Mortgage and life

richand

Hi All,

I currently live with my girlfriend in a shared house, I have 2 children from a previous marriage that I have stay every other weekend, My house mates don't get on with my children and tbh, why should they have to deal with the noise children inevitably produce in a shared house they pay for.

I stay at my parents with them when I have them, this has worked fine for the last year but is starting to grow tiring now and me and my girlfriend are getting closer and would like to be a family unit when they stay.

So, I spoke with my girlfriend and we have both decided we should buy a house together, I have savings of £3000 and this grows monthly by £900.
My partner saves £500 a month and currently has £1000.

I earn £34k in full time employment for 5 years and my partner earns £13-14k as a newly qualified teacher, only 11k of this is contracted the rest is sessional work.

at present our rent is very low which enables us to save the figures we do but Child Maintenance and travel costs to work take a hit on my salary which worries that the £900 I save now will be used for repayments and all associated bills.

I want to be in a position where a single one of our salaries can support the running costs of the house, I believe my salary could do this but not my girlfriends...

The houses we are looking at are in the £80k range so as to keep the payments manageable, wont be in the best area but the houses available in that area are close to family and my children.

I'm tempted to just apply for a 95% mortgage now but I feel this might be knee jerk when I could save the other 5% in 6 months tops or even use my credit card or a loan to make up the remaining £4k...silly idea but I don't want to lose the house that we want.

basically....what should I do!?

Yorkie1

You can't use a credit card or loan to make up the deposit.

Don't forget you'll need some money for the mortgage application fee (£0-1500), survey (£3-500), solicitors fees and searches (£800?).

And you always need some spare cash when you buy a place.

Keep saving for some months yet.

Edit: And 95% LTV mortgages aren't a great idea for two reasons: if house prices fluctuate then you are running a high risk of being in negative equity almost immediately, and the interest rates are likely to be really high

ACG

CC for deposit wont work so knock that one on the head.

Your payments will be about £400 a month, my mortgage is about the same as what your looking at - it might slightly more as your looking at 90-95% prooducts, but it wont be a million miles out.

I would personally wait for the 10% deposit as 95% products are quite difficult to get, the rates arnt great and its only 6 months your waiting for - but thats sometimes easier said than done.

richand

I bank with Nationwide and notice they do a 95% if I pay my deposit into the save to buy ISA.

Minimum term on the ISA before I qualified for it is 6 months, will have 10% + my girlfriends savings by then.

I believe the product they offer is pretty good:

4 years @ 4.49% then 3.99SMR
Includes:
Free standard Valuation
Free Standard Legal fees and £250 cash back
£99 fee @ £412.14PM
or
£499 fee @ £399.79PM

I went to a broker at the estate agency and to be honest, The rates he quoted where along the same lines but without the included legal, valuation fees etc.

He quoted £1000-1500 for the additional fees so these being included in the mortgage are a plus...or are they?

leereni

What about firstbuy or newbuy scheme?

richand

I am after a 3 bedroom house, New build houses in that number of bedrooms are insanely expensive in my city, much higher monthly payments would follow.

Yes, I get a nice new house but the houses we have looked at have not been bad houses for 80k, just in less than desirable places but I have lived in less than desirable houses pretty much all my life so that doesn't bother me as long as I own the house and can grow equity in said house.

paying that 20%-30% deposit back on sale of the house would be something extra to deal with on the chain.

The idea is to buy something cheap now, shorten the term or grow as much equity as possible and move to a better house in x number of years, when the kids have left home more than likely....