Buying a gaff

[Onyx2]

Full disclosure, I work for the Post Office but they've launched a new mortgage product where your parents can take a mortgage for your deposit leveraged against their own property:

https://www.postoffice.co.uk/mortgages/family-link

It's a cliche but location is everything as someone above said. You can't move the house itself if you it's too far from the station, shops, doctors, schools, parents etc whatever. And take your time looking around a place. Don't rush through. 

[Wretch]

Our offer was accepted for a house in March, we completed in the end of June which is the standard waiting time I think. If you're lucky and there's no issues, you can be in six weeks after the offer has been accepted. At the other end, should problems arise, it can drag on for months and months. 

Stress of dealing with estate agents, surveyors, solicitors and so forth almost done me in. It's stressful as fuck and caused no end of arguments with me and my partner. Advice from my mum was to support each other throughout the whole process, so yeah, do that.

I know it sounds obvious, but find a house you really like. When we first started looking, the market here was, and still is shite (we're in Nottingham). The houses that we did see and like, we were outbidded. That happened us three times and because of this, I just thought "fuck it" and I honestly would've just settled for the next house I seen. I'm so thankful my missus gave me a bollocking for wanting to settle because in the end, although it was frustrating hanging around, we got a house that we really, really love in the area that we were looking in (Arnold). It was well worth the wait.

Get a full survey done, but bear in mind it's their job to be overly critical of everything in case something happens to the house which can bite the surveyor on the arse later on. For example, when he looked at the roof of our gaff he marked it down as red, saying that it needed replacing. We got someone to look at it and all it needed was two tiles replacing. There was loads of stuff on his report that made it look like the house was falling down but as I said, they're paid to over analyse every little thing. If you get bad survey report, it's most likely nothing.

For the money you pay the solicitors, they actually do fuck all for you. Draw up a few contracts and get a few reports done and that's it. Almost a grand that cost us. They dragged this on for months.

Good luck to everyone going through it at the mo. We're staying put now, fuck going through this again.

[shep]

On 9/3/2018 at 7:43 AM, mim731 said:

Make a list of what your deal breakers are and what you can compromise on. It could be location, parking, a certain size of kitchen, a garden, whatever. Once you know what you can compromise on and what is set in stone (musts and would likes of you will) it becomes easier to see what your options are when you start looking around at places.

Business bullshit time... Think MOSCOW

 

Must

Should

Could

Won't

 

Get a list of the things you have to have, be it parking, baths as well as showers, x minutes walk to bus stop etc., and the won'ts that are deal breakers and you instantly reduce your options. Your shoulds are important if you are on the fence and the woulds are nice to have. 

 

For me the musts were a spare room for my record collection and a utility so I could towel down the dog in bad weather, your mileage may vary. 

[Divorced Dad]

The wife and I finally completed on our house today and got the keys. It was an elderly couple who were in the house before us so there's quite a bit of work to be done to get the house the way we want it but we're both incredibly excited to own our first home. 

Also went to introduce myself to the neighbours this afternoon only to find out that the elderly gentleman next door died this morning.

[Egg Shen]

Good luck Dad

[TibBo]

If you are a first-time buyer, use that to your advantage!  The fact that you don't have to wait for your current house to sell before you can proceed with the sale is attractive to sellers, especially if they have already found the new place they want to move to.  Use it to your advantage, as they will probably accept an lower offer from someone who is ready to move right-away.

Don't be afraid to haggle.  I was told that you should always be embarrassed by your first offer, and then if the seller accepts it then you have made a huge saving on your monthly payments.  The house we bought was actually priced higher than our budget, but we haggled them down to our price range. So don't rule-out properties just because they are slightly above your budget.

If the current owners are downsizing, see what you can blag off them if they are willing to leave you anything.  If it's your first property, I'm guessing you don't have much in the way of furniture etc, and sometimes sellers will be happy to give you larger items if it is too much of a pain in the arse to move them.
On the flip side of that, get a full itinerary of what is included in the deal, as some folks will completely clear the property and even take carpet/door-handles/lightbulbs.

[Onyx2]

5 hours ago, TibBo said:

get a full itinerary of what is included in the deal, as some folks will completely clear the property and even take carpet/door-handles/lightbulbs.

You can't not leave that stuff any more. You have to replace and make good anything you're taking, including light bulbs and door bells. And an itemised list is very much standard now, where you have to tick everything you're taking or leaving. 

[ReturnOfTheMack]

I got really stupidly lucky here. The other half and her dad bought our (new build) outright. I would have had no chance of being close to the housing market otherwise. 

[SpursRiot2012]

I found that the "final stretch" of buying my own home to be the most stressful. Trying to get my solicitor to keep on top of things like exchanging documents in order to finalise the sale was like pulling teeth and it came right down to the wire. We had a deadline of s certain Saturday to leave our rented flat and had no backup plan of where we'd be saying if the house didn't go through in time. Luckily, it got sorted at the last minute and we were able to get the keys to that Saturday morning and it was a mad dash to get everything moved to the new place within about 12 hourd. The whole thing was stressful as fuck.

[TibBo]

10 hours ago, Onyx2 said:

You can't not leave that stuff any more. You have to replace and make good anything you're taking, including light bulbs and door bells. And an itemised list is very much standard now, where you have to tick everything you're taking or leaving. 

Thanks Onyx, I didn't realise that, but it is definitely a good thing if it has now been standardised

Another good tip is to get a mortgage which allows over-payments without incurring any additional fees. Ours allowed us to overpay by 10% each year without any extra costs and it saved us thousands in the long-term.  Also if you are going to overpay, make sure that the overpayment is deducted from the total remaining balance (rather than just lowering your regular monthly payment) as you will save much more money that way.

[Divorced Dad]

Fucking sick of my new house already. Previous owners had papered over old wallpaper so there's been 6 layers t strip off in every room. Electrocuted myself on an old wire the other day. I've got cuts and scrapes all over my hands from doing stuff. And to top it all off today discovered the entire fucking house needs rewiring. Went to change a light fixture only to find that the casing around the wires has crumbled away and there's no earth wire. Checked other fixtures and fittings and there's not an earth wire in sight.

[gmoney]

We exchanged on a flat today. I gather that ours has been a fairly typical experience with a few delays and a bit of miscommunication, but it's been easily the most stressful thing I've ever done. I feel a great deal of relief, though I won't celebrate too much until the keys are in our hands. 

[Grecian]

Had an offer accepted on a house today. First-time buyer so everything is all a bit new and terrifying! What happens next?

[Kaz Hayashi]

2 minutes ago, Grecian said:

Had an offer accepted on a house today. First-time buyer so everything is all a bit new and terrifying! What happens next?

Congrats man.

You’re in a strong position as you have no chain.

Have the current owners had an offer accepted yet? What’s their circumstance?

[Grecian]

17 minutes ago, Kaz Hayashi said:

Congrats man.

You’re in a strong position as you have no chain.

Have the current owners had an offer accepted yet? What’s their circumstance?

It's a divorced / divorcing couple. Hubby already has a new place to live and is just waiting for his cut of the sale, the wife is moving into sheltered accommodation due to poor health, which should be ready for her in April. So hopefully, it should all be fairly simple as it's not in a chain. I just have no idea about the surveying / exchange of contracts, all that stuff!