The nervous wait to exchange....

MarkeR · 10 Jul 2019 at 23:46

All done and dusted..
Missives signed on Monday, moved in today .

Although, it wasn’t without its issues. Buyers lawyer said they sent the cheque via DX the night before, my lawyer didn’t get it. Then they said they sent a chaps payment at 1pm, eventually they sent another payment through at 4pm high went through this time.
God knows what their lawyer was up to.

Then I find that the previous owner didn’t even bother to clean the house once it was empty. Goddam disgusting..spent 4 hours gutting the place before I even brought stuff in..

IvanDobskey · 11 Jul 2019 at 08:39

Currently in the process of house hunting with the Mrs. Currently we live in my two bed semi I bought 17 years ago and is now fully paid off. It's worth about 150k and we have about 80k to put down in cash. So the question is what sort of price range to look at. Do we buy something outright for 230k? Or take a 50k mortgage and get something a little grander?

jimjamuk · 11 Jul 2019 at 10:52

Final paperwork into the solicitor today - i think we have signed everything needed now and sorted out all the queries so i think its just waiting for an exchange date now (chain of 3 houses)

Mason- · 11 Jul 2019 at 11:24

IvanDobskey said:
Currently in the process of house hunting with the Mrs. Currently we live in my two bed semi I bought 17 years ago and is now fully paid off. It's worth about 150k and we have about 80k to put down in cash. So the question is what sort of price range to look at. Do we buy something outright for 230k? Or take a 50k mortgage and get something a little grander?

I think only you can answer that. Do you have children? If not, do you want children? Can you be near good schools for £230k? Do you want to move on to something bigger in the future? Do you want a 'forever home' now? If you get something grander, can you be bothered with the upkeep of it all, large garden, more space = more stuff to clean etc etc.?

All things you'll have to consider and really only you can decide.

IvanDobskey · 11 Jul 2019 at 11:41

Mason- said:
I think only you can answer that. Do you have children? If not, do you want children? Can you be near good schools for £230k? Do you want to move on to something bigger in the future? Do you want a 'forever home' now? If you get something grander, can you be bothered with the upkeep of it all, large garden, more space = more stuff to clean etc etc.?

All things you'll have to consider and really only you can decide.

Some good points there. No kids and not likely to have any given we are 46 and 48. Main consideration I guess is the length of mortgage they would offer. I guess we need to speak to a bank regarding what we can borrow within our means. Viewed a couple for 230k yesterday and were a bit underwhelmed.

Mason- · 11 Jul 2019 at 11:43

IvanDobskey said:
Some good points there. No kids and not likely to have any given we are 46 and 48. Main consideration I guess is the length of mortgage they would offer. I guess we need to speak to a bank regarding what we can borrow within our means. Viewed a couple for 230k yesterday and were a bit underwhelmed.

Go on rightmove or some house website. Set your limit at £300k and just look (remember that's the asking price you can always offer lower, so maybe even look at £325k). Ignore price and find somewhere you both want. I'm sure you'd be able to borrow £50k over 10 years no problem.

Martynt74 · 11 Jul 2019 at 11:52

IvanDobskey said:
Some good points there. No kids and not likely to have any given we are 46 and 48. Main consideration I guess is the length of mortgage they would offer. I guess we need to speak to a bank regarding what we can borrow within our means. Viewed a couple for 230k yesterday and were a bit underwhelmed.

We had a similar position in that our terraced house was worth around £150k, we found that even spending up to £250k didn't really get much of an upgrade. Usually found we ended up looking at houses virtually the same size/layout as ours only semi-detaced with a garage etc.

Pushing up to around the 275k-325k mark seemed to be where things got noticably better as mentioned above.

My wife is 45 so was more reluctant to borrow the extra than me (i'm 33) but i think it made much more sense and if i could've convinced her to spend more i would've done.

FD were happy lending up to retirement age so we were capped at 22 years due to my wife. If you're happy borrowing £100k over 20 years which would probably result in a £500/month mortgage payment i think you could get somewhere excellent.

