Half a house

Silence101

Thanks, I will have a look at the settings. It makes it very hard to read!
We will go to a broker closer to when our fixed deal finishes so we can see what would be the best outcome.

Silence101

OK, this is just to check I've sorted out the random numbers out

Thanks Chasing, it did the trick!

Sir_Robin

Interesting blog I'll be following !

You had a lot of the same concerns I did. Exept mine was an older house so I was also worrying about the length of the lease! I bought 5O% SO with around 80k mortgage 2 yrs ago.

My approach was to put 100% of my savings into deposit for buying the other half- no overpayments. In retrospect your approach is probably smarter interest wise.

I bought the remaining 50%(got the freehold as part of the Staircasing ) last sept. Ended up paying about £1700 in Solicitor fees for the Staircasing.

Focus on getting the LTV down I found once I had subtracted the rent I would no longer be paying the payments for the larger mortgage were not as large as I was expecting.

Silence101

Thanks! Interesting to see solicitors are pretty much wanting the same amount to staircase.
I think both approaches are valid, as the interest paid vs earned is pretty similar at the moment. We'd have to have a huge amount of savings to be able to buy the second half, as the limit in a normal mortgage for us is about 110000 so even if we paid off the whole mortgage we'd have to find another 30000 or so to cover the gap. And that's having paid off the mortgage, which we haven't.
We are planning on building our savings at hopefully a similar rate than we're overpaying, but I'm not sure if that's the best approach long term.
I think we'll take a look in 5 years time to see where we are between mortgage and savings.
We try and live fairly frugally, but could probably do more to save pennies. And in 5 years time I should have an income to bring to the household too, so our options might be better by then.

Silence101

We've sent a small fortune on plants for the garden. I can't wait to see it all in bloom. I read an article that suggested budgeting 5% of the value of the house to design the garden. Needless to say we're hoping to do it for a lot lot less!

Dizzy_Ditzy

Having spent two days at work reading this, I'd like to say thank you for posting this! My story is early 40's, been renting forever and its time for change. My rent is due to go up again in four years time so thats my target for buying. While we are both moving, its only me doing the mortgage and i earn below the national average. I live in Bristol and house prices are ridiculous. £120K buys you a garage in some parts! I stumbled across SO and realised that its perfect for me and i can do it in two years as opposed to four. Fortunately, there is a development going up in my target area with houses for SO, which is due for completion late 2019/mid 2020 so its in my target time too

Its been refreshing to see other peoples views on SO. I had no clue about it when I first started saving (last month!) Thank you again for posting this

Silence101

There's definitely a lot to think about, so far it's been ok, but we haven't been here a year yet, so I'm still bracing myself for unknown potential issues! At the moment Mr S is the only earner, so we're trying to chip at the mortgage, but aren't planning on buying more shares just yet, but once I return to work, I think we'll have to sit down to see what our next steps should be.

Silence101

Since OPing the max we could until October, I'm afraid I haven't been very frugal or managed to save any money.

I've restarted driving lessons, and have booked my test for later this year. It's very expensive but hopefully useful in the long term, even just for future job prospects. I'm not looking forward to finding out just how much the insurance will be, especially the first year.

I need to start a new budget again though, because once I start overspending I can't seem to stop. I have the same problem with food, so that needs to be sorted too, as I would like to be fit and healthy, but I'm not at the moment. And we'd save a lot of money if we didn't buy so many snacks, alcohol and fizzy drinks, but we seem to have gotten into this unhealthy habit, so we're now going to have to work to break it.

Silence101

Today is an expensive day, eldest has been invited to 3 parties this weekend, and one of them is at a soft play centre on the other side of town. So I need to pay for the bus and the entrance fee for the youngest.

I'm pretty sure the day will end in tears, as the girls have been up since 6, even though we tried to darken their room some more. It's hard work when they are tired and excited, but refuse to sleep.

I'm hoping that in between parties we'll be able to work on the shed some more. We've insulated it, but need to put the plaster boards up to finish it off. I think I'll paint it white inside, but I have plans to create a mural at some stage.

shangaijimmy

3 parties... feel your pain. One weekend i literally spent the entire time in the same play centre. DS1 had a party 10-12, then DS2 1-3! So no point going home, and then we followed it up with parties at 11-1 and 2-4! At least it was a different play centre!

Good luck... Countdown to bed time starts now!