Where to invest money before first-time buying?

pbfsu

Situation:

* Received ~70k GBP worth of USD when the company I work for was bought
* Will receive another ~35k GBP worth of USD over the course of the year
* I want to use it as a deposit to purchase my first place, but unsure when.
* Opened both a premium saver (0.85% AER), and help-to-buy ISA with Natwest.
* Planning to leave it in the premium saver until I know what the hell I'm doing.



Where should I be investing?



Given I might be using the money for a deposit anywhere between 6 months or 2 years, does investing in an ETF make sense, or should I be looking to leave it in for 5+ years? What providers would you recommend for my situation? Which ETFs?



Do I want to use a Lifetime ISA over a Help-to-Buy ISA?


I'm a bit overwhelmed... :huh::huh::huh::huh: Any other advice would be much appeciated!

Mr.Saver

pbfsu wrote: »

Given I might be using the money for a deposit anywhere between 6 months or 2 years, does investing in an ETF make sense, or should I be looking to leave it in for 5+ years? What providers would you recommend for my situation? Which ETFs?

No, investing in an ETF or really anything listed on the stock exchange doesn't make sense for 6 to 24 months.
You should be looking for regular savers, high interest current accounts, notice savings account, fixed saving accounts, and easy access savings accounts. For regular savers and fixed savings accounts, you will likely need to lock your money away for a year, so only do this if you are sure that you won't need the money before the maturity of the account.

pbfsu wrote: »

Do I want to use a Lifetime ISA over a Help-to-Buy ISA?

I'd use a LISA, because the higher allowance therefore higher bonus. But make sure you will definitely buy a qualifying home (e.g. doesn't exceed the 450k limit for LISA).

Thrugelmir

Stick a lump sum into premium bonds. Drip feed the money from there into regular savers , LISA etc.

Mr.Saver

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Stick a lump sum into premium bonds. Drip feed the money from there into regular savers , LISA etc.

Hmm... what surprise me is the premium bond part.

Based on the premium bond calculator, the median returns for the max £50k deposit in a year is between £500 (87% chance) and £750 (24.7% chance), this is roughly 1% to 1.5% interest before tax. For a basic rate tax payer, this can be easily beaten by high interest savings accounts, such as 1.5% easy access ISA, 2% fixed for a year, or 1.82% 90 days notice.

Could you elaborate on the rationalities here?