The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

redrabbit29

Had a bad month! Lots of big one-off spends including:

- new tv stand for living room
- BT bill
- Had to book flights to see my Mum - she's not very well
- Paid £30 sky installation - our freeview signal has broken, we subscribed to the basic package.

Only going to manage about £200 this month for savings.

Also, next month isn't any better, MOT and car service due!

lilmissmup

Bone_Idle wrote: »

This is a very friendly thread! :T

In answer to Lilmissmup, we rent at the moment, and I've rented ever since I moved out of home in 2001. We live very near some of OH's family but a couple of hundred miles from mine (had more visits from my family though!) I'm hoping that a combination of a growing deposit (slowly growing, but growing nonetheless!) and falling house prices will mean that we can get a mortgage with a monthly payment that's less than what we pay at the moment - that way we know we can manage it, and can even think about overpayments right from the start!

Thats what i want too.

I get my nice Gordon Brown rebate tomorrow in my pay so thats going in ISA, only £60 but better than nowt

neverdespairgirl

lilmissmup wrote: »

Just wondered how many people rent and how many of you live at home still so have less outgoings, me and OH have to spend nearly half our wages on bills already so saving is harder for us.

But as of tomorrow i will be debt free so the saving can really start

Congratulations! That must feel great.

OH and I rent - we live with our 3 year old son in a flat in central London. I think we pay below market rent (we've been here for ages, and are good tenants) and we save quite a bit, without depriving ourselves of everything.

MrDT

I think I mentioned a few days ago that a three bed terraced house nearby has come on the market at an asking price of 87.5k, and a few months ago similar houses on the same street were advertised at an asking price of around 115k. Well, curiosity has got the better of me, and although I expect to hold out a fair old while longer saving a deposit while prices drop - I'm going for a viewing this evening.

I figure it'll most likely be a wreck, but it'll be interesting to see if it's a case of 'realistic pricing' or just a dilapidated old ruin. The spread of asking prices on property round here is getting ridiculous, from dodgily located repos on at 57k guide price at auction to wildly overpriced houses which I guess are a combination of greedy sellers and building in a '+20% buffer' for the negotiation stage.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see the state of this place and put that into context of the asking price. If the place isn't in such a bad state I figure price drops like these will become widespread round here

jamtart6

Hi gang! Haven't been on for a while! As house prices are falling, the houses we want to buy have come down by about 10k, and hopefully we could put a cheeky offer in too, so maybe even less, so I've adjusted our "Expected house price" down by at least £10'000 - which means the % of deposit we have saved has automatically jumped up! YAY!

HOWEVER on top of this we have also done some good saving, and last time I was on we had saved 5% of the overall house price, we have now managed to save 7% of the total price! :j:j:j:j and hopefully will have 8.5% by the end of the year.


If houses drop more, then obviously the % we have saved will go up again, but I'm really proud of us! We only started seriously seriously saving in April, but before that had saved as much as we could on quite low income jobs (and my OH had a lot of debt to pay off so I'm proud of him too!) I know it doesn't sound a lot, and 10% deposit is the minimum we are looking at but we are trying hard!! :T:T:T

lyndasharp

I've been lurking on here for a little while, trying to get my deposit up to somewhere sensible... but I've just taken the plunge and bought a 2 bed terrace. I've just had enough of the shared house thing, where my landlady won't let me turn the heating on. The mortgage payments will be the same as my rent anyway, though I'll have bills to pay which I don't at the moment. Fair enough, the prices might go lower, but I'm planning on keeping this place long term!

I managed to get this one with a cheeky offer, about 20% less than the current selling prices in the area, and with a 60% mortgage (thanks to a bit of help from my Dad) it'd have to be a major disaster for me to end up in negative equity!!!

Woodyrocks

lyndasharp wrote: »

I've been lurking on here for a little while, trying to get my deposit up to somewhere sensible... but I've just taken the plunge and bought a 2 bed terrace. I've just had enough of the shared house thing, where my landlady won't let me turn the heating on. The mortgage payments will be the same as my rent anyway, though I'll have bills to pay which I don't at the moment. Fair enough, the prices might go lower, but I'm planning on keeping this place long term!

I managed to get this one with a cheeky offer, about 20% less than the current selling prices in the area, and with a 60% mortgage (thanks to a bit of help from my Dad) it'd have to be a major disaster for me to end up in negative equity!!!

Been wondering when you were going to show your face in here Has the news sunk in yet?! Or are you still in shock and soon to land on cloud nine when reality sets in :T

Bone_Idle

MrDT wrote: »

I think I mentioned a few days ago that a three bed terraced house nearby has come on the market at an asking price of 87.5k, and a few months ago similar houses on the same street were advertised at an asking price of around 115k. Well, curiosity has got the better of me, and although I expect to hold out a fair old while longer saving a deposit while prices drop - I'm going for a viewing this evening.

I figure it'll most likely be a wreck, but it'll be interesting to see if it's a case of 'realistic pricing' or just a dilapidated old ruin. The spread of asking prices on property round here is getting ridiculous, from dodgily located repos on at 57k guide price at auction to wildly overpriced houses which I guess are a combination of greedy sellers and building in a '+20% buffer' for the negotiation stage.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see the state of this place and put that into context of the asking price. If the place isn't in such a bad state I figure price drops like these will become widespread round here

Let us know how that goes! I've been watching the local house prices for about 9 months now, and there are LOT that haven't shifted in that time, but their prices haven't dropped by much. However, anything new which comes onto the market seems to be priced lower than the average, which is interesting.

ZoeGirl_3

Bone_Idle wrote: »

Let us know how that goes! I've been watching the local house prices for about 9 months now, and there are LOT that haven't shifted in that time, but their prices haven't dropped by much. However, anything new which comes onto the market seems to be priced lower than the average, which is interesting.

I think people that stay on the market the longest tend to be the people with unrealistic expectations. There have been houses on the market for way over a year here, and they haven't altered sale price. Yet, other houses that list have lower prices and hence sell quite quickly.

I am doing the $1000 in 100 days challenge and it is really spurring on my savings lol...I am 81% of the way to my goal for the year...and am going to just reach it if I even make another $200 lol :beer: in addition to my normal fortnightly savings payments.

There needs to be a little house smiley lol :rotfl:

sarah_elton

Same issue here. But very little has come on the market 'cheap'. My big angst is that when I do try and sell once I have the cash, there will be no buyers even at a bargain basement price.

I'll know how much I can kick start my saving with on October 15th - started a new job on September 8th, and missed payroll cutoff for Sept 15th pay, so on October 15th I'll get nearly two months wages. I haven't been paid anything since August 5th, because my last job paid in advance not arrears (here's it's 50/50). So my regular neat monthly budgeting is all out of whack. I've tried to work it out and guessed I can only put £300 away from October money, but hoping my ridiculously complicated Excel budget file is wrong somewhere and I can start higher.

Am I the saddest one here? I've done a graph in my file - I have a line showing savings target, starting in October and going up till mid next year. Aim will be to have the 'actual' line, which I'll add to each month, run above it, then I'll be happy.