Mortgage free by 2021?!

hiddenshadow

Possible issues with the house have come to light.


- it's been on the market for almost 2 years, so would like to know more about that situation (don't fancy another long sale process if we did move in the future!)
- there's a waste centre up the road that may be a deterrent to people. It's doesn't look that bad, but the local gossip is much worse than it is (as usual).
- council may not give planning permission to use the existing outbuilding as an office space (though that seems very harsh to me as we'd essentially just be adding a window or two and insulating it), or to build a granny flat out the back (big issue for us as there's not much point buying a place that wouldn't work for MIL)
- busy road may put people off as well (it probably would have put us off if we haven't been living alongside it already...it's definitely not a plus point, at any rate)



We're not pulling out, but it's dampened our enthusiasm considerably. We've sent an e-mail off to the council to see if they can weigh in on the feasibility of planning permission, which is our biggest concern. And, of course, we've booked in to see more houses...sigh...


At least we should be getting the car on Friday! :j

debtfreeoneday

Just popping in to say hi! Well done on being MF x

hiddenshadow

Thanks DFOD! I'm still getting used to not having to check on a mortgage payment each month... though we are still waiting on the new owners to sort out electric supply (so we can get a refund) and the solar panels (so we can get paid). That should be a nice bonus payment, if/when it ever comes.


House posted about above is no longer in contention. In addition to the issues above, apparently it got run over(?) by large machinery years back when they were widening the main road it's on, which has likely damaged the foundations. Between that and the other issues, it was just too many red flags.


We've found another place though! £83k more, but on a quiet road (off the same main road, but about a mile down so only the residents drive through). It's about 40% bigger as well, which means the rooms are nice and open/light. The vendors seem nice (chatted with them for a few hours while the surveyor was wandering around inspecting things). There's one outstanding issue from the survey (need to reinforce a beam from when they extended), but they're looking into that. They should have the keys to their new place in a couple of weeks, so hopefully if the paperwork goes smoothly we could get in early-mid July.


We would take the full mortgage offered of €123,900 (not sure why they came up with such a weird figure). DH got a raise at work, so we could have qualified for more, but it would involve getting payslips that properly reflected the raise amount (they've already messed up May) which would mean waiting until July to get that sorted, most likely. We don't need more money, it would just be handy to have if we wanted to do anything to the house (upgrade the boiler, etc). We're happy to just save for a few months and cash flow anything that way, rather than risk being homeless for some period of time if there's a delay in purchasing. (Not that there's a guarantee that won't happen, but at least now everything's in place and going forward, so we can keep the momentum going without throwing anything else into the mix.)


New car is brilliant. This is the newest and fanciest car I've ever owned, and while it's not crazy fancy/expensive, it's really nice having a car that's comfortable to drive (especially on some of these small roads).


Less good development is FIL's health. He's been in and out of hospital with pneumonia several times in the past few months, and this time doesn't look good. We went to Derbyshire last week to spend time with him + MIL, and are waiting to see how he gets on now that he's off antibiotics. MIL has also agreed that he won't be re-admitted to hospital if he gets sick again (assuming he's well enough to go back to the care home this time around). So we'll definitely be heading back at some point in the near-ish future to support that. It's a rough time for everyone, but I found BIL/SIL extra annoying (both off work last week and neither went to the hospital once). Still, everyone copes in their own way I suppose. Looks like MIL may move over to Ireland sooner than expected.


We're saving all our pennies for house buying/moving, but we've got a lump sum dedicated to family emergencies (primarily for this scenario + if/when my grandparents in the US die). So at least there's no financial worry on our side with this. We may not need to use all of it, but at least we know that we could afford to handle funeral/moving expenses if need be.

hiddenshadow

hiddenshadow wrote: »

...we are still waiting on the new owners to sort out electric supply (so we can get a refund) and the solar panels (so we can get paid). That should be a nice bonus payment, if/when it ever comes.

