Anyone else utterly depressed re buying first home?

GoldenShadow

OH are looking to buy from early next year onwards, but at times like this I just think how on earth are we going to find anywhere that we will enjoy? Sometimes I think we would be better renting, but with two dogs I know that would be such a headache.

On Rightmove tonight, I literally can't find a single house which ticks our boxes that I actually think looks nice/I would be happy in. I know all about how some things must be compromised, but even bearing that in mind everything seems to have gone so far out of our price range.

We live in Essex and my grad job starts in Sept. Its 2.5 years long. Don't think its sensible to move very far out of the area because of job prospects, equally can't for the 2.5 years anyway. But with my grad job being a set time, I gather I need a year of payslips left to come for a mortgage company to accept my earnings anyway. So we have to buy prior to March 2016, or else wait until I start another job sometime after March 2017

I used to live somewhere which is very cheap compared to here, but career prospects there are so poor. I know there is no right time to buy, but I feel like it will be a miracle if we find a house we like and can actually get a mortgage on it. We have squeaky clean credit and will have combined income of 53K by Sept. Back to lowering our sights again, just difficult because some things aren't possible to compromise on in my head.

*whinge whinge whinge*

There must be more like me out there?! Where are you and do you want to join my moping?!

sulphate

You may not need a year of payslips. I only needed 3 months' worth, but obviously it depends on the lender.

Maybe you have too long a checklist? A lot of FTBers have quite unrealistic expectations of their first home - no offence meant.

TheCyclingProgrammer

We are looking for our first home in Essex too, around Chelmsford. The market is crazy. Our max budget is £250k and we have a 20% deposit and mortgage DIP so in a great position to buy. We want to move before September as we need to start applying for schools for our daughter for next year.

It's pretty slim pickings. Not only is there not many properties coming on the market in our price range, competition for the good ones is stiff. We went and viewed a property in Billericay the other day and apparently there had been 20 people view it that day. It had only been online for 2 days; the agent had to take it off Rightmove as he was inundated.

I've slowly watched the supply of nice looking property drop away over the past 9 months, and the prices creep up. It is quite depressing. Lots of houses going on for much more than they'd have been worth 3 months ago and people paying at or above asking price.

We could move out further to Colchester, where there is a better supply of decent looking property including numerous new builds. We'd get a lot more house for our money too. Lots of 4 bedroom semis and even detached in our price range. But it's really much further away from London (where I would have to occasionally commute to) and more importantly our family, than we want to be. But it might end up being our only choice.

GolfFoxtrot

Two graduates at my work have recently got a joint mortgage, they earn £25k each and are on fixed term contracts like you. Most lenders will only need 3 months payslips and from what I've read here some lenders will accept you as soon as you start your grad job.

There's always going to be compromise, you need to actually view some houses and not just look on rightmove. Many properties will also sell without going on rightmove so it's not a guarantee that you will see something you like there. What about considering renting for longer until you're more certain what your future plans are and where you'd like to settle?

GoldenShadow

Three months makes me feel a little more optimistic! Thanks for that info. I will be CIMA qualified after the 2.5 years and job prospects are good, its just I am unaware how easy it is to secure a permanent role before the end of my grad scheme if that makes sense.

I live at home with my Mum at the moment but OH and I are desperate for our own space. That's what's tough, if we go out and start renting around here I think the saving will basically cease. It just feels like such a massive dream to have our own place..!

TheCyclingProgrammer, Chelmsford is where I am!! Not looking to buy here, mind. My work will be somewhere in East of England but hopefully Essex way. I don't think I can justify living in Chelmsford unless I were to work in London. Not on my salary. Chelmsford is a very nice place if you can afford it. Colchester is where I have been looking on Rightmove this evening, funnily enough! 220K is about the top end of what I think our budget will be. With around a 15% deposit if we went that high. Can't bear to think what the market might be like in another six months. I know its nowhere near as bad here as London/properly south east, but crikey, certainly hotting up. I know it will inevitably crash at some point and we should just buy when we are ready because there is no right time, but its so hard..!

I think one of the worst things is having looked a year ago and knowing how little our budget would get us now, compared to then. Doesn't help that I have OCD, the thought of all those fire hazards in terraced houses terrifies the life out of me :eek: Life would be so much easier if I didn't have my dogs, but I couldn't not have them :A

GolfFoxtrot

Well I agree you should live with your OH before buying somewhere together. We rented somewhere much cheaper than we could have afforded in order to enable us to continue to save, we've saved quite a lot between us and are moving into our purchased property next week.

