Buying a flat/house in Birmingham

JenniferZenn

Hi All,

I am a single person and renting at the moment but thinking about buying my first flat/house soon. I earn around £35,000 / year. Have savings around £60,000.00 to use towards deposit.

I'm looking for an advice on whether I'd be able to buy a one bedroom house or least a studio flat in Birmingham (around Erdington Area) or elsewhere in the country. I am thinking of buying one under shared ownership scheme.So far the advice from my friend/s is to just stay renting and save up more or look around in the near town , 'Stoke' to afford one.

I am paying around £500 for a shared accomdation atm here in Birmingham and it is going to go up a bit more from April. I just want to have my privacy now with my family visting me and all, also a kind of investment I guess ? Do I stand a chance at all ?  where I should start my research on it ?

Anything from you guys ? will the process be too hectic for a single person to even think about it? And advice is really appreciated!

Thank you in advance for your time

Jenni

jrawle

Absolutely you can buy somewhere. You have done well to accumulate £60,000 for a deposit, and it puts you in a strong position. Go to Rightmove and search for properties in Erdington, Birmingham. You will see you can almost buy a flat with no mortgage, although you will probably want a nicer one! Properties are quite affordable in your part of the country. You will be able to borrow £80,000 or so and still pay less than you currently do in rent, for your own place.

Of course, there are lots of variables, such as how much of your £60,000 you want to spend (I'd advise keeping some "rainy day" money) and how expensive a property you would like to buy. Have a look at Rightmove and if you like, come back with the sort of property price you'd be looking at, and we can go through the numbers.

MikeJXE

Depends on you whether it's hectic or not.

I had my first house built when I was 22 years old, believe it or not my bank held £1 1 shilling and six pence old money and I had borrowed £100 to buy the land. I'm 82 now and have moved house many times 

Your first house is the least stressful  as there is no downward chain, you have nothing to sell and you will be favourite for buyers. 

I agree i wouldn't do shared ownership, wait and save a bit more. 

JenniferZenn

Thanks a lot for your advice and encourgement. All £60,000 will be going towards deposit and I have an extra £20,000 to cover up other charges like stamp duty etc . Not looking for a very posh one but something livable for now as going forward in future can renovate to my style. so to sum up everything should fall max to £80,000. Sure, I definitely check the website you mentioned.

Thank you

MikeJXE

I would avoid flats too

JenniferZenn

@ MikeJXE thanks for your advice. It's interesting to that . Any issues with shared ownership you know of ?

SiliconChip

With the deposit you've saved and the likely amount that you could borrow based on your salary I don't see any difficulty in you being able to buy a property in Birmingham. However, from your post it seems like you don't know either Birmingham or the UK very well, so it might make sense to rent for a little longer until you have a better idea of where you might like to live - Erdington and Stoke would not be on my list of places to buy unless you had a good reason to choose either location.

MikeJXE

Other than you don't own it all and you may have to pay rent on what you don't own.  I'm not sure you can even sell it 

Plus in my opinion they are overpriced, look cheap to attract you 

JenniferZenn

@SiliconChip : Thanks for your input. I have been living in UK for past 13 years . Lived in Birmingham (family still there in Erdington) and moved to Stoke in 2020 for a job change but been working from home from then. So the suggestion from friends to look here in Stoke. But you are right. I need to travel around a bit . Being an introvert wont help at all

I am open to any other good areas too (affordable) in Birmingham not just Erdington. I am still naive and it just to give you guys an idea as where I can start.

RedFraggle

Nothing wrong with flats if the lease is decent. I'd avoid shared ownership unless you don't have another option. 

tealady

Best thing to do is find out what you can borrow. Then look around the area for houses in that budget.
If you want to stay in Brum you could look as far as Walsall (good transport links to Birmingham City by train and bus).
However if you are working in Stoke then consider your commute. The M6 can be horrendous, and rail strikes are causing commuting problems.
Also I would recommend having a "must have" list and a "nice to have" list. That will hopefully focus your search.
HTH