New to the game - first time buyer !

Paulpen

Hi guys

Been a lucker on this site other than a handful of posts for many years now and its done me well and got us into shape. Done alot of reading the guides etc but in all honesty im not sure how much of it applies to us or even what order to do this in during the process

We are now looking like we will be visiting a mortgage advisor in July after we have got Glastonbury out of the way.

We have a our deposit (£20,000) sp the next few months will be spent saving the money needed for the costs and fees invloved in buying.

Our credit scores are looking ok so are we migging out on anything that we should be doing or preparing for currently ?

We have a combined income of £45,000 a year so are hoping to be able to borrow £170,000 so we can look at houses up to £190,000 - is this realistic ?

Sorry if this in in the wrong place but thought if I can keep all my progression and questions in one place throughout the process it may make more sense and help others ?

Paulpen

Must be excessivly complicated questions

jimmy_81

A little rusty as our first-time house buy was back in Oct 2013, but a few pointers... :-)

I assume you're already searching on Zoopla & Rightmove, and have visited all the local EAs? Never too soon to start. Don't just look at properties for sale; the sold prices are available too & can help in negotiating. The more you can get to understand the market where you want to live, the better.

A mortgage of £170,000 on a £190,000 property is approx 90% LTV which should be OK. However - it's 3.77 x your joint income which is maybe a bit of a stretch - you'd need current mortgage advice on this.

We did use a mortgage broker & personally found it well worthwhile - took a lot of hassle out of the process. I'd suggest talking to a couple of brokers and a few of the high street lenders too - referring to the guides on here always helps, of course!

Do however be careful - in one case what we thought was just a mortgage inquiry appeared as a credit check on our files. :eek: Always ask the lender to be sure.

You'll need to find a solicitor. Best bet is ask friends & family for recommendations. My personal preference would always be to use a local, smaller firm rather than one of the national conveyancers, but YMMV.

You'll be looking at anywhere from £1000 to £3000 in fees - the big variable is survey fees. Plus approx £1300 stamp duty of course.

The other cost if you're FTB will be appliances & furniture. If you've not got anything at current, that will add significant expense; if you're renting though might be OK.

I could write hundreds of words more about surveys, renovations etc - our house hasn't been an easy experience! - but if you're only just starting to look, that's prob enough for now. Don't want to put you off... :rotfl: Good luck!

Paulpen

Thanks for the reply Jimmy

We have not really been looking too in depth as we didnt want to get our hearts set on things that we currently cannot buy or we might find out that like you say our borrowing figure is not achieveable.

Saying that though we know that we want a 3 bed semi detatched in a couple of areas locally that seem to price from £170,000 upwards.

I know of a couple of people that I work with that have used the same broker to sort them out and they seemed happy with everything he did so we are debating using him although should I already be in contact with him this early on or would we be seen as wasting his time ?

As for solicitor I expect that if we are happy with the borker that he will be able to advise (or can they not ?) or maybe use the same that the mentiond above people used if they reccomend ?

We have been renting together for 6 years now and for many more when we were not together so we currently have more than enough for out two bed and have run out of space !

Thanks again for the reply chap :beer:

zeedee1

Hello

We bought our first home early last year, and it is definitely a learning process!

Is the reason you are waiting until the summer so that you can save enough money for fees and extras etc?
I'd say we spent about 4k on fees/stamp duty.

It won't hurt to get a solicitor in place as soon as you start looking so you are ready to go. A bit of advice I was given and I would strongly recommend is getting a local solicitor (as previous poster said!) preferably one that has been recommended as it can make a big difference to timescales and being able to contact them (as opposed to a big conveyancing company where you go through to a call centre).

We went through a mortgage broker and contacted him early on, found him very helpful but actually found a better mortgage on the high street in the end. He helped us with mortgage insurance etc, which you might also want to think about.

And just be aware of your spending as the mortgage lender will be looking at the last 3 months or so and may question anything excessive, especially if you are looking at a big mortgage. Although I think your figures seem ok (we had no problem getting a £195k mortgage on joint salaries of £50k, 85% ltv)

Good luck with it all

zeedee1

My question about waiting until the summer has already been answered in your post sorry!
I must pay more attention!

Paulpen

A combination of things really :
We want to have time to save that bit more up
We didnt really want christmas spending so close to an application
We are off to Glastonbury for a week in June

Wether those reasons are correct or not we are not sure though !

I personally always to try buy and deal with local people and companies whenever I can as if anything goes wrong or is held up you can pop in and resolve issues easier.

Thanks for the info

zeedee1

That's sensible, I think we needed more time to save up really as we had unexpected costs with the house once we moved in! Could have done with a contingency fund but we werent organised enough :T

All the best for the house hunting

PS Jealous of you going to Glastonbury! We went 2009 and 2010 but haven't been able to get tickets since

AubreyMac

jimmy_81 wrote: »

You'll be looking at anywhere from £1000 to £3000 in fees - the big variable is survey fees. Plus approx £1300 stamp duty of course.

I thought FTB were exempt from stamp duty if propery is less than 250k??

Paulpen

Have not heard that one AubreyMac but would be interested if its true !