Buying a house

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

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Morning all,

Fairly soon I'll be in the position to buy a house. I'm starting to look around for what kind of mortgage I can get based on my deposit/house price. One thing I don't really know much about are all the other fees that come with buying a house. I've come up with a list of things that I can think of so far:

- Mortgage arrangement fees
- Stamp duty
- Solicitor fees
- Surveys???

Any ideas the kind of prices for these things will cost? (house will be around 170k with a deposit of around 25k). Are there any other things I've missed?

Thanks for any help.
 
Sorry I've forgotten exactly how much I paid for most of these things, I've tried to give you an indication though. Hope it helps.

- Mortgage arrangement fees

With a 15% deposit I would guess that the arrangement fee would be about £1k but could be as high as £1.5k. They're usually listed on price comparison websites. When I got my mortgage it was a case that you could just add this to the mortgage, but that may have changed now. Worth checking with prospective mortgage companies.

- Stamp duty

1% so £1.7k on your £170k property http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sdlt/rates-thresholds.htm#1

Must be paid to your solicitor before exchanging contracts or completion, I forget which.

- Solicitor fees

Think mine was about £250.

- Surveys???

Valuation fee required for the mortgage was £40 IIRC, I went for a home buyer's report which cost a few hundred (maybe 200-400). Think a full structural survey was around a grand. Note that if you just go for the basic valuation survey then you don't actually get a copy of it, the mortgage company do.

Make sure you have plenty of spare credit limit on your credit cards, you'll haemorrhage cash when you first buy lol. Worth it imo though.
 
cm1179 said:
i reckon your solicitor fees will be more than 250.00
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a lot more - A solicitors fees will be around £350 and then you've got all your other fees that come with buying a house, like search fees, land registry fees - The solicitor will sort this out for you but you're looking at another £500 minimum, depending on the area it is in! I'd say about a grand for solicitors fees!
 
Best bet is just to go see the mortgage advisor in the bank. We went last week and got the worst case prices, basically can get cheaper going through a broker.

You are looking at about 4k in extras after the deposit to cover everything else.

I was quoted £800 for solicitor however my uncle said he managed to get one for £300.I always think it is best to over egg everything to cover all eventualities.
 
I' in the process of buying now. Here are my fees:

Mortgage arrangement fee - £599 (added to my mortgage)
Valuation fee - £240
Solicitors fees - £2550 (inc disbursements, solicitors fee and stamp duty (£1850))

Surveys are extra, I went for a simple valuation as the house is only around 25 years old.
 
I went through a mortgage broker who charged around £300 (this is in addition to commission he made from the mortgage!) but he did sort almost everything out for me. Found a mortgage with a £500 arrangement fee, free (basic) survey & valuation, and £500 cash back. I can use him for free in future when I move my mortgage elsewhere.

Solicitors charged around £765.

I'd definitely expect far worse so you at least have some left over for all of the problems you find shortly after moving in :D

Good luck!
 
Slightly off topic but if I was to look for a house, how much of a deposit (rough average in £) would I have to put down for say a £120k house? I dont know how all this stuff works.
 
DJMK4 said:
Slightly off topic but if I was to look for a house, how much of a deposit (rough average in £) would I have to put down for say a £120k house? I dont know how all this stuff works.
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I bought in July last year. Lender's are pretty tight at the moment, I think most would require a 20% deposit minimum really, below that they'd charge far higher interest rates for the added risk.
 
azuli said:
I bought in July last year. Lender's are pretty tight at the moment, I think most would require a 20% deposit minimum really, below that they'd charge far higher interest rates for the added risk.
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Agreed, you'll need around £24k for a £120k house (20%). Keep saving as much as you can, I have saved for the past 3 years and it's never enough!
 
Thanks for all the advice guys. By the sounds of it if we put 4-5k aside for everything then that should pretty safe for all eventualities.

I will go and start speaking to mortgage lenders/estate agents soon but I just want to get a rough idea of my finances beforehand so I don't get carried away with expensive houses!!


DJMK4:
I obviously don't know to much about this sort of thing otherwise I wouldn't be asking questions(!), but I think the minimum is around 10%, but that will be with a very high interst rate, i.e. high monthly repayments. From previous threads on here it's advised that you really need to get near the 25% mark to start getting decent deals.

They will not lend out large sums of money either I doubt, again I don't know much, but I think it's something like 4-5x your salary, or 3-4x if you apply with someone else, might even be lower. So unless you're on a very good wage, you might struggle without a big deposit, and tbh, if I was on a good wage I'd wait until I had a bigger deposit anyway.
 
Outch, looks like I got no option but to rent then :( as it would take me years to save up 25%

I dont have no savings worth bragging about, probably about 2k in savings. :\

Im 25
 
10% deposit will be fine, quite a few places are offering mortgages at this, with not so bad arrangement fees.

the next step would be a 25% deposit, basically reduces the interest rate by a fair bit.

I worked out that it would save between £200 - £300 per month, however for a 1st time buyer, the amount saved per month would be lost in the fact house prices are starting to slowly move back up again. And lets face it, to save £30kish is not going to be easy!

To give you an idea LLoyds offered my and the gf - £42k joint income, however gf not started work and only going by the minimum she would earn as a nurse a Mortgage promise of £203k. This works out to be around £900 p/m.

Edit: and yes we will be looking to buy a house on a 10% deposit, we are looking to budget for deposit and everything else needed around £20k.

Also remember all the things you need for day to day living, me and the gf have been buying things over the last year, must have spent about £2 - £2.5k, however we have been buying quality products such as Brabantia bins etc & Magimix kettle & toasters etc. Then there is the sofas etc etc
 
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DJMK4 said:
Outch, looks like I got no option but to rent then :( as it would take me years to save up 25%

I dont have no savings worth bragging about, probably about 2k in savings. :\
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There are still certain deals about that might be worth looking at, what about a part rent part buy option?

My mate recently bought a flat on another kind of weird deal where he paid 75% of the house price, and the council (or someone else) paid the other 25%. When he comes to sell it, he has to give the 25% of the selling price back, or he has the option to buy that 25% back in a few years.

I'm afraid I don't know any more than that though, but just letting you know there maybe other options open to you :)
 
Oh actually forgot to mention something in my OP. What are people's opinion on mortgage brokers? Are they worth going through or not?

What do they actually do? Is it just a case of having a meeting to discuss our circumstances and then they search everything available and come back with the best options?

How much do they cost as well? MDrX, you said yours cost £300, that seems like quite a lot just to give you a list of mortgages...or am I missing something here?

Thanks again!
 
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