How to sell a first home to buy another

sitesafe

Hi - overwhelmed and slightly confused here. I feel a bit silly asking this but I bought my first house 12 years ago and now thinking of moving so have never done the selling or selling/buying thing before. I've looked on here and oline and asked people I know but I'm still not clear. I suppose I like to have everything organised - ducks in a row so to speak - but I'm not sure where to start. It seems I have to do a lot of assuming which I'm not good with as I like things to be black and white. This is what I've done so far:


Had 3 estate agents round to value house - one said asking price £170 for £160, another said £160 for £155 and another said asking price of £160. All of these are more than I expected having looked at other houses in the area. I'm hoping then that I'd get £155.


I owe £30k mortgage balance at present 1 yr 5 months into a 5 year fix of 2.79 per cent. I plan to overpay by 10 percent each year and, at the end of the 5 year fix, I know what the remaining balance will be and have saved that so I can pay it off then if I want to. Otherwise I have an additional 2 years and 3 months on top at SVR (so mortgage term remaining is 7 years and 3 months). ERC at present is £1,600.


I rang Santander and they explained about porting etc and I just guessed a figure if I was going to borrow more. It was going to be quite expensive to have two parts running alongside each other if I wanted them to end at the same time. I didn't get round to asking about getting a whole new product and paying the ERC instead as I think the advisor on the phone was getting fed up. I did ask however if she could send me an illustration in the post so I had something to refer to but she said she could not send me anything unless I had received a verbal offer on my property and had made a verbal offer on a property myself. I guess I want to know how much I need to/can borrow and at what rates so I know what properties I can afford to look at. I can't exactly put a verbal offer on a property if I don't what someone is prepared to lend me surely. Someone said to assume you know what you'd get for your place and assume what you'd get from Santander so you know what you can look for. Is that the way it works? I thought I could just phone up Santander and they'd give me details of mortgages and how much they would be willing to lend me as an existing customer before I then go looking at properties and put in offers?


Also, for calculators and applications, when I'm asked what the value of my house is that the average asking price from the Estate agents valuations or the hopeful selling price?


Another option is to sell my home and buy another later as I do have somewhere to stay but would feel a bit insecure about doing it this way as it is work accommodation and I'm not sure I want to stay in this job for long!


Many thanks for any advice - sorry if it's a bit confusing to read

kinger101

Try finding the basics from Google. Then post some concrete questions, rather than a ramble.

sitesafe

kinger101 wrote: »

Try finding the basics from Google. Then post some concrete questions, rather than a ramble.

Nice. I did say I've tried searching...and thought I'd ask on here now, given it's for advice and helping each other out.

sitesafe

Attempt to condense from my first posting if it makes it any easier to read!




I want to know how much extra I need to/can borrow and at what rates so I know what properties I can afford to look at. I can't exactly put a verbal offer on a property if I don't what someone is prepared to lend me yet Santander advisor told me they wouldn't send me any information in writing unless I'd had a verbal offer and made a verbal offer. Someone said to assume you know what you'd get for your place and assume what you'd get from Santander so you know what you can look for. Is that the way it works?






Also, for calculators and applications, when I'm asked what the value of my house is that the average asking price from the Estate agents valuations or the hopeful selling price?


Thank you

nubbins

Call a mortgage broker and give him your facts and figures such as outgoings, wages etc, you haven't given nearly enough information for anyone to guess how much extra you can borrow or need to borrow

pramsay13

To get a better answer you probably need to give your age and how long you will have the mortgage for and if you want to extend that. You will also need to give you income or at least how much you are paying on your mortgage and if you can afford an increase.
It sounds as though you have £30k left to pay over 7 and a bit years so you can add to this for the duration of this mortgage or take out a new mortgage over up to 25 years (assuming you are young enough to do this)
As Nubbins says a mortgage broker will be helpful as they will look at your income / expenditure and can give you a better idea of what you can afford on a new property.
Your current property will have a value but you just have to guess a bit for now. Ultimately the exact value will be what it sells for so you just have to make a judgement call based on what estate agents are telling (bearing in mind they are looking for your business) versus what you think it's worth due to other similar property sales.

sitesafe

pramsay13 wrote: »

To get a better answer you probably need to give your age and how long you will have the mortgage for and if you want to extend that. You will also need to give you income or at least how much you are paying on your mortgage and if you can afford an increase.
It sounds as though you have £30k left to pay over 7 and a bit years so you can add to this for the duration of this mortgage or take out a new mortgage over up to 25 years (assuming you are young enough to do this)
As Nubbins says a mortgage broker will be helpful as they will look at your income / expenditure and can give you a better idea of what you can afford on a new property.
Your current property will have a value but you just have to guess a bit for now. Ultimately the exact value will be what it sells for so you just have to make a judgement call based on what estate agents are telling (bearing in mind they are looking for your business) versus what you think it's worth due to other similar property sales.

Many thanks for the reply pramsay. You confirmed what I was questioning about guessing the value for now. I understand that I should see a broker as I didn't get very far when I spoke to my current mortgage provider. (I'm not expecting anyone on here to give me a figure just wondered if it was the norm to have to guess the value (based on EAs figures/local sales) for when I'm asked by mortgage providers/broker.))

sitesafe

nubbins wrote: »

Call a mortgage broker and give him your facts and figures such as outgoings, wages etc, you haven't given nearly enough information for anyone to guess how much extra you can borrow or need to borrow

Thank you nubbins - It's okay I wasn't expecting a figure just wanted to know if it's the norm to present the value as the suggested amount the estate agent has given.

agatham

Its best for your to speak to a broker and clearly state your needs. Based on what you said about talking to three EA, I think 160 should be your asking price. If 30 is what you pay off, you would be left with 130. Hope I make sense. Add some hidden costs.

In case you buy any other property, go for some less priced one. But based on what you described, I would say its safe for you to get help from a professional agent before doing anything.

spadoosh

How much do you think your house is worth?

Estate agents have given you asking prices and what they think you can achieve but you seem to suggest thats optimistic. Unless the estate agent spotted something you wasnt aware of i would say go off your instinct. Youve lived in the house for 12 years, youre the one who will regularly look at house values and compare and contrast whats available locally. Ive always found its best to be conservative when valuing your house, anything then above that is good news.

Look at houses you would like to buy, that should be pretty straight forward, take the asking price for its value. Use a rough average of the type of property you want to get a more general view which should mitigate any properties that will exceed the asking price.

I prefer to look at the whole picture so would lump all borrowing in to one, so the difference between what you expect for yours, and what a seller is asking for theirs is what you need.

|Then get on google asking how much mortgage can you afford, youll have to put in your figures. You should get a fairly wide scale although ive found the MSE one is quite conservative so should be a good one to look at.

From there you can work out what you can afford. So your property value - current mortgage + potential mortgage = hopefully less than the price of the new house you want. Obviously you dont need to max out your borrowing if you dont need to.

From there you can see how much mortgage you will roughly need and you will know a rough price of the property you want. You just need to put those numbers in a mortgage comparison site which will show you whats available.

Mortgage brokers are good but probably not needed yet whilst youre making initial inquiries. When you think its affordable after checking all this and decide youd like to move forward, then consider a mortgage broker.

Smodlet

So what if the Santander person was getting fed up? They are paid to help you. If they are fed up with too many customers, they might find themselves out of a job. They sound distinctly unhelpful so I suggest you do a comparison and/or shop around on the phone for someone with more customer focus. Personally, I would call Santander again and let them know what a bad customer experience you had the last time; that should get their attention. If it does not, maybe they don't deserve your business. Your call.