Worried about overpaying on house purchase

AdrianC

Davesnave said:

AdrianC said:

Crashy_Time said:

Right now is a bad time to buy if you are at all concerned about re-sale value IMO.

When, IYHO, was the last good time to buy?

Why am I thinking you won't get a straight reply to this simple question?

I'm an eternal optimist.

Mutton_Geoff

As others have said, two years is far too short to be buying. I'm currently selling and can't find anything to buy that suits so I am considering renting for a year or two. There seems to be an unhealthy desire to get on a "ladder" even when that ladder is lying horizontal on the ground or has turned into a snake.

ciderboy2009

When did the total square meterage of a property become a thing?

Surely what matters is the size and layout of each room?  Sometimes a smaller total square meterage can be a better buy because of this.

Mutton_Geoff

ciderboy2009 said:

When did the total square meterage of a property become a thing?

Surely what matters is the size and layout of each room?  Sometimes a smaller total square meterage can be a better buy because of this.

Quite the opposite. I have always bought houses after putting comparables into a spreadsheet to work out the £ per sq foot/metre I am buying. Only in the UK are people obsessed with the number of bedrooms instead of the actual "real estate" they are buying, hence the reason developers do whatever they can to squeeze in extra rooms.

AdrianC

Absolute price per area only matters if the properties are utterly comparable in every given way - or if you don't much care about anything other than floor area. And that's before we consider how the floor area's actually been measured, and whether the measurements of different properties have been done on the same basis. If it's actually given at all.

Equally, looking solely at the number of bedrooms is what brought us estates full of "executive home" rabbit hutches with rooms so small as to be virtually unusable.

It's all about taking a balanced view, and looking at the properties as a whole, surely...?

eidand

ciderboy2009 said:

When did the total square meterage of a property become a thing?

Surely what matters is the size and layout of each room?  Sometimes a smaller total square meterage can be a better buy because of this.

Some of us do look at the total area we're buying because it does matter. A lot of people seem to love living in little boxes because "layout", I'd rather have decent rooms and space and not feel like I live in a little prison while paying a fortune for it.

Crashy_Time

Angela_D_3 said:

Crashy_Time said:

Angela_D_3 said:

Buying a house should be a 5 year plan minimum or plan a way of ensuring you save the deposit for the next house without relying on the equity from the first and keep hold of each house on the climb up the ladder then sell them all at the end when you know which one you want to die in.  That truly is the way to do it 

Tax burden on property hoarders going forward will make that a no no for most, and also most people ARE relying on the "equity" to keep moving up, that is how a ponzi/borrowing scheme works!

Not necessarily.  The next house I buy I’ll smash the mortgage in 5 years,  then live for free for 3 whilst saving the deposit for the next forever house.  Whilst holding on to the first two.  I don’t care about paying tax in fact I’d go so far as to say I’m delighted to,  it means I’m earning money and moving forward in life.  

Most people are not doing this otherwise why is the government having to prop up the market for so long with HTB schemes?

Crashy_Time

Davesnave said:

When we bought in the depths of the last recession (2009) it was because of doomsayers suggesting world finance was in a downward plunge from which there was no escape. We figured bricks and mortar were somewhat more substantial than pixels on the screens of various banking web sites.

So, although it wasn't something we loved, we bought something with the potential to be a home for a long time. We're still here and although it's not perfect, our home's fine if the current crisis proves longer term than anyone in the mainstream supposes.

Two years? Pft! Imagine living there for at least 7 years and then decide.

When will you accept that you were wrong on that? Don`t think I have heard of anyone losing money from a bank since 2008, and they were all compensated in full? The problem with a house is that it is illiquid, unlike a bank account or investment account where you can for the most part get at the money when you need it, and IMO suggesting that putting money into a house can substitute for savings/diversified investments is poor financial advice.

Greymug

ciderboy2009 said:

When did the total square meterage of a property become a thing?

Surely what matters is the size and layout of each room?  Sometimes a smaller total square meterage can be a better buy because of this.

It depends on what your goal is: if you're buying a house with the intent of selling it quickly and make a buck or 2 of profit, then number of bedrooms and layout are the most important things.

If you're buying a house to actually live in it for a while, then total square metres is the most important thing because nobody can survive squeezed in tiny rooms. 

I personally would rather have 3 reasonably sized bedrooms than 4  or even 5 tiny ones. 

Crashy_Time

Can`t see anyone trying to flip houses now?