Buy now or wait?

Dave93

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Not been in here for a few years, but amazing this is still the same question being posted.

I've always found that if your in a position to buy, then you should not delay and generally, those that do own their homes financially are always better off than delayed / prolonged renting

Yeah my opinion has always been if you can buy a home, buy it. But getting a home now with myself and my girlfriend on the cusp of some big financial changes (all beneficial) we just want to make sure that we are doing the right thing; whether that is buy now or wait 2 years and buy something bigger/something we wont have to spend money renovating.

Pixie5740

Dave93 wrote: »

Banks when speaking to them about mortgages, the bank that offered the best rates suggested even with my girlfriend providing savings as well, due to her lack of income contribution having her as a name on the application would hinder rather than help. They suggested all deposit contributions going through me regardless of where the money came from to get the mortgage. Spoken with my girlfriend about this and she is fine with this.

A mortgage adviser at the bank actually suggested that you pretend all the deposit contributions are coming from you rather than the pair of you? :eek: I'd be interested to see what happens when your solicitor wants to confirm the source of the deposit in order to comply with anti-money-laundering regulations.

FIRSTTIMER

I would say buy solo now. Rent for me would be £750 and my mortgage is going to be £450 which is a mega difference. I agree with a lot of posts - prices might be 5k-10k more expensive in a couple of years so you waited for nothing. Its win win if you buy now. prices goes up - mortgage goes down - ltv becomes better

Dave93

Pixie5740 wrote: »

A mortgage adviser at the bank actually suggested that you pretend all the deposit contributions are coming from you rather than the pair of you? :eek: I'd be interested to see what happens when your solicitor wants to confirm the source of the deposit in order to comply with anti-money-laundering regulations.

Yeah they never explicitly said "transfer all of your money to Dave" but they did say to make things less complicated all deposit contributions should come through me. Part of my girlfriends contribution was a gift from her parents as well which has already been transferred to her (she has been saving it for a while now); so yes if there was no way we could get my girlfriend included on the mortgage without reducing our allowance then the deposit money was all coming via me. We have spoken about this and she is comfortable with it. I guess the question then is would it be worth adding her to the mortgage after we have got one? But that's probably another thread entirely :rotfl:

Or we could wait a couple more years, both be on the mortgage and both contribute to the deposit.

tom9980

Dave93 wrote: »

Banks when speaking to them about mortgages, the bank that offered the best rates suggested even with my girlfriend providing savings as well, due to her lack of income contribution having her as a name on the application would hinder rather than help. They suggested all deposit contributions going through me regardless of where the money came from to get the mortgage. Spoken with my girlfriend about this and she is fine with this.


Running away with ourselves is part of the reason I posted, given the people we are surrounded by reaping their rewards for working i.e. via buying homes are living with parents spending all of their income we are feeling like the scrimp and save approach for a few more years is a tough pill to swallow.

Relationship is strong 8 years together (since being 16) and lived together for 4 years.

In terms of properties we can currently buy either a 3 bedroom semi that needs TLC or a nicely fitted 2-3 bedroom terrace. With my girlfriends salary in a few years we could probably afford a nicely fitted 3 bedroom semi in a nicer area, bigger house, more garden space etc (house prices in the North West are cheap)!!

I guess one worry we have is if we buy now, and then sell and buy in say 3-5 years time if house prices drop we wont have much money paid into the mortgage so will end up taking a hit by selling the house.

Dont fall in to the trap of seeing what others have you never know the full story behind it, i know a couple who bought in the early 90's a pretty standard 2 bed property it was a starter home really they had two kids, went to Disneyland, had lots of trips around the uk with friends, and extended the home a bit. They also wasted tons of money on non essentials and luxuries they didn't need. They have no pension, had to borrow money off family for emergencies and are still paying a mortgage on a cheap starter property when given their income should be living in a 4 bed property and have decent pension pots by now.

My point here is you both need to sit down and think what you want life to be like and project various scenario's out to achieve that goal. A bit of early planning in life can save you serious money long term. I can tell you from my own experience that it is satisfying to know we own fairly significant assets early in life after making big sacrifices for a 10-12 year period which means we have a very solid foundation to enjoy the rest of our lives together. Ignore what others have and come up with a plan together for the long term.

