Mortgage Free in Three Yrs

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

Kaz2904, it might be a good idea to get a stoozepot going now and stick it in a high interest account, make those interest rates work for you!

I agree, the interest rates are what snookers everyone, I can't wait to pay my mortgage off now.

angelavdavis

A quick update from me. Closed the offset savings account on Saturday and moved money into savings account.:D

It's funny how this paying off the mortgage makes you feel really impetuous - far more so than usual. I spent Saturday trying to talk myself into not renewing my contract in August - having had a below average week.

Actually, we need me to renew because I want to build up some savings and get a few jobs done in the house - but it is SOO easy to be swayed!!!

cupid_s

Hi all.
I'm getting very close to being able to complete the challenge on time and we've already got all the money saved for our holiday in march.
But.......for the past 9 months or so I've had my eye on a property not too far from here but in a much much nicer area. At 300k it was out of our price range so we didn't bother going to look but it's been reduced to 260k and now we could afford it just about, maybe, possibly (though would never pay more than 250k cos of the stamp duty).
We've been to view it and we know it's an awful time to buy and sell but we do like the house.
However after closer inspection it appears that now the price has been reduced, so has the amount of land you get with it. The current owner (who lives next door) is going to keep a big chunk of land at the bottom of what would be our garden (she doesn't have a garden) as well at a big outhouse that to be honest we would really need for storage (and the owner says she doesn't really want/need this and inclusion in the sale is negotiable but it was all included in the original price).
So now we are at a loss to know what to offer. I thought 300k was vastly overpriced for it last year and that was before prices started falling. Oh and it needs a lot of work doing to it as well but it has been priced to allow for modernisation apparently.
Any suggestions where to go from here? I was going to post this in the buying selling bit but people there can be quite nasty and I trust you all more.

StuartGMC

cupid_s wrote: »

At 300k it was out of our price range so we didn't bother going to look but it's been reduced to 260k and now we could afford it just about, maybe, possibly (though would never pay more than 250k cos of the stamp duty).
We've been to view it and we know it's an awful time to buy and sell but we do like the house.
However after closer inspection it appears that now the price has been reduced, so has the amount of land you get with it. The current owner (who lives next door) is going to keep a big chunk of land at the bottom of what would be our garden (she doesn't have a garden) as well at a big outhouse that to be honest we would really need for storage (and the owner says she doesn't really want/need this and inclusion in the sale is negotiable but it was all included in the original price).
So now we are at a loss to know what to offer. I thought 300k was vastly overpriced for it last year and that was before prices started falling. Oh and it needs a lot of work doing to it as well but it has been priced to allow for modernisation apparently.
Any suggestions where to go from here? I was going to post this in the buying selling bit but people there can be quite nasty and I trust you all more.

Doesn't sound like the property has been reduced in price, just the "package" on offer. Are there similar properties around that you can gauge for relative prices? Have you looked at one of the property price sites (like ourproperty.co.uk or Land Registry) which can assist with this?

If it needs a lot of work, and, it is at the upper end of affordability, then you obviously need to look very carefully at the total costs especially as you presently could weather problems like redundancy I guess which won't be so easy if you are stretched. Also, what do you predict for interest rates in 18-24 months, can you manage payments if base rates were 6%....

I hope you see this as constructive, with the economy as it is, that property may sit there for months, don't rush in now. Sit back, watch it closely so if you do decide in November to go for it, you can hit them with a low offer noting you are aware how long it has been on the market. Of course, you'll need a buyer for your place too - I think there are 15 sellers for 1 buyer at the moment.... by the way, have you checked the sale price for your own home?

Finally, as any architect in the UK will advise about a property the three most important factors are location, location, location....

You have all the time on your side to decide on purchase or not. Sit tight and really get to know what is happening, get some quotes for mortgage and costs, but most importantly hard data on the work needed - you may find in the autumn contractors are willing to give good prices to get such work.

Or just offer £180k and see what they say - you don't lose anything in doing that!

HTH at least a little?

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

Hi cupid_s, some good advice from StuartGMC there, all relevant points.

No one knows what the economy is going to do. Have a play around with some sums and see what interest rate hikes you could comfortably afford, especially if there is a lot of work to do.

Might be worth trying to find out what the seller proposes to do with the land, would they build on it? Good luck whatever you decide

I have been spending money! Sorry but I had to, I bagged myself a remoska http://www.lakeland.co.uk/standard-remoska!REG-electric-cooker/F/keyword/remoska/product/2511 from Lakeland as I have had my eye on them for a while and its great, I reckon it should pay for itself in the long run what with the energy price rises. I watched the meter going round while it was on and it really doesn't use up much electric at all, so far I've made 2 batches of scones, ratatouille and bread and its all been lovely.

Just had to tell you

StuartGMC

Cupid_S just seen the latest BBC report inc comment on possible house price moves:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7530432.stm

Remember, whilst it is a buyer's market (if you can get the mortgage) you are also a seller, so it may be tricky to get a chain together for the series of sales?

cupid_s

Hi all. Those points are so brilliant thank you for taking the time to reply stuart and desperate housewife.
We’ve worked out that we should be able to afford a mortgage rate of around 8 or there abouts without having to forego our monthly holiday fund. Our holiday fund is currently 600 a month and if worst came to worst we’d go without holidays and several other thigns as well!

The owners applied for planning permission recently to build on the land it was turned down because we’re on a little private road off a main road and they were told that having another house there would put too much strain in terms of extra traffic coming off the main road onto our side road. However they could build outhouses etc I suppose which would slightly affect our view of the countryside and neighbouring lake. The lady just wants the room for her ducks really which doesn’t bother us because we were going to keep them ourselves.

Unfortunately it’s such a unique property I have no idea about value. That’s why we like it cos it’s very unusual. And it’s been in the owners family almost forever so there’s no way to find out what it has been worth in the past and extrapolating.

At the moment the house comes with tenants who rent out some of the rooms and the one guy we spoke to said he’d like to stay on if he could. Its a pretty big 4 bed house and so we’d maybe rent out 3 rooms and save that into a do-up fund.
We’ve got people coming to value our house on Saturday and Tuesday and know we’ll probably have to accept less than what we paid for it especially as a house on our road has recently been repossessed and has gone onto the market at a really ridiculously low price. But if we were getting a better price for our ‘forever house’ we wouldn’t be too bothered.

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

Sounds like you really want this house cupid_s, I hope you make a decision thats right for you and yours...good luck with whatever you decide

Superfast_Gran

StuartGMC wrote: »

Remember, whilst it is a buyer's market (if you can get the mortgage) you are also a seller, so it may be tricky to get a chain together for the series of sales?

You're not wrong Stuart. While our house has only been on the market for two months, and we've found the house we want to move to, we've only had two parties view it. As a seller it is really disheartening to think that our dream house is about to slip through our hands!

cupid_s

SFG, could you consider renting out your current house and not selling it? I know we could afford to do this and I think it's the best idea if the banks will agree. DH doesn't think they will though. I just know we could afford to as both mortgages would only just take 1/3rd of our income and hopefully we'd be able to rent either our current house or rooms in our next house to help. And we live quite cheaply anyway (apart from holidays).

Otherwise remember that if you can't find a buyer for your house then your dream house probably wont be able to either. This is what I'm hoping for anyway!

All the best and I hope you get your dream house