1st Time Buyer help !!!!!

Scouse_Skip

Hi there , as this is my 1st post i suppose im a newbie (so bare with me )
My partner and i have rented from the council for years now, but we really want to get on the housing ladder as we are not getting any younger.
We have a joint income of £55,000 and are looking at property in the region of £150,000.
The thing that is worrying me is the fact that we are both 41, and maybe it is too much of a debt to take on considering our age.
My partner is raring to go straight into it, am i being over cautious or is the age factor not a problem ??
I would appreciate any thoughts fellow members may have.
THANX.
S.Skip

DawnW

just a thought, but would you be entitled to a right to buy discount on your present rented property?

KiKi

I wouldn't panic too much over your age. The price is only 3 times your income. If you were to put down a £20K deposit, with a mortgage of 20 years (very acceptable) it's very do-able. I have a similar income, and a mortgage of £163K - over 20 years it would be very do-able for me, so I'm sure that a mortgage of £130K would be fine for you. Check out what it would mean you have to pay each month.

I'd personally go for it - I wouldn't be without my own property, now! It's a good investment for your future.

But as a note of caution for a first time buyer if you're not aware of these things (sorry if that sounds patronising...!!!): make sure the conveyancer / solicitor you use gives you all the costs up front so you know what to budget for on top of the house price. The number of people who launch into buying a house without realising all the costs for searches, fees, registration, bank transfers never ceases to amaze me!!

And one last thing - you say it's a huge debt, but if the worst comes to the worst, you can just sell the house again. In reality, you're paying an amount each month like you do with rent....don't think of it as a huge debt. (Obviously when work needs doing in the house that's when it might be more expensive!) But with renting, you're forking out money and not going to see the reward for it...given that you can afford to buy with your income, I'd say it's nonsense not to!

JMO! Hope you find somewhere you really like.

Scouse_Skip

Hi Dawn W,
Thanks for your comment , yes we do have right to buy on the property , but to be honest we wouldnt want to because the area has really gone down over the last few years , and its not a nice or safe place to be .
Thanx again.

Scouse_Skip

Hi KiKi,
Thanks for your comments, some good advice there,
At present we could only raise approx £5,000 dep.
The alternative would be to wait a couple or so years and save like mad for a much larger dep, but then its the age thing again as we would both be pushing 43/44.
At present our monthly rent is £300 p.month, and i know some people have told us that we would be better off just staying put as the rent is so low,
but we feel the time is right for us to own our 1st home.
Obviously ther will be a significant increase on monthly payments.
I think we need to sit down and go through all costs involved and see where we end up.
Thanks KiKi ,some sound advice there.

Running_Horse

Just bought my 2nd home at the age of 41. Although it was daunting to borrow so much so soon after being made redundant and finding another job, if age was the only worry you might put it off forever. We have borrowed over 25 years but are already making overpayments so as not to be still mortgaged in retirement. I know people who have taken on mortgages in their late 50s.

gabyjane

Hi we pay £400 per month for a lovely 2 bed house, garden, 2 parking spaces which is ver rare where we live and it's a lovely area BUT like you we want our own home and are in the process of buying one now. I am only 28 and my partner is 36 and i worried about our ages which i think everyone does at some point as it does seem like a huge thing to take on, well of course it is but you know what i mean. If you think about it for too long and you are like me you will never do it! like someone else said if things get too much sell up, it isn't a life long commitment to a certain extent just a better one than renting imo.
Good luck with what you decide to do, i'm sure there are lots of options available for you both.

william_conrad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0gxEVAU5yM

Scouse_Skip

Hi gabyjane,
Nice to get some advice from someone who was in a similar situation.
And yes !!! , like you , i tend to think about things too much and then dont bother with it.
Thanx again .Scouse Skip.

izzybusy23

Scouse_Skip wrote: »

Hi there , as this is my 1st post i suppose im a newbie (so bare with me )
My partner and i have rented from the council for years now, but we really want to get on the housing ladder as we are not getting any younger.
We have a joint income of £55,000 and are looking at property in the region of £150,000.
The thing that is worrying me is the fact that we are both 41, and maybe it is too much of a debt to take on considering our age.
My partner is raring to go straight into it, am i being over cautious or is the age factor not a problem ??
I would appreciate any thoughts fellow members may have.
THANX.
S.Skip

Hi there

I am 35 and my OH is 32. We have a 2 year old daughter who is currently in full time childcare and we are currently renting. She will be in school in 2 years time so we aim to buy when I am roughly 40 years old. I don't see anything wrong with the age thing. We plan to save up a considerable deposit in the next 5 years and overpay on the repayments when we do get a mortgage as we will be debt (and nursery fee) free.

I think money gets easier (all dependent on job security etc) as you get older because you aren't so hung up on going out every weekend or buying the latest gadget to impress, enabling you to make overpayments.

Don't let the age thing put you off.. you are older and wiser than most FTB's and therefore hopefully won't make the same rash and hasty decisions!

Good luck!

lypsey

I have copied and pasted from repossessed property thread tha is running but it also applies to you
"Take five minutes to look at what is happening in the stock markets , read up on hedge funds and also the carry trade. Billions and billions had been made through very very very cheap credit over the last 5 years . This is starting to end.

It was muted on Five Live this morning that one of the UK banks (can't remember if it was Brad & Bing or Northern Rock) but they were suggesting we could have a major bank failure . Before you all laugh how insane a suggestion this is , I think you will find 80 banks in America have gone bust THIS YEAR and the BIGGEST US lending bank called Countrywide which is nothing to do with the English company with the same name is close to bankruptcy with its share going down 59% in the last week or so.
You will see that ALL the banks start to rein in the offers of 5 times and 6 times salary , 125% mortgages , interest only mortages etc. I believe now that interest rates may be at there peak but don't get excited because I also believe that the money markets will make the interest rates over the next 6 month and you could see the borrowing rates climbing far and beyond the central bank rates
My question to you is what effect will this have on UK house prices , I would suggest catastrophic , I can see house price fall of 50% of the next 5 years , so gentlemen be careful"

I was in negative equity on the last house price crash and I can tell you it is miserable. The fundementals dont stack up
1) As mentioned above we have 1.3 trillion pounds of debt
2) Average house 200k , average salary 23.5 k = average borrowing is 8 times salary . Even in the last crash it wasn't this high
http://www.in2perspective.com/nr/stats/house-price-to-earnings-ratio.jsp
My 3 year old will tell you whats going to happen with this graph
3)BTL doesn't make finacial sense now , you can get better value in the bank and it has been BTL that has been the "bottom rung" of the ladder
4)Take a look at the property shares such as Persimmon , wimpy , barretts , their shares are down big time. The city (smart money) know whats going to happen in the housing market. Also take a look at Brad & bIng and Northern Rock even before this weeks crisis they were in severe trouble and they lend a lot of money to the BTL market
5) The lowest number of 1st time buyers in history ... why
I could go on