The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

redrabbit29

I didn't really want to get Sky very much, but our free view signal which worked fine for 2 years broke due to nearby building works! We lived with it for about 3 months, before getting Sky on a "special" deal.

The most important thing was the ability to record which Sky+ provides.

sarah_elton

Getting depressed now. Was saving towards a target of £10k by mid 2009, in order to be able to sell my flat in negative equity.

Now, in the last few weeks, sentiment in the market seems to have started falling faster, and I'm not sure if £10k will be enough - i.e. that the price could have fallen more than I was planning for by middle of next year. Saving towards an increasing target isn't fun.

Throwing up to £10k into the flat to sell it I could stomach. Much more than that and it just seems like such a waste of money. I know that's the way the market goes, and I was pretty philosophical about it up to that sort of figure. I seem to have a mental block above that though where I think about what better use we could put that cash too.

On the other hand, I want to sell so OH and I can buy a long term family home. And they're dropping in price more (in absolute terms) than my flat, since they're more expensive. So it's still worth making the move next year really. Assuming I can save enough.

Meh....

Synonymous

I'm pretty fed up too Sarah.

I can't wait to have my own house in Sheffield, living with parents in Leeds away from my friends and driving 70 mile round-trip to work every day is wearing me down.

Saw my dream house the other day on a street I used to live on and started looking into mortgages again but even with over 10% deposit the only mortgage I could be offered was 6.89% fixed for 5 years and I can't afford the repayments without a lodger, which obviously isn't fixed income so I don't want to factor it in.

Banks get themselves into this mess, BofE cuts rates to stimulate housing market and the greedy banks keep it all to themselves, grrrrrr. I am saving more money being at home, even with petrol costs, but I'm pretty miserable too

LittleMissAspie

Well it's going well for us, we have reached our December target in November. I know it's not November yet... I guess I should wait until the ISA payment comes out before I update my sig. Very pleased with that though, will have a few months break from topping up now, and just save the ISA money by itself.

Had a lot of spare money in the past few months thanks to an honorarium payment and a promotion payrise (backdated to April). Usually I would save the lot but I can't even remember the last time I splashed out so am spending it all instead! Then in November I get a cost of living payrise, again backdated to April. I'll be good and save that one

sarah_elton

Synonymous wrote: »

I'm pretty fed up too Sarah.

I can't wait to have my own house in Sheffield, living with parents in Leeds away from my friends and driving 70 mile round-trip to work every day is wearing me down.

Saw my dream house the other day on a street I used to live on and started looking into mortgages again but even with over 10% deposit the only mortgage I could be offered was 6.89% fixed for 5 years and I can't afford the repayments without a lodger, which obviously isn't fixed income so I don't want to factor it in.

Banks get themselves into this mess, BofE cuts rates to stimulate housing market and the greedy banks keep it all to themselves, grrrrrr. I am saving more money being at home, even with petrol costs, but I'm pretty miserable too

If you can keep saving, while prices on that street keep falling, then it should end up in reach.

But I know it's a hard slog in the meantime. In our most favoured area to move to next year, there's one road which is a mile above the rest of the area in terms of how nice it is. It only has 10 houses, and they barely ever come to market. One's on now with the asking price dropping but I doubt it'll still be around when we're in a position to move. But there's nothing I can do about that at all. Just have to focus on getting to the point where we can move, then worry about what's available from that point forward. There'll always be other houses.

before_hollywood

i'm feeling quite happy today, had a look on rightmove and i estimate if next year the prices hit £60k for what i want (entirely feasable) and i get £15k deposit (again feasable) i can get a mortagage for £280pm for fixed rate repayment or £230pm interest only

MrDT

before_hollywood wrote: »

i'm feeling quite happy today, had a look on rightmove and i estimate if next year the prices hit £60k for what i want (entirely feasable) and i get £15k deposit (again feasable) i can get a mortagage for £280pm for fixed rate repayment or £230pm interest only

Don't want to put a downer on your happy mood, but the mortgage terms won't necessarily be the same in a years time...

Prices are definitely heading in the right direction though! Without a doubt I would rather have a small loan at high rates (ok, within reason) than a large loan at low rates

Why would you consider going interest only by the way? I've never understood people that go interest only from day one, I'd see it as more of a last resort thing if you can't meet repayments.

Bone_Idle

**woody123** wrote: »

I originally hoped to save about 30k and put 20k down on the house with the other 10k on home improvments, furniture, kitchen appliances etc..

but talking to a homeowner the other day he said he would put all the 30k into the house and just buy things as and when i could afford them and maybe rely on the odd gift or second hand stuff here and there.

So my question to you is do you plan to put all your savings as a deposit or would you keep a little bit of money back?

Apart from making sure that all the upfront costs (fees, moving expenses etc) were covered, I would be holding a little bit back in case the house you were buying needed a lot done to it. I could cope with having a mish-mash of furniture but if there were significant issues with the bathroom or kitchen then I think it'd get quite depressing if I couldn't get them sorted. Of course, you could always negotiate a reduction in the sale price to reflect the cost of the improvements...

jamtart6

**woody123** wrote: »

Hi

This question comes from someone who like yourselves is saving for a deposit for a house.

I originally hoped to save about 30k and put 20k down on the house with the other 10k on home improvments, furniture, kitchen appliances etc..

but talking to a homeowner the other day he said he would put all the 30k into the house and just buy things as and when i could afford them and maybe rely on the odd gift or second hand stuff here and there.

So my question to you is do you plan to put all your savings as a deposit or would you keep a little bit of money back?

It depends on your situation. I would say have a couple of quid stashed for emergency repairs (£500-£1000), if you are moving in straight away, I would probably keep some back to do up the house to a liveable state and put the rest into house and off mortgage.

We arent in a rush to move in so intend to put all deposit into house then save up for each thing over the course of a year as we do the house up before we live in it (in an ideal world anyway!)

Can I just say how much I love interest on savings! Its like free money :T

Bone_Idle

I was having a play around with entitledto.co.uk last night, as now that there are three of us (:D ) and it's going to be a while before my OH goes back to work, I thought we might be entitled to some form of tax credits.

However, it seems that because we've got money put aside for a deposit, we wouldn't be entitled to any tax credits because of the interest it earns! Whereas if the money was tied up in a house this wouldn't count as an asset for the purposes of calculating tax credits... Gah!

I'll stick an application in anyway, just in case I got something wrong, but my goat has been gotten...