House buying help?

cherryblossomzel

Hi all

I am thinking seriously about buying my first home. At the moment I am in the information-gathering stage. Obviously I will read everything on this website , and I've found a house buying guide over on which.co.uk, but I was wondering if anyone has any particular website or other resource you can recommend?

Thanks!!

Edit - after posting I spotted the rather excellent sticky post, hah, which is probably all I need, but let me know if three's anything else out there.

Rambosmum

Get your budget worked out and then get looking. You can do the research alongside the looking. The longer you procrastinate by researching and reading the more houses get sold, the more prices go up. Just get looking. It'll help you get a feel for your expectations, a feel for the market in your are and also give you realistic expectations and help you to see what your non-negotiables are.

cherryblossomzel

Rambosmum wrote: »

Get your budget worked out and then get looking. You can do the research alongside the looking. The longer you procrastinate by researching and reading the more houses get sold, the more prices go up. Just get looking. It'll help you get a feel for your expectations, a feel for the market in your are and also give you realistic expectations and help you to see what your non-negotiables are.

Thanks, I think you're right, but I do want to figure out some of the basics, like how much I should budget for fees so I know how much I can afford to put down as a deposit, what exactly the difference is between leasehold and freehold etc.

But I am definitely starting to clarify my list of must haves so I can get things rolling.

SavingAway88

Hiya, I'm in the same boat, just trying to work out finances and how much I'll need to save for other costs, like solicitors, surveys etc. I thought saving the deposit was the main thing.

I found this site called reallymoving that has a calculator I found really useful.

Oh difference between leasehold and freehold - freehold you own the property, leasehold you're technically leasing the property for a certain number of years (the freeholder owns the land the property is built on) . That's why leaseholds are usually cheaper. It's also why flats are all leasehold.

They come with a lot of other costs, like ground rent and service charges that everyone in the building would have to pay. In some cases the freeholder also can control certain elements, like the leaseholder not being able to do building work, or have a pet. It's a bit more like having a landlord.

If you're buying a leasehold you've also got to make sure the lease is long, otherwise you'll struggle to sell later or you need to pay loads to convert a leasehold to a freehold.

Personally I'd like a freehold, but owning a house is much more expensive where I'm looking! Hope that helped a bit!

datlex

Remember you don't have to spend your full budget. Also deduct from your budget, solicitor costs, survey fees, removal costs etc.

mouthscradle

I loved Phil Spencer's book called How to Buy Your First Home when I was a FTB. It's a few years old now so some bits will be outdated, but the basics will be the same. Can probably pick up a second hand copy for a pound or two.

jdanthony

I asked friends and family for advice when buying my first home, they will be able to advise you about the various pitfalls.

cherryblossomzel

datlex wrote: »

Remember you don't have to spend your full budget. Also deduct from your budget, solicitor costs, survey fees, removal costs etc.

Absolutely. I have no intention of stretching myself just to buy the biggest I can afford.

Cakeguts

What a lot of people get wrong is this. They think that you only have to save for the deposit and once you have done that and bought the home you can buy cars on finance, have expensive mobile phone contracts, go on expensive holidays and generally spend everything you earn as if they were still renting. You can't do this when you own your home because things can break suddenly when you are not expecting them to and you have to pay for them to be repaired.



There is no longer a landlord who will carry out gas checks and boiler services that is now down to you and you pay for them.



You pay for buildings insurance as well as the contents insurance.


You pay for the new boiler, new windows, blocked drains, blocked toilets, burst pipes behind the bath, roof repairs, new carpets, etc
You also have to have savings that will pay the mortgage if you lose your job. If you don't pay the mortgage the bank might repossess your home so you have got to be able to pay the mortgage even if you are not working. There are no benefits that will do this for you.





So for all of this you have to continue saving as if you are still saving for the deposit once you have bought the house. Keeping your home is more important than luxuries like phone contracts, cars on finance and holidays.

Smodlet

Cakeguts wrote: »

What a lot of people get wrong is this. They think that you only have to save for the deposit and once you have done that and bought the home you can buy cars on finance, have expensive mobile phone contracts, go on expensive holidays and generally spend everything you earn as if they were still renting. You can't do this when you own your home because things can break suddenly when you are not expecting them to and you have to pay for them to be repaired.



There is no longer a landlord who will carry out gas checks and boiler services that is now down to you and you pay for them.



You pay for buildings insurance as well as the contents insurance.


You pay for the new boiler, new windows, blocked drains, blocked toilets, burst pipes behind the bath, roof repairs, new carpets, etc
You also have to have savings that will pay the mortgage if you lose your job. If you don't pay the mortgage the bank might repossess your home so you have got to be able to pay the mortgage even if you are not working. There are no benefits that will do this for you.





So for all of this you have to continue saving as if you are still saving for the deposit once you have bought the house. Keeping your home is more important than luxuries like phone contracts, cars on finance and holidays.

What Cakeguts said, with bells on! As for the paragraph in bold, if keeping your home is not more important than keeping up with the Kardashians, you ain't ready for home ownership. If you are ready, buy a freehold if you possibly can but be aware some of those still come with service charges attached (mostly newbuilds)

As for estimating costs, why bother? Call up some solicitors and ask them for quotes. Check out online conveyancers' websites and see if they will do the same (though personally I would avoid those like the plague, having used one) Call up some removal firms and ask them for ideas of cost, assuming you have enough stuff to need this. If you can drive and have big, strong friends, maybe you could hire a van and do it yourself but be aware of the insurance implications of doing so.

Hope this isn't TMI and HTH. Good luck and good hunting.

cherryblossomzel

Thanks to both Cakeguts and Smodlet. It's important to remember, and brutal honesty from internet people is so helpful.

I've never been much for keeping up appearances, so I think I'm OK. But I also intend to do my budgets again and again to double check (as far as possible without a crystal ball of course) that I can afford the unexpected.

Haven't considered just calling up people and getting quotes, what a fantastic idea.