So, this finally happened! Tidy £187.14 back from energy supplier, + £747.61 from solar panels. (New owners haven't sent in the paperwork to transfer ownership of the feed-in tarriff agreement so technically we still "own" the generation of the solar energy, even though we no longer own the solar panels. Odd situation, but I won't turn down free money when it's offered. (Only a hundred-ish was "free money", the rest was from a year of not claiming payment because the tenants kept giving us readings a few days too late.)

There's one outstanding issue from the survey (need to reinforce a beam from when they extended), but they're looking into that. They should have the keys to their new place in a couple of weeks, so hopefully if the paperwork goes smoothly we could get in early-mid July.

This...did not happen. No idea if vendors have keys to their new place, haven't heard from them in about 4 weeks. We've soured on this place altogether, mostly because of lack of communication from the auctioneer and/or the vendors. (I understand we're waiting on a govt document to be finalised, but their solicitor could at least send over the answers to the other questions our solicitor sent, and/or we could be told if/when the vendors are actually able to move out. Neither of those things have happened.)


We've officially moved out of our rental, as the landlord is moving back in next week. We moved into a short-term place handled by the auctioneer for the above house, but it's pretty dire. (Space is fine, but water is unsanitary and internet is dodgy...slight problem when we both work from home!) So we're hoping to find a better short- or long-term place in the next couple of weeks, so we don't pay to have this place for too long.


We've also found another house for sale that's similarly priced to the above house, but has another en-suite bathroom, a slightly better layout, and a larger plot for potential granny flat addition (I have a feeling planning permission would be denied with above house due to boundary issues). We've only seen it once, and it's priced €4k more than above house (but it's also been on the market almost a year so may be open to offers). We're considering offering €14k below asking and see if we can settle for €9k below. We're also getting someone out from a place that sells/installs log cabin type buildings and see what they say re: feasability of the plot/layout/etc.


So, lots of chaos and moving parts (literally & figuratively!) going on, but at least it's mostly productive. Also, because the mortgage approval was based on above house alone (once we got the valuation done that locks in the property, apparently?) we applied for a mortgage with our main current account and got approved for almost 2x as much. :T We won't use it all (unless we buy somewhere very fancy) but it's nice to have more wiggle room in the mortgage amount.


On another financial front, we met with a financial advisor the other week and will get their advice next week on what to do with our finances. First we need to setup an Irish pension for DH, which will eat up a fair bit of funds (both to retrospectively top-up his 2018 pension contribution and to max out 2019). We'll also look into what investment opportunities exist for post-tax funds, which we should have available once we've bought a property and have stabilised our monthly budget. Feeling very adult after financial advisor complimented us (well, me, being the CFO of the family) on our state of affairs. :cool:

Yorkielass

I've just read your entire diary hiddenshadow as we're similar ages, starting mortgage amount and circumstances as you when you started this diary and I was interesting to see where it lead - see you got your move albeit not Wales and a bit earlier than planned. Good luck with the new house buying.

I'm in awe of your spreadsheets - we moved last October unexpectedly porting our last mortgage and then taking out a second with the same place so we have 2 mortgages on slightly different rates and I need to get my head round tracking these and the overpayments - we've had a break from overpaying while we move and start to get sorted, it's a real project house, but I'm keen to start things off again. Do you have any spreadsheet tips you could share for this please?

chumpy45

Hi Hidden, just caught up with your diary. Lots going on - exciting and frustrating at the same time. Huge congratulations on being mortgage free even if it might only be for a short time ! Good luck house hunting.

hiddenshadow

Thanks chumpy45! Hoping things are moving in the right(ish) direction.


