Buying property as a single person - am I crazy?

cashbackproblems

I am in the same position buying as a single person and maxing myself out to the hilt! Earning 55k borrowing 250k.


Its a scary thought and you need to be confident your job is relatively secure and you have a good number of months spare cash as a safety net. But the benefits are you are on the ladder, building equity and can always rent it out in case of long term unemployment

GoodnessGraciousMe

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

What's your current situation? If you're renting alone your bills won't be all that different, the only extra one really will be your buildings insurance (and life/critical illness cover if you feel you need it).

I rent with a friend so bills are split in two.

I get life and critical illness cover through work. How much is buildings insurance approximately? Are we talking an extra £50 a month or more?

Thanks

GoodnessGraciousMe

jamels2 wrote: »

Have you considered buying a property to rent out while still renting yourself? I think its cakked let to rent. It would mean you are on the property ladder but arent tied to the one property/location.

I haven't considered that but don't think I would need that as I have a deposit and can get a mortgage so thought I might as well buy somewhere.

cashbackproblems

banks do no longer lend for BTL to FTB's

Kevie192

Can I ask why you are so desperate to own if it causes you this stress?

I'm a single man with a disposable income 1.5x yours and would not consider buying my own house. At the moment I'm enjoying life and wouldn't have the money to replace a blown up boiler or holes in the roof. So I rent.

In addition, I don't plan on being single forever. So when I do decide I want to own a house (and if it's for the right reasons) I anticipate it'll be with a long term partner and one that fits both our needs rather than them having to live in a house I've customised just for me.

Just wanted to give a view on the other side of the coin to consider.

Kevin

Red-Squirrel_2

DumbMuscle wrote: »

The proper chimney breast has a back boiler in it, and the flue is shared with the adjacent property (also with a back boiler) - so it could never be used as an actual fireplace, and isn't particularly attractive!

Talk to a gas engineer, that was exactly the situation with mine, you could easily have a nice stove or a gas fire of done sort, even a good looking surround and something non functioning has to better than flattening the chimney breast! If it's a style of property that should clearly have one future buyers may be disappointed too.

Red-Squirrel_2

GoodnessGraciousMe wrote: »

I rent with a friend so bills are split in two.

I get life and critical illness cover through work. How much is buildings insurance approximately? Are we talking an extra £50 a month or more?

Thanks

Nowhere near, unless you live on a flood plain or something it's pretty cheap.

Why don't you put a hypothetical house into a comparison site and see what comes up?

DumbMuscle

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

Talk to a gas engineer, that was exactly the situation with mine, you could easily have a nice stove or a gas fire of done sort, even a good looking surround and something non functioning has to better than flattening the chimney breast! If it's a style of property that should clearly have one future buyers may be disappointed too.

To avoid hijacking this thread, I suggest we take any further discussion here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5646126 (which is my own thread about the planned renovations).

I don't see any advantage to my enjoyment of the house in keeping it. I doubt it would ever get used, even if there was a working fire in place. There may be a value hit to the house as a whole, but that's likely to be minor, and more than mitigated by the other work I'm doing. It's a 70s terrace, so we're not talking about removing some architectural marvel of a fireplace here - just moving things in the room to make it work better for me. The only sign there would be to future buyers that it had been removed would be the chimney stack and the bracing in the loft to hold it up.

I would post a link to the listing (listed as sold STC) so you can judge for yourself, but I'm paranoid about being gazumped since I've not exchanged yet!

martinsurrey

GoodnessGraciousMe wrote: »

I rent with a friend so bills are split in two.

I get life and critical illness cover through work. How much is buildings insurance approximately? Are we talking an extra £50 a month or more?

Thanks

more like £12-£15 a month, mine is £220 a year but is a large detached place (200sqm) with a £75k contents policy.

My 3 bed was around £140 a year.

Davesnave

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

I bought alone and the scariest bit was pressing "confirm" when transfering the deposit to my solicitor via online banking. All those years of savings reduced to numbers on a screen that disappear with a slight push of a finger!

I don't think I thought much about it when the money was paid across for my first house. I had the optimism of the young.

I found it much more scary when we rented for 9 months, when things were financially wobbly back in 2009. Money in the bank was merely pixels.

Markets could rise or fall, but as someone else wrote on MSE, "A house is always going to be worth a house."

This place was scary, but not buying it seemed scarier!