Just keep focused it's taken a lot of hard work to save so hard but you'll get there

GoldenShadow

GolfFoxtrot wrote: »

Well I agree you should live with your OH before buying somewhere together. We rented somewhere much cheaper than we could have afforded in order to enable us to continue to save, we've saved quite a lot between us and are moving into our purchased property next week.

Just keep focused it's taken a lot of hard work to save so hard but you'll get there

Glad to hear you've got to where you want to be

My OH lives here too, has done for about two years now. Even a studio round here is £500 pcm and we have the two dogs which complicates renting a bit. My Mum commutes so isn't at home very often, just be nice to have our own place and our own rules, ie. no dogs on the sofa and that's final! Lol

Hopefully I'll find out exactly where my placement will be for grad job very soon which could enlighten us a bit. Moved to Essex 3.5 years ago and it just seems such a shame now I'm settled here to potentially leave all of my new friends. Not many of them work conventional Mon-Fri 9-5. In fact, I don't think any of my friends do, only OH's and he doesn't do Mon-Fri! :rotfl:

Callie22

OH and I are looking at houses at the moment and I have to say I'm totally hating the process - dealing with estate agents, viewing houses etc. The houses that we're viewing are just so awful. I'm not averse to giving a place a damn good clean and doing some DIY, but practically everywhere we've viewed has had some kind of massive 'problem' (from being in a really, really poor state and overpriced to some really dodgy building work to very unhappy tenants to an ongoing neighbour dispute that the vendor told us about in great detail) that's just meant that there's no way we'd buy it. We had found somewhere that ticked most of our boxes and we'd had an offer accepted, but a week later the vendor decided not to sell What made it worse was that the agent 'forgot' to tell us this, and we found out second-hand through our mortgage advisor. I'm just finding the whole process very depressing as there's so little coming on to the market at the moment.

The thing I really hate is how cryptic the whole process is, and how awful the estate agents are. We turned up to one viewing to be screamed at by the very angry vendor as they'd cancelled but the agent never told us, and then we had another viewing where the agent greeted us with 'I hope you've tried knocking as I've lost the keys, so if the owners aren't in then I can't show you the house'. They weren't in and we stood outside the house for half an hour whilst they tried to get the door open ... As a tenant you expect poor service from agents but I really thought they'd be better when you're buying.

Pixie5740

Definitely a good idea to rent together before buying. I know you have dogs but it's not impossible.

Also, if your grad job is for 2.5 years what happens if the next job isn't in the same area? A property that might be in an ideal location now might not be so ideal in 2.5 years time. With renting it would be easy to move but once you've bought you could be faced with a long commute or the cost of buying and selling all over again which could work out more expensive than renting.

partialycloudy

We have been looking in Southend and Leigh for nearly a year now, have lost two properties in that time.
Thankfully we have sold and completed on our flat (living back with parents) so we will be bottom of a chain...but our budget has had to increase considerably in the past year.
Orginally we didn't want to go over £250,000 but struggled to find anywhere, so know we are looking up to £290,000 but hoping we wont have to pay that much!
But we are still struggling to find anything, as there are so few houses on the market...we saw 8 last Saturday and 90% of them needed alot of work doing to them.

Just stay at your parents and save every penny it will be so worth it when you find your dream home!

GoldenShadow

Thats awful Callie22 Its a shame the entire process can become such a nightmare when, especially as its something a lot of the population go through at some point in their lives! I hope you have some better success soon!

Pixie5740; I really shouldn't be restricted location wise once I finish the grad scheme. This is why I would rather stay further down south, ie. Essex area, than the likes of Peterborough. Essex is close enough to London and a pretty good area for people in my shoes. My brother did the same grad scheme I did and actually had another job by 1.5 years into the scheme. Its very competitive to get onto because prospects afterwards are very good. This is why I am loathed to go further up north than I have to, prospects further from London are still good but less good, and if it becomes a matter of affording something further up North or renting down here/staying as we are then we will most likely do the latter. Its just not the preferred option!

PartialyCloudy, sorry its taking you so long to find something that ticks all your boxes Hopefully something will pop up that is just perfect for you both. I do feel lucky to be able to live with my Mum and save, certainly renting in the city I'm in now would completely kill any saving. Got my fingers crossed for you and Callie22!