Making the move to London

lev1988

Hi All

I’m looking at moving to London. I’m a mid-level .NET programmer working in Brighton at the moment and am in the very fortunate position to have been left the property I have been renting by a relative who sadly passed away recently. It has always been my dream to live in London and I was going to start renting there shortly so now seems the perfect time!

I have sold the property in Brighton and will end up with £295k after costs on completion which is due on March 27th.

My problem (for want of a better term as I really appreciate the position I am in and don’t want to sound ungrateful) is that from the research I have been doing over the last month or so for properties in London it seems that to get somewhere even near comparable to my place in Brighton I will need at least £450k.

On top of my £295k deposit I can secure a mortgage of between £120-135k. Assuming I find a nice property for £450k I will have to pay £12,500 in stamp duty + various other fees so lets call it £15k all in.

If I get my best case scenario mortgage that would put me at £415k.

So my question is, do I have any options here that aren’t, buy somewhere cheaper, hope it goes up in value and then use that to attempt to purchase somewhere nicer in the future? (Naturally all the other property will also have gone up so I would have to be lucky with the area I pick).

The government does the “Help to buy” scheme but can I even apply for that under my circumstances? If I could then that might be the perfect way to borrow that extra 10% or so that I am looking for.

I would appreciate any advice people could offer me!

ThePants999

London is a big place. Can't you look in a different bit of it? I don't know what your Brighton place is like, but £415k goes a long way in the outer boroughs.

lev1988

That was my initial thought. As it stands I can get to Victoria in 53mins and London Bridge in 1h 16mins. When looking at places in the outer boroughs it seems on many occasions that it would actually take me longer to get into central London than it would from Brighton. At that point I would just be spending over £100k more for a downgrade in both the property and the location