Any other FTB here?

craignattress

Valuation report back on my ftb.

Attention required:
Indications of dampness, roof requires repair. £7k of work required.

Got a homebuyers to follow so hopefully they'll explore this a little further.

not good

olive84

oh no stokegal, I'm really sorry for you. It sounds like a really stupid thing to have refused you on, and something that would be cleared up easily. Can you try another company?

zeddy, first you have to get a mortgage in principle from a lender that shows how much you can borrow. This is an agreement that they will lend you the money as long as the info you have given them doesn't change, subject to a val. survey blah blah blah. Most EAs will only take you seriously if you have this as they want to know you are good for the money. This you can get directly from the lender, or through a mortgage broker. Then you'll know definately how much you are looking at being able to borrow. When you have this, find properties in your price range, and when you like one make an offer. After thats been accepted you apply for your mortgage. When we offered on our flat the EA wanted to see our AIP the day our offer was accepted, so you need it to hand before you start looking.

It takes a lot longer to do in real life than it looks written down here!

Donnaalana

Fellow FTB here, made offer and accepted on 11th april after viewing property night before. All done apart from 2 searches but hoping to exchange contracts at the beginning of June and complete end of July as top of chain need some time to complete. I agree as FTBs I think we can be impatient, I know I am!

CharleneUK

This is a great thread which I'll be watching with great interest!

Hubby and I are FTB's too. Purchasing with the assistance of a £30,000 grant and £12,000 in savings, so we have a large deposit, but still have a massive mortgage, but I digress!

Mortgage in prinicple: Some time in April
Offer accepted: 3rd May
Property details handed in to council: 4th May
Solicitors instructed: 5th May
Council accept property details and give official go ahead: 10th May
Mortgage application submitted through broker: 10th May
Mortgage valuation carried out: 7th June
Mortgage offer: 12th June
Instructed Building survey: Hopefully tomorrow if we receive the quote by then!! (Requested it on Monday!)

Purchasing from a lady who will be moving in with friends/family. We're hoping to complete near July/August time, as we want to sort things out while the kids are on school holidays, so here's hoping!

Amitoocautious

We are FTBers too. We have lived together for almost 4 years and got married last september and we originally started looking end of 2005!! However we got engaged in Jan 2006 and wanted to get married the same year and decided buying a house too was too stressful. So started looking seriously at xmas and finally found one we liked on the 25th March.

Not sure of all the dates but so far we have had

- homebuyers and valuation surveys which were all fine
- solictor is undertaking the searches
- mortgage company has said all they were waiting for was our proof of id which we sent tuesday and so the offer should be any day soon!!!

We are buying in a small chain with our sellers buying off a family that are emigrating by the end of June so fingers crossed should be straightforward.

EA is doing my head in phoning all the time to check on progress and said he expected us to have our offer by now to which i pointed out these things can take up to 6 weeks.

The house is 225k and we have put down a 10% deposit but even on a combined salary of nearly 90k i think its a big mortgage because one day we want to have kids and we wanted to be able to do it one salary. How big are other peoples mortgages and i am worrying unneccessarily.

All i would say is build up a deposit and sort any debts out first as it will help protect you from negative equity to a certain extent and we have rented for 4 years and its been fine, very secure with no rent increases. Its only cos we wanted a house that we decided to buy i guess!

Fingers crossed for everyone's purchases

CharleneUK

Any other FTB's out there who would like to add, and does anyone have any updates for their posts?

livalicious

Im soooo glad this thread has been started, im a FTB and didnt really want to ask questions for fear of seeming simple, so im relieved to see others as excited and inquisitive as i am.

My partner and i have viewed a few properties over the last few weeks, and saw the ideal place for a good price but the lease term is only 62 years which
meant we might find it hard to get a lender to give us a mortgage, and also that we would have to pay for the lease extension (at least £15 000) if we wanted to sell it in a few years. So had to give up on that one BOOO!!!

Last week we found an even better property at the top end of our budget but well worth it. We put in an offer, but alas, wasnt accepted as another offer was higher than ours and they got the house. Lucky so-and-so's.

We really raring to go, we saved for our absolutely ages, havent seen the inside of Topshop for ages, and we've watched our dvd collection twice over during our many nights in to save that extra pound. But hey its worth it, we finally able to buy our own little nest. Which i hope is soon because our landlord just gave us our two months notice because he wants to sell. Yikes!

Good luck to all u FTBs, and keep the posts coming, it would be really interesting to see how things progress for everyone! :rotfl:

frivolous_fay

28th April, viewed three properties. Only one was a contender. Put in a £250k offer. Estate agent said 'I'll call you in 15 minutes'.
30th April, went in to estate agents to chase our phone call :rolleyes:
1st May, Agent from the local branch rang us and said we were the only offer, but would we raise it to £255k? Cue lots of agonising over stamp duty.
2nd May, Told the agent we were sticking at £250. 3 hours later, they accept :j
4th May, Gave the go-ahead to mortgage advisor to apply
w/c 14th May, (while on holiday) we were asked for bank statements
21st May, faxed bank statements
24th May, Received mortgage offer with term that was 10 years to short :rolleyes:
8th June, Finally received revised offer.

Solicitor expects we will have contracts to sign this week. Vendors don't have a house lined up yet, and we're not under pressure to move (in fact a delay would be a nice opportunity to spread the cost a bit) but it'll be a relief to exchange!

Emy

Hi I'm a FTB as well (with hubby)!

We've viewed about 10 and found a house that just felt right, plus is a very sound investment (lots of ways to increase the value, room to extend etc etc, and is solid 1950s house) so were pleased to like something sensible!
Is on market for £215K and has been since December with a chain at one time that collapsed. We reckon its worth close to £210K and according to the EA the vendor is holding out for this.
However, following advice from this forum we decided to put in an embarassingly low offer (£194K) even though EA said £206K has been rejected in the past (because this could have been when it was new on the market and they weren't as desperate?). We were told vendor would reject it there and then.
Rang back 2 days later (trying to play it cool) with offer of £200K. No response yet but EA did say they would reject it again.
Not sure what to do now or what to go up to. Should we just put in a final offer? How much? Hmmmm.
Also rang same agent yesterday and made appt to view somewhere else (just so they know we don't have all our hopes and dreams pinned on that one house).
Great to hear everyone's stories! :T

Edit: The EA just rang and said "they won't accept less than £210K"

Amitoocautious

Just thought i would update everyone - we exchanged contracts on the 4th June and are moving in on the 26th June

Everything has gone pretty smoothky that it is stressing me out and making me think something must go wrong!
Basically found the house at the start of April so only taken about 3 months which is good!

Good luck with everyone else, Emy, how much do you think the house is worth? I would work that out and make that my final offer. We did that and offered 30k under the asking price and they rejected and then 4 weeks later came back sheepishly but by then we had found somewhere else