First time buy, excitement and worry.What is your advice or story?

Haircut said:
Bought my first place just over three months ago.
I'm currently having a break from stripping wallpaper to watch the rugby and football.

I'm in a slightly different position from the OP in that I live in one of the more expensive areas of the country (average price around here is > £400K) so it's taken 10 years of working and saving to be financially secure enough to get a decent place.
It's nice having somewhere to call my own - it still feels a little weird when doing the redecorating as I've not been able to do anything to the places when renting.
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I bet it will feel weird at first but certainly you have to feel a sense of achievement!

I was wondering perhaps if someone can give me advise on one thing about buying a repossessed house. If we put in an offer than then it goes to the public notice, then after the public notice someone puts in a higher offer before we have exchanged contracts. Can we be sure that they will contact us to let us know our offer has been beaten and give us a chance to increase it before allowing the other person to exchange? Is it possible someone does that in one day and so we have no chance?

Thanks,
 
I'm with HangTime on this, rent for a bit longer. At least untill your partner gets a job.
I'd imagine they would give you notice if someone makes better offer, after all it's in their interest to get bidding war going to get as much as they can.
 
The agreement in principle (or Mortgage in Principle) is only valid for 3months is it not? At least that's how long ours was valid for.

To the OP: Save up for longer, wait till your Mrs has found a job until you decide on a house (you don't want to tie her down to the area of job opportunities).

PS: How old are you?

I've suffered the last few years living with my younger brother and dad saving up (Im rubbish at saving - guess that will change shortly) to get my own place with Mrs Rhysduck. Got there in the end and it was time to start looking and buy.
We've managed to save up a little over £20k for our deposit and have got an 85% mortgage at approx £550 a month between us both.
We're in the middle of buying a 3 bed Detached house in a little cul-de-sac. It's not much but it's definitely a start!

TL : DR - keep saving and you'll get there in the end :)
 
Moved into my first home just under a year ago, some advice for you if you go for it:

1) Women love pillows / cushions and other pointless things, you'll be dragged around buying ****.
2) Decorate one room at a time, finish one room and move onto the next. There's nothing worse that having every room half done and no rooms finished. Makes it seem like it's a bigger task than it is aswell.
3) If you need a new bathroom / kitchen do it before you move in. It took me 3 weeks to fit a new bathroom and we moved in the day after it was finished, it just made everything so much simpler without having to worry about people needing a shower.
4) Plan your budget then add 20% to cover any unexpected issues.

Other than that enjoy it, it's stressful but I can remember getting the keys to our house and sitting in the living room on the floor with no furniture just amazed that I own a house :)
 
PapaLazaru said:
Have you actually got an agreement in principle, in writing, from your lender?
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Yes, we have one from Natwest, we needed it in writing to put an offer in on the property. It's not actually technically a "mortgage in principal" since they no longer actually do those. They have looked at my current balances, my deposit and my income and said that we can borrow the amount we need but we still need to apply for it. So we are waiting for our offer to be accepted first then we can go to the bank and get that moving on a little further, and call the solicitors.
 
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Black Dynamite said:
Moved into my first home just under a year ago, some advice for you if you go for it:

1) Women love pillows / cushions and other pointless things, you'll be dragged around buying ****.
2) Decorate one room at a time, finish one room and move onto the next. There's nothing worse that having every room half done and no rooms finished. Makes it seem like it's a bigger task than it is aswell.
3) If you need a new bathroom / kitchen do it before you move in. It took me 3 weeks to fit a new bathroom and we moved in the day after it was finished, it just made everything so much simpler without having to worry about people needing a shower.
4) Plan your budget then add 20% to cover any unexpected issues.

Other than that enjoy it, it's stressful but I can remember getting the keys to our house and sitting in the living room on the floor with no furniture just amazed that I own a house :)
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I like this advice, that's handy. We added on 50% of what we think as we want to be on the really super safe side. I couldn't think of anything worse than running out of money and having problems paying for jobs that need doing. We would be lucky with the dates as we would be able to buy the house a couple of months before we need to move. The place has a bathroom which looks ok ( even though it's not exactly how we would like it ). One big problem we expect is that when the water, gas and electric get turned back on (it is a repo so it's turned off as it probably wasn't paid), then we don't know if the boiler and electrics work. We took into our estimations we may well need a new boiler, and maybe electric works (Certainly a new fusebox, as it's old).

We were thinking we would have a go doing most of the house before moving in, however this could result in what you describe, having no room complete. Hopefully by the time we move in we can have the bedroom and kitchen done (bathroom is ok), but we will certainly need to prioritise to make sure we can do that.

Women love cushions... haha, lucky for me she loves online shopping and has her own computer :D
 
NutterzUK said:
I like this advice, that's handy. We added on 50% of what we think as we want to be on the really super safe side. I couldn't think of anything worse than running out of money and having problems paying for jobs that need doing. We would be lucky with the dates as we would be able to buy the house a couple of months before we need to move. The place has a bathroom which looks ok ( even though it's not exactly how we would like it ). One big problem we expect is that when the water, gas and electric get turned back on (it is a repo so it's turned off as it probably wasn't paid), then we don't know if the boiler and electrics work. We took into our estimations we may well need a new boiler, and maybe electric works (Certainly a new fusebox, as it's old).

We were thinking we would have a go doing most of the house before moving in, however this could result in what you describe, having no room complete. Hopefully by the time we move in we can have the bedroom and kitchen done (bathroom is ok), but we will certainly need to prioritise to make sure we can do that.

