Buying a flat outright till we save for the house we want?

Baa289

We have recently relocated from Scotland to Kent. Although we made a nice profit on our Scotland house the houses here as expected are way more expensive. We have both started new jobs and mine is a short fixed-term contract that is unlikely to be considered for a mortgage. Therefore a mortgage on just my husband's salary is unlikely to get us the house we want in areas we like. Is it crazy to consider buying a flat outright till we save more and my job situation is more stable? We are currently living with family and we're paying half their rent and the commute is pretty long so not keen to stay for long-term. Thanks

canaldumidi

There are 2 aspects:

1) Finance. How much is the rent? How much does the commute cost? How much are you earning on the savings you have?

Vs if you buy: how much would be the purchase costs (legals, surveys etc)? How much would be the running costs (ground rent, service charge, improvements, utilities etc)

Compare the costs of staying Vs buying

2) Personal. Is living with family comfortable? stressful? Would having your own place = a big improvement in your lifetyle?

lookstraightahead

I would definitely consider this. There's nothing wrong with living in a flat and you will be paying no rent.

AFF8879

If I understood your post correctly, you can afford to buy a flat “outright” meaning no mortgage whatsoever? If so, I don’t see why you couldn’t buy a small house (obviously not your dream house) with a mortgage based on your husband’s salary- seems too big a gap between buying a flat in cash and not being able to afford a house at all

Either way, I wouldn’t be looking to buy a flat right now if I knew I would be dependent on selling it in a few years- so many issues with cladding, fire regulations etc not to mention the pandemic effect dampening demand.

It might help to know the timeframe of how long until you can borrow on your combined income-anything under 2 years I think you’d be crazy to buy a flat 

oystercatcher

With house prices rising fast at the moment are you sure you can save faster than they rise? If you can't afford the house you want in the area you want then it makes sense to buy what you can afford . As mentioned above why not take out a mortgage based on husbands salary and find a 'second best' house if you can manage to afford one. At least then you are in the market and if prices rise so will the value of the house you are in. Meanwhile you can save your money and upgrade when finances are better. I wouldn't want to be sharing with family for long .

gwynlas

If there are houses that you can afford with single salary and savings then these would be better than a flat and you could possibly add value by making budhet conscious improvements Flat ownership in Englamd is different from Scotland and you might have little ir no control over service charges

macman

As referred to above, in England a flat would be a leasehold purchase, which would not be the case in Scotland.

Norman_Castle

Baa289 said:

 Is it crazy to consider buying a flat outright till we save more and my job situation is more stable?

How long it'll take until you are able to afford what you want is a factor.

rexmedorum

I wouldn't fancy buying a leashold property if it could be at all helped (even though I perfectly enjoyed living in flats when renting) so I guess I'd second the idea of a small house, whether with or without a small mortgage based on 1 salary.

Baa289

Thanks for the advice, good points to consider and I hadn't considered the leasehold as different in Scotland. I think we will go for the small house -  this is still around 350k here. Looks like my husband can borrow around 150k and we have a 190k deposit! Hopefully they'll consider my salary for affordability at least.