat to a house, in a MUCH nicer area, and witohut even taking into account the increase on the mortgage we wil be saving somewhere in excess of 300 per month, and no maintainence.

sallywl

DONT give up!!!!
A yr ago there was no way me and my BF could afford to buy but things fell into place for us, new jobs and peny counting and we are moving tomorrow into a 2 bed semi w/ garage in Thatcham, West Berks, for 178k. Bargin cuz the ppl wanted a quick sale. we looked at loadsa houses and had loads of offers rejected even tho we offered the asking price were FTB and had mortgage sorted.

Keep focused but keep realistic! you never know u may fall very lucky!