Women love cushions... haha, lucky for me she loves online shopping and has her own computer :D
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Definitely have a go at everything you can, 12 months ago i'd never put a shelf up, now i'm confident enough to rip out a bathroom and replace it and have a go at anything really. Just dive in and take your time. If you aren't positive on how to do something, look online or ask on here.

My main point really was if every room needs plastering you might get that done to every room and find out you can't afford or don't have enough time to decorate so it'd look a mess in every room rather than looking average in all but finished in one.

I found it made a big difference seeing one room at a time being finished. We made the mistake of tackling "the house" rather than a room at a time to begin with - one of the only things i'd change to how we did things.

Good luck with it anyway :D
 
If you go for a shared ownership property, it's great to start off but be aware that when it comes to selling the share, it's complete ballache. Also, read the lease details down to every single letter.
 
Got our formal mortgage offer in the post last Thursday, just waiting for solicitors to do the searches and then exchange contracts... exciting!!!
 
Nightglow said:
That a mistake a lot of people make.
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I'll take this one on board. So now the question is.. which room first? I think the bedroom wants to be the first, if you can relax and go to sleep happily, everything is good in the world :)

What a day today has been! Our offer got accepted, so we've called the bank to book a meeting to apply and instructed our solicitors to start the searches.

How long should these things take? The public notice will start soon for the property as it is repossessed, the notice is 7 days. Ideally, we want to exchange as soon after that as possible. We did tell the bank and the solicitors exactly that but I would imagine it's going to take longer than 7 days.
 
NutterzUK said:
I'll take this one on board. So now the question is.. which room first? I think the bedroom wants to be the first, if you can relax and go to sleep happily, everything is good in the world :)
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I did Bathroom first, somewhere for me to soak my tired bones, next Bedroom(s), as long as you have space in some room for a temporary bed you can survive while the work is in progress.

If you have somewhere to stay instead of on site, do the kitchen as well.

When doing kitchens, plan, double check everything & confirm everything with the boss before you start work.
 
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NutterzUK said:
I'll take this one on board. So now the question is.. which room first? I think the bedroom wants to be the first, if you can relax and go to sleep happily, everything is good in the world :)
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I did lounge first and it ended up being so much nicer than the rest of the house I would happily sit in their in ignorant bliss and ignore the rest of the house.

So watch out for that!
 
Haggisman said:
Got our formal mortgage offer in the post last Thursday, just waiting for solicitors to do the searches and then exchange contracts... exciting!!!
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Just waiting on the results of a few things before I get mine :| They refused to value the house pending a drainage survey (which the initial feedback is perfect) so waiting on the official results to be sent over to the Mortgage company before they will send out formal offer out.... Annoying as just want it all to be sorted so we can move in :(
 
NutterzUK said:
I'll take this one on board. So now the question is.. which room first? I think the bedroom wants to be the first, if you can relax and go to sleep happily, everything is good in the world :)

What a day today has been! Our offer got accepted, so we've called the bank to book a meeting to apply and instructed our solicitors to start the searches.

How long should these things take? The public notice will start soon for the property as it is repossessed, the notice is 7 days. Ideally, we want to exchange as soon after that as possible. We did tell the bank and the solicitors exactly that but I would imagine it's going to take longer than 7 days.
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Go for the rooms that are the biggest pain in the backside, if the bathroom is ok, go for the kitchen next, then bedroom / living room.

Congratulations on the offer being accepted, one step closer!
 
Always the bathroom first if it isn't already spot on, (hopefully) less chance then of it leaking over the nice new kitchen underneath it, or damp seeping into the bedroom next to it
 
Black Dynamite said:
Go for the rooms that are the biggest pain in the backside, if the bathroom is ok, go for the kitchen next, then bedroom / living room.

Congratulations on the offer being accepted, one step closer!
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I think we will probably end up doing *some* work on the bathroom but hopefully not much. Our very very first priority has to be to reconnect water, gas and electric. Once that it done, I think you are correct with the bathroom and it doesn't need much work. There are some pipes I would like to move and I have always really wanted a power shower but I think that will depend on a few things. The floor will want re doing.

The kitchen also isn't *too* bad, but it's not the best. Another thing I've wanted for years is a dishwasher.

I don't want to really go putting up links to the property, but here are a couple of pics of the bathroom and kitchen.

bathroom.jpg

kitchen.jpg


Annoyingly, the bath and shower are infront of the window, and the pipe to the shower actually comes out of the wall just under it and goes up the wall - you can't see this in the pic. They took the toilet roll holder and other things which were on the wall too.
 
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NutterzUK said:
I think we will probably end up doing *some* work on the bathroom but hopefully not much. Our very very first priority has to be to reconnect water, gas and electric. Once that it done, I think you are correct with the bathroom and it doesn't need much work. There are some pipes I would like to move and I have always really wanted a power shower but I think that will depend on a few things. The floor will want re doing.
Annoyingly, the bath and shower are infront of the window, and the pipe to the shower actually comes out of the wall just under it and goes up the wall - you can't see this in the pic. They took the toilet roll holder and other things which were on the wall too.
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If I had the place, bathroom, move bath length wise along sink wall, those boxed in pipes aren't a problem, & move bog under window, & sink next to bog

Wacky shape kitchen, no way to square it up? also I remove corner window, there by giving more space for wall units.
 
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