IvanDobskey · 11 Jul 2019 at 12:40

Thanks for the replies / advice guys. 230k doesn't seem to get any huge upgrade on my 2 bed semi. Just an extra small bedroom and detached with a garage. So maybe a 50k mortgage is the way forwards. We are both in work, so shouldn't be a problem. Although I am only 2 months into a new job having been made redundant from my previous company.

IvanDobskey · 11 Jul 2019 at 15:01

Well, I have booked a viewing at a rather nice looking property for 285k. That's right at the top end of what I'm prepared to pay, but would like to see what that sort of money gets. Will find out Saturday afternoon.

Mason- · 11 Jul 2019 at 16:20

IvanDobskey said:
Well, I have booked a viewing at a rather nice looking property for 285k. That's right at the top end of what I'm prepared to pay, but would like to see what that sort of money gets. Will find out Saturday afternoon.

Good luck

Look at 300ks too because you can offer down to 280 ish.

IvanDobskey · 11 Jul 2019 at 17:33

Mason- said:
Good luck Look at 300ks too because you can offer down to 280 ish.

Cheers

Would probably want to haggle 285k down a bit to be honest. But you never know. Some nice houses round my way at that sort of price. Whatever we end up buying will be a big upgrade over my tiny two bed semi though

jimjamuk · 11 Jul 2019 at 21:22

IvanDobskey said:
Some good points there. No kids and not likely to have any given we are 46 and 48. Main consideration I guess is the length of mortgage they would offer. I guess we need to speak to a bank regarding what we can borrow within our means. Viewed a couple for 230k yesterday and were a bit underwhelmed.

Am 46 myself so they would only offer us a mortgage until I was 68 so its 22 years max at our age (unless you can show you will have an income after the standard retirement age somehow)

IvanDobskey · 12 Jul 2019 at 07:50

jimjamuk said:
Am 46 myself so they would only offer us a mortgage until I was 68 so its 22 years max at our age (unless you can show you will have an income after the standard retirement age somehow)

I definitely think a 20 year one is possible. So probably will only be £300 a month or so. Of course the council tax will probably be double the £109 a month I currently pay. I think we will be looking at houses around the £280k mark from now on.

Semple · 12 Jul 2019 at 08:00

IvanDobskey said:
I definitely think a 20 year one is possible. So probably will only be £300 a month or so. Of course the council tax will probably be double the £109 a month I currently pay. I think we will be looking at houses around the £280k mark from now on.

Yeah you can always go for a longer duration and then overpay if you've got money left over each month.

IvanDobskey · 12 Jul 2019 at 14:06

Semple said:
Yeah you can always go for a longer duration and then overpay if you've got money left over each month.

Yep, this is the plan. A longer term with lower monthly payments. Then overpay when you have spare cash. Paid off my last one 10 years early doing this.

GhostlyPea · 12 Jul 2019 at 15:42

Flat is finally on the market! Got some viewings in now myself, hopingthis goes smoothly

- GP

Russinating · 13 Jul 2019 at 10:59

Our sellers have broken their chain which is good, so now they're the top rather than penultimate. When the EA called up to tell me I initially thought they were pulling out :eek:

.

Hopefully still move this month which feels a little mental.

IvanDobskey · 15 Jul 2019 at 07:55

Looked round a couple of houses on Saturday, liked one of them really disliked the other. Spent most of the rest of the weekend doing bits to my house prepping for the market.

HoneyBadger · 15 Jul 2019 at 13:16

We're selling two houses in Kent, we're going to buy something in Scotland. House 1 has gone on and house 2 will follow at the of the month. We're driving up to Scotland to view 2 properties in the next couple of weeks.

EGuitarStar · 16 Jul 2019 at 21:39

We've just our Building Survey come back and read this:

From our inspection we suspect the property is a Hawksley Schindler SGS (or similar) house.

This is a form of nontraditional construction built using a concrete frame and clad in brickwork.

This type of house is notoriously difficult to identify as they appear traditional from the outside
and within the roof structure. It is not uncommon in estates where they are located to contain
traditionally built counterparts side by side.

Our Bank's Valuation report said it was of "Traditional Construction."

Now, I am more inclined to take what our surveyor has said.

Has anyone purchased a non-traditional construction home before and should I run as far as I can from this property?