IveSeenTheLight

Dave93 wrote: »

Yeah my opinion has always been if you can buy a home, buy it. But getting a home now with myself and my girlfriend on the cusp of some big financial changes (all beneficial) we just want to make sure that we are doing the right thing; whether that is buy now or wait 2 years and buy something bigger/something we wont have to spend money renovating.

Yes, definitely buying is a huge financial outlay, but I've yet to see / recall an instance where buying was worse than renting over say a 5 year period or longer.

Some detractors may point to Japan, but there are many threads to debate that market.

Certainly in the UK, the market forces promote ownership over rental.

Which area are you looking to buy?

Dave93

FIRSTTIMER wrote: »

I would say buy solo now. Rent for me would be £750 and my mortgage is going to be £450 which is a mega difference. I agree with a lot of posts - prices might be 5k-10k more expensive in a couple of years so you waited for nothing. Its win win if you buy now. prices goes up - mortgage goes down - ltv becomes better

Thank you for the response! Buy solo is essentially our only option at the minute, but with my girlfriend chipping in with a good chunk of the deposit contribution (although this wouldn't be official) I don't know what legal complications this would cause -- on a personal level she is fine with it, I am probably less comfortable because I want her to be a part of it. And I don't know how easy it is to get her name added to the mortgage in a years time or something...

IveSeenTheLight

Dave93 wrote: »

Thank you for the response! Buy solo is essentially our only option at the minute, but with my girlfriend chipping in with a good chunk of the deposit contribution (although this wouldn't be official) I don't know what legal complications this would cause -- on a personal level she is fine with it, I am probably less comfortable because I want her to be a part of it. And I don't know how easy it is to get her name added to the mortgage in a years time or something...

Adding / sharing ownership in the future is an easy change.
I have done similarly in the past

tom9980

Dave93 wrote: »

Thank you for the response! Buy solo is essentially our only option at the minute, but with my girlfriend chipping in with a good chunk of the deposit contribution (although this wouldn't be official) I don't know what legal complications this would cause -- on a personal level she is fine with it, I am probably less comfortable because I want her to be a part of it. And I don't know how easy it is to get her name added to the mortgage in a years time or something...

Until you talk to a broker you don't know that for sure, our first mortgage in 2014 i was under the same impression but we both were put on the mortgage with no issue at all despite me officially still being a student at the time.

Dave93

tom9980 wrote: »

Dont fall in to the trap of seeing what others have you never know the full story behind it, i know a couple who bought in the early 90's a pretty standard 2 bed property it was a starter home really they had two kids, went to Disneyland, had lots of trips around the uk with friends, and extended the home a bit. They also wasted tons of money on non essentials and luxuries they didn't need. They have no pension, had to borrow money off family for emergencies and are still paying a mortgage on a cheap starter property when given their income should be living in a 4 bed property and have decent pension pots by now.

My point here is you both need to sit down and think what you want life to be like and project various scenario's out to achieve that goal. A bit of early planning in life can save you serious money long term. I can tell you from my own experience that it is satisfying to know we own fairly significant assets early in life after making big sacrifices for a 10-12 year period which means we have a very solid foundation to enjoy the rest of our lives together. Ignore what others have and come up with a plan together for the long term.

Thank you for this reply, and I know that you are right; comparing ourselves to others will never end well. I suppose my long term goal personally is to have a good amount of savings so that we can retire earlier than 67 comfortably. If that meant taking a hit on the size of the house we owned I would be happy with that, and if that meant saving and hanging on now I'd be happy with that also if I knew that buying in a few years was the more sensible decision than buying now. Buying now we would have a cheaper mortgage than in 2 years time but would have to spend money renovating the property anyway whereas in 2 years time we would need much less renovation and have a bigger home but with a bigger mortgage and 2 years extra paying rent.

Some people may say there is no right and wrong in this situation but I think there is, I'm just lost as to what the right thing to do is. A crystal ball to see the future of both outcomes would be nice.

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Yes, definitely buying is a huge financial outlay, but I've yet to see / recall an instance where buying was worse than renting over say a 5 year period or longer.

Some detractors may point to Japan, but there are many threads to debate that market.

Certainly in the UK, the market forces promote ownership over rental.

Which area are you looking to buy?

North West UK, anywhere between St Helens/Warrington. And I do feel like you are right, the doom and gloom in the news with articles expecting housing market crashes etc are just muddying the water for us. The thought of buying now fills us with excitement and joy, but at the same time a feeling of dread not knowing whether its right to buy now or wait given potentially uncertain times coming up.