oh what to do...

soozie1978

Hi this is my first post, so please bear with me...

My husband and I sold a small house in 2010 and have moved back in with his mum in order to save for a deposit. By march 2013, we should have as a min £32,500.00. My lovely mother in law has promised us an extra £2k to help buy furniture and my parents have said that they will try and help too.

Id like to put exactly 30k as deposit, but with legal fees, surveys, stamp duty etc, it will be very tight.

Basically, we'd like to move up north as my parents have recently moved there and its cheaper. Im hoping I can transfer my job (although ive been told recruitment is on hold and they cannot tell me when they'll be accepting transferees again, my OH is also hoping to transfer his job.

Im conscious of my age (33) and we have no children yet. We'd like to start but feel it isnt fair on MIL to move in and have a kid (that wasnt the agreement) and if i get pregnant and need to move jobs, I probably wouldnt pass the fitness test if I was pregnant. An option would be to get pregnant (assuming no issues there) if MIL was okay with having a little one running around, and hope that my new job wouldnt recruit for a long time..knowing my luck they will be when im 6 months gone, but im not sure whehter thats too risky, or wait until we're settled but I dont know when that will be and time is pressing on.

I have two questions really:
1) Is it true that lenders lend you a significant amount less if you have a child, compared to childless couples?
2) we both have loans and ive read its better to pay off debt than to save..however, if we do this, then we'll still have no deposit to buy with, is it worth trying with the banks when we have our 30k and hope they dont mind the loans too much? (we've never missed payments and I have budgeted for them in a very rough cost estimate)

thanks for reading, happy new year!

opinions4u

How much do you owe on the loans?

I'd be very cautious about a plan that is along the lines of:

- keep unsecured debt
- take out big mortgage
- have cute baby things that cost lots of money and invariably lead to a reduced income for a period of time

soozie1978

hi, im hoping top buy for around £125k-£140k (max) so id need a mortgage for around £95k-£110k max. Ive looked on comparison websites and although they are only estimates, state they'd lend £167k but i wouldn't want that much. for the amount I'd want, i'm looking at £450 ish per month fixed for 5 years. Joint salary is £50k

loans are student professional study loan, ending in 2015, car loan ending 2015, wedding loan (joint with hubby) ending 2016.
I pay out about in total £350 per month on my loans plus car insurance £30 per month, phone £35 per month (but that will change in 3 months to £20 per month.

as for cute baby things, that will be primark and tesco types..never seen the point in paying loads only to be puked over!

BoGoF

To answer your specific questions

1) The likelihood is you will be able to borrow less with a child. With a dependant you have more outgoings and your affordability will be reduced.
2) Are you saying you have £30k of loans between you? Again this will be taken into account by a lender and the amount offered will be less than if you were debt free.

soozie1978

BoGoF wrote: »

To answer your specific questions

1) The likelihood is you will be able to borrow less with a child. With a dependant you have more outgoings and your affordability will be reduced.
2) Are you saying you have £30k of loans between you? Again this will be taken into account by a lender and the amount offered will be less than if you were debt free.

no, I have about 37 months worth of debt at 200 per month is 7400 and 48 months of 150 is 7200 so total as 14,600. We should have 30k deposit to put down. We also have another 6k for legal fees etc, although I understand the dependants thing but im sure with most parents, holidays are cut down and socialising is kept to a minimum...but then i dont have kids so wouldnt know, but im sure there is an argument that parents spend about the same...until the kids grow up that is...