Third time's the charm...

RelievedSheff

LittleMissDetermined said:

Thanks, we have already had an offer accepted on one, based on a decision in principle we had from the bank. I was just nervous about the full application and hard credit check. We are buying (I can say that now - eek) a 3 storey 4 bed town house in the next town. 

LMD x

Well done. I hated waiting for the mortgage approval when we bought our house. We didn't have a straight forward case due to some adverse credit on my credit file and it was a very nerve wracking two weeks while we waited for the mortgage offer. We have just remortgaged and thankfully the process was much quicker this time and we have managed to get high street rates this time even though I do still have some adverse credit.

Ooo. All those stairs will keep you fit   

enthusiasticsaver

Congratulations on the new mortgage approval and hope that the house buying/selling process goes smoothly. Will this impact on you clearing the debt?

 At least you seem to have a decent amount to overpay the cards with. Is it at 0% or are you paying interest?

 Have you got a house moving savings fund to pay for things like solicitors costs, removal fees, services etc?

 House moving can be expensive and often a reason for debt so keeping tight control of the budget for the next six months or so is probably a good idea. 

LittleMissDetermined

RelievedSheff said: I hated waiting for the mortgage approval when we bought our house. We didn't have a straight forward case due to some adverse credit on my credit file and it was a very nerve wracking two weeks while we waited for the mortgage offer. We have just remortgaged and thankfully the process was much quicker this time and we have managed to get high street rates this time even though I do still have some adverse credit.

It was a very tense few weeks to be honest, no adverse credit for either of us, just a lot outstanding.  Congrats @RelievedSheff on getting the high street rates, does that mean your payments are less or are you reducing your term? 

enthusiasticsaver said:

 Will this impact on you clearing the debt?

Yes and no... we have discussed the situation and will be using £9k of equity in the house to clear some of the balances - they're all accruing interest at the moment but I have had a couple of March 0% offers so I will see if I can do some juggling now that the mortgage is sorted.

enthusiasticsaver said:

 Have you got a house moving savings fund to pay for things like solicitors costs, removal fees, services etc? House moving can be expensive and often a reason for debt so keeping tight control of the budget for the next six months or so is probably a good idea. 

There is a lot of equity in the house so all the fees will be taken care of, we will still have enough left for furniture purchases as it's a larger house and the remainder will be placed in the 'house' account to cover any emergencies, work or will sit there until the anniversary when we can overpay a chunk to hopefully reduce the term.  Our mortgage payments are only going to increase by £211 a month, and whilst other costs (utilities, council tax, insurance) will increase we will still be able to comfortably over pay on our cards and clear them within a year.

It's all out of our hands now and over to the solicitors to do their thing.

LMD xx

RelievedSheff

@LittleMissDetermined we have reduced our mortgage term to keep our monthly payments roughly the same. We have managed to reduce the term from 23 years remaining to 16 years with the much lower interest rate. We plan to make overpayments on this as well to bring the term down to 15 years (or less if possible) as we had initially planned.

We have fixed for 5 years this time. At the end of this 5 years we will hopefully be debt free so will plough the extra money into the mortgage when we remortgage again and hopefully reduce the term further still.

LittleMissDetermined

@RelievedSheff - that sounds like a sensible plan, 7 years off your mortgage is a great start though you must be thrilled.  We opted for a 5yr fixed too, hopefully with a plan to do the same and reduce the term once we are debt free, settled and have a got amount of savings to contribute. 

[Deleted User]

How exciting! The house sounds amazing.

LittleMissDetermined

Deleted_User said:

How exciting! The house sounds amazing.

Thanks Dolly, I’m so happy! The house is lovely and I can’t wait to move in. Just waiting on everything else now.  It’s a fairly short chain so I’m hopeful it’ll be straightforward enough.  Going to be keeping an eye on the budget later to see if the stamp duty holiday is going to be extended... that’ll be a result if it is. 

LMD xx

LittleMissDetermined

LittleMissDetermined said: 

 Going to be keeping an eye on the budget later to see if the stamp duty holiday is going to be extended... that’ll be a result if it is. 

LMD xx

Stamp Duty holiday extension has been confirmed in the budget...Hurrah! That's around a £1500 saving for us - I am very pleased

[Deleted User]

Brilliant news! 

RelievedSheff

I must admit I was very surprised by the Budget this time. Not the massive tax hikes for the "normal" person that I had expected to see.

Good news regarding the stamp duty. Hope you can get your purchase through before the holiday runs out.