Recent highlights:

• moved out of dire rental place into nicer/much bigger place for minimum 6 months (its sale is being stalled due to a chain) - only €300/mo more but so worth it (even though for this area it's quite expensive rent)
• giant faff switching utilities which will likely result in a very large spend on electricity this month :mad:
• viewed place mentioned above again, still like it but...
• also viewed a place that's slightly smaller (but better layout for us), on a much quieter road up a hill with excellent views (main problem with above place is the busy road outside), priced 9k below above place
• put in an offer for 40k below asking and agreed on 30k below asking :money:

So...back on the bandwagon of house buying. (In theory original place we offered on back in May might be ready to exchange, but as this new place is in a better location and is 35k less we're not that tempted also have no idea if all the paperwork is fully sorted, which makes us not inclined to exchange contracts to definitely buy it.)


Hoping the 6 months is enough to sort things out with this property, especially as it's currently being rented (tenant planning to move out to save up for their own place). If not, at least we should get a sense of where we are at the 4 month mark and have time to sort out moving (again) if we need more time. (Learned our lesson on trusting the "oh sure, everything will work out fine" line...)


Nothing else too exciting, though we're finally getting DH set up with an Irish pension. Should be able to contribute for 2018 (which would mean paying into UK and Irish pensions somehow, but I won't complain), and then catch up for 2019. Then we just need to figure out what our remaining finances are on a monthly basis and get used to paying a mortgage again. (At least the payment should be < €700, which is much nicer than our old £1000+)


I feel like I should come up with new goals for this thread (or probably a new thread to cover Irish mortgage), but for now we'll stick with the holding pattern.

hiddenshadow

Hi Yorkielass! Thanks for reading the whole thread, hope it wasn't too mundane.

Yorkielass wrote: »

I'm in awe of your spreadsheets - we moved last October unexpectedly porting our last mortgage and then taking out a second with the same place so we have 2 mortgages on slightly different rates and I need to get my head round tracking these and the overpayments - we've had a break from overpaying while we move and start to get sorted, it's a real project house, but I'm keen to start things off again. Do you have any spreadsheet tips you could share for this please?

The spreadsheet I built (which I'm happy to share, I've got a template) is only set up for 1 mortgage, but I bet it wouldn't be too bad to set up for 2. If you want to PM me the details (dates they run, rates, overpayment limits, etc) I could play around with it.

hiddenshadow

Slight financial dilemma...


Old diesel car (purchased used in 2016 for £2,500) has been running OK but has had a few problems lately. Took it to a new garage today and they've taken it apart and found many problems. Estimate €500-600 to fix (possibly not including the €80-100 they'll charge for the investigation).


We were debating replacing this car anyway, likely in January with a larger electric car (not available until January). It's only got 80k miles on it but we don't want to keep driving a diesel and throwing money at it to repair, either.


Options:

• pay €500-600+ to fix it up, drive it until at least January, scrap it for €100 when we switch cars
• pay €500-600+ to fix it up, drive it until January, sell/donate it to a friend of ours (probably €100-200)..not sure if she wants it though
• scrap it for €100 now and make do with just 1 car until January (main issue is not being able to go to the barn/store/vet/etc for 2 days a fortnight when DH is in London)

I'm leaning towards option 3, but don't know if that's just me being ultra frugal or what. On the one hand, we won't find a better car to use for 6 months for < €600, but on the other hand we'd basically only use it for those 2 days (though it did come in handy during out last move as we could just throw all the random dirty things into it and not care about the interior).


I suppose I feel like as we got by with just one car for almost 2 years, we should be able to get by again (especially as we now live someplace that will do grocery and takeaway delivery), but part of me is paranoid that the old dog will have a health crisis when I'm home alone with no transport.

hiddenshadow

Well, that debate was short-lived. Miscommunication with the garage means they did the work without our firm yes. Came in at €675 but I pushed back and they'll knock off €75 so that it does at least come in "within budget" (albeit more than we would have wanted to spend).


We'll see if someone wants to take it off our hands for a few hundred, or scrap it. Tax/MOT are due in Nov/Dec so we want to be rid of it before those expenses come up.