2nd/3rd time buyers who can't afford to move

fwubbar

Our home is worth £140-150k if we're lucky. Although in a village location in Devon, it's in a grottier part of the village - and through no fault of our own, we've had problems with antisocial/noisy neighbours that have gone official which will affect the saleability of the house (have to declare all the details on the HIP form, I believe). Elsewhere locally, similar properties sell for iro £30-45k more, which we don't and can't have or raise.

To buy a property that will actually suit our needs (not a dream home to suit our wants) we need double the value of our house (one of our children needs semi-supported living for life and a fully functional self-contained annex is an ideal solution, but we just can't afford it).

I'm sure there must be plenty of people in a similar position to us - and indeed not too dissimilar to that of first time buyers too. Advice/opinions?

teabelly

I think there was someone on here trying to sell a house with an annexe. Chase them up as it sounds like they might have what you need. Can't remember what they were asking for it though. Think the thread might have been called unsellable house or similar. I have a sneaky feeling it might have been in Crediton in Devon.

Did you go official with the neighbours or them with you? If the latter I wonder if you could demand 30k for loss of value to your house due to their behaviour

Your other option is to sell up where you are and move somewhere much cheaper to get the space you need if you can't extend your current home.

PasturesNew

That house wasn't in Devon though. And at £500k doesn't sound like the OP's pocket size.

If you don't like where you are, then you have to sell.
So sell it.

But you can't afford the house you want.
So wait. Prices are dropping. One might be for sale in 2-3 years' time at a price you can afford.

In the meantime rent. Although I appreciate that, location depending, it might prove difficult or impossible to rent at a reasonable rate because owners get more by letting property as a holiday let than to normal people.

But do the sums.

fwubbar

Hi, thanks for your replies...

We're in a catch 22 situation here: can't afford to move - properties of the same ilk (ie cheap and cheerful) are at least £30k more. Even holiday chalets are worth more. We can manage the mortgage and any fluctuations in interest it may accrue. Rent is at least about £250 p/m more for a similar home here...since many people can't afford to buy locally any more, it's really pushed the rental market right up, so that's out of the equation too.

We had to go official first, as did the previous owners which we only found out about a couple of years later, sneaky barstewards. Sueing the neighbours/council (they're tenants)/previous owners has already been considered. However, this will cost us money which we haven't got. And it'll all show on the HIP which will make it even harder to sell. (We moved from miles away from a much cheaper part of the country because we needed somewhere pdq to be near our child's specialist education, got less for our money and didn't know the area.)

So, as you can see, I've already done my sums.

Anyway, my reasons for moving are another point of discussion (someone get me away from the soapbox...please!) - there must be other 2nd/3rd time buyers who - for whatever reasons - can't afford to move?

A £500k house? I wonder if they'd accept £150? :rotfl:

PasturesNew

fwubbar wrote: »

Rent is at least about £250 p/m more for a similar home here

If you can walk away from your current house with a £65k pot, that'd provide £270/month after basic rate tax in interest.

And you'd be saving by not paying out for buildings insurance, nor any maintenance repairs.

fwubbar wrote: »

A £500k house? I wonder if they'd accept £150?

Don't laugh... given the right set of circumstances, it is bound to happen at auction somewhere in the coming 2-3 years.

fwubbar

Hmmm, thanks, that may be worth looking into when put like that. Trouble is, I'd much rather own my own home due to our commitments and what I can do with the equity in the medium to long term (we have plans!). Worth a look into though, yup.

Oops typo - I meant £150k - but either way, that'd be nice, wouldn't it! Used to live up the road from that house in Worcestershire, v. nice area.

baileysbattlebus

Can't you have an extension built (equity release), maybe bedsitting room and bathroom plus a small kitchen if it's necessary. Our neighbours converted an existing dining room and uitility and part of the garage into a bedsitting room, bathroom and kitchen for an elderly parent.

Friends had an extension built over the garage for the same reason and anoher set of neighbours had huge extension built, but did a lot of the work themselves, they dug and laid the foundations, got bricklayers in to put up the shell, got someone in to put on the roof, did their own plumbing, and did all of the interior themselves, it took about 2 years and they had no experience, not a lot of money and 2 children under 3 .

You won't be the only one's who can't afford to move, in our area I've noticed less property up for sale than you would usually see at this time of year but an awful of houses with huge skips in the gardens and scaffolding up. A lot of people round here must have decided to stay put and improve / extend. One road I drive down every day (about 50 houses), mostly 3 bed semis and 3/4 bed detached had one extension done in the past 18 months or so, currently there are about 6 or 7 on the go.

Is that not an avenue you can explore or isn't your current house somewhere you can see yourself living in the long term

TTMCMschine

As your child has particular needs - can you not get assistance with the cost of an extension on a new house.

stressedmumof4

Hello Fwubber

I am the op of the unsellable house thread, lol - the one with the annexe in worcestershire.

I really feel for your situation as before we moved here, we lived in Amersham Bucks in an OK-ish area (the best that 2 NHS nurses could afford) and unfortunately for us, a housing association bought the house next to us and turned it into 2 maisonettes. within weeks we had at least 7 wrecked cadillacs parked up our shared drive, rotten food in the drains and an abusive, drunk man waking us at all hours. this man also threatened my husband one day whilst we were with our week old baby!

we contacted the HA whojust calledin mediation - nightmare.

In the end we were very lucky and sold to a developer. we then combined our home value with my divorced mum and managed to move here

do explore all avenues to get away from yoru awful situation with those neighbours - you sound like a lovely family and deserve a break I reckon.

Lisa x

fwubbar

Hi folks,

No, can't do an extension - no funds to cover repayments or any capital outlay and we don't want to stay here for the long term...and actually the location of our house means it's impossible to do so anyway (no rear access at all and no front access for builders as we're on a steep slope!) We've already had meetings with the authorities about the grants and are unofficially told that we/my child are fully eligible for them which would be a big bonus, so we'll save that option for a later date and property..it'd all be wasted here! On that basis, if we were in a better area and had the room, we'd probably would have already had an extension by now.

Lisa - thanks...what a shame, yet another decent area and home ruined. People like us hardworking mortgagees are the ones who suffer - I wish you luck. Meditation, yeah they offered us that too...we laughed at them, why mediate when the it's the neighbours' behaviour that needs to stop?! Oh bonus forgot to say - there's three similar neighbours in our row - yippee :rolleyes: . Complaints only apply to our immediate (and worst) ones though.

We're going to explore PasturesNew's suggestion, but this'll be a while in the doing simply due to domestic stuff....but if it is definately viable, we may well try it...only trouble is we've got to sell the darn place which will be tricky because of all this, and also explore collecting evidence in order to sue (does anyone know if one can sue *after* moving, or if there's a time limit?).

Look at someone else's 'We gotta get out of this place' thread for a bit more info about our situation (a gripe by me!).