Higher prices, more traffic are a couple.
Mortgage Rate Rises
- Thread starter glenimp617
- Start date
Higher prices, more traffic are a couple.
I am fine in a small house. But garden space, or more, just space away from people is a must.
If we had known we'd both be full time WFH I wouldn't be living here. Would be living in a cheap Welsh village near Swansea or Carmarthen.
I don't miss the big house my parents had. But the solitude was amazing
Associate
argh, the banks announcing these new <4% deals, guess i have no excuse to not get buying the house now.
Soldato
Don't worry, I don't tend to take offence at questions
So there are a number of reasons we want a bigger house and it comes down to what a larger house gives you. Space.
We probably want a 4 bedroom house as our forever home. The issue with 2 or 3 bedroom houses is that you generally don't get large living areas. I work from home so there goes one room. Its nice to have a spare bedroom for guests or when we need to get a better nights sleep and want to sleep separately and we have 2 kids currently so there goes 3 rooms if we have one each. We want a large living room so that we can have groups of friends over and its not like sardines.
Our current house is absolutely fine and honestly if we never moved it wouldn't be an issue however the living room is quite small and the parking around here is crap. The house is 107sq. m I believe but quite a large part of downstairs is the kitchen which is lovely as I enjoy cooking but I would like a larger living area.
This is my "wants" for my dream home:
Feature Current house has Large garden for kids Not really. Its not small but its awkwardly sloped Large living room No Separate "snug" when you don't want to be in the living room with everyone else No Garage for workshop/bikes etc No Off street parking No 4 Bedrooms No Office room Yes Utility room No
To get all those things (obv. 4 bedrooms one) you are generally looking at 4 bedroom + houses which is what we will be after. I am acutely aware that when we are 60 and our kids have left home I don't want to have somewhere that I feel I am rattling around in.
If we could magically double the size of the living room in our current house that would remove quite a lot of the desire to move as we could just do a loft conversion to get another bedroom. That is unfortunately not possible.
I am looking at houses at min and a lot of this is what looking for relative. 107msq is actually a solid size at least for newer stuff. If it a 3 bed that almost the largest you can get without going for a smaller luxury house builder, but your big brand names yeah the 3 beds start at 78m2 ish to about 105m2.
The 4 bed I am looking at is less than 105m2 cause it got two tiny box rooms but only way to get downstairs large enough for basic living these days.
- Gardens are impossible especially if new build although looked at one with a 120m2 garden which is very solid at least around here where average is 60m2
- living room, enough for two sofas generally so me and the children when I have at weekends or when the parents visit
- Not any I have seen till you move up the larger size 4 beds have that in modern houses so I have taken that off list and assumed will use bedroom as that if really needed when boys using space lol
- Garage 3 beds at least needed for one, now mostly going 4 beds though!
- Off street parking come with garage generally if not in city centre but normally only 1 space again unless moving to larger 4 bed
- Office room, that just depends on bedroom count unless you mean a proper office room which seem dead on anything these days apart from those luxury house builders
- Utility room, also almost non-existent even on the 4 bed size, some do get a ulity cupboard though for washing machine to be tucked out way like on a Barratt/DWH.
Housing/flats in HK are mental!
We're just doing windows in the house now, but it's split into different phases. 22 windows total, 4 sets of french doors becoming bi-folds, front door and rear utility door.
The first phase made a big difference in the drafts and feeling in the living rooms (old thin double glazed with leaky seals.
In theory, yes, but to make it cheaper than gas we will need to get a home battery (to charge off-peak), then might as well couple it with solar. For heating this place we would need a 12kW Vaillant heatpump as our heatloss is 13kW at -3 outside (20 inside), but the Vaillant will output almost 13.5kW at those temps with the flow temp around 40-45C max.
I'm currently insulating under the floors, sealing up under skirtings, tweaking insulation where I can get to it (using a Topdon thermal camera) and replacing glazing/doors as above.
I will have to pull the insulation quilt down at some point from the suspended floor (next summer maybe) and have UFH pipes to put in for the ground floor. Then when I upgrade some rads the house will be heat pump ready as the whole wooden ground floor will become another emitter so rads don't all have to be changed to monster.
Most importantly for people, if you have a condensing boiler where you can add an external weather sensor, do that and let it run using weather compensation (WC). Throw Nest/Hive in the bin. Letting the main boiler controller alter the flow temp based on external temperature is vital to ensure you're in the condensing zone and efficiency is 90-96%. If your flow/return temps are too high then you'll only be at 80-85% efficiency (with plumes of white smoke coming out of your flue).
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Yeah the house takes up about 45sqm but the plot is 500sqm.
So we have 450sqm of space. Which is a lot for an old new build in an estate. For such a small house.
Soldato
I'm fine with size of house.. 52 square metres
Downstairs is all open plan, two double size bedrooms, walk in shower/wet room.
The loft is boarded up for storage...
I would love a garage to turn to an office and I have enough space with my drive to build a car port and a garage and place a room on top of it if needed.
Location is 50/50.. while I'm only happy to be 5 minutes walk from the country, I'm sandwiched between a river and a motorway so there's not that many routes or I've been on them so many times walking or MTBing I'm bored of them.
It's the locals that gets me... lol..
They moan that they childern can get a home in the area yet they moan when there's any building plans.
But I guess it's what happens when you live in a village and want all the modern conveniences.
Downstairs is all open plan, two double size bedrooms, walk in shower/wet room.
The loft is boarded up for storage...
I would love a garage to turn to an office and I have enough space with my drive to build a car port and a garage and place a room on top of it if needed.
Location is 50/50.. while I'm only happy to be 5 minutes walk from the country, I'm sandwiched between a river and a motorway so there's not that many routes or I've been on them so many times walking or MTBing I'm bored of them.
It's the locals that gets me... lol..
They moan that they childern can get a home in the area yet they moan when there's any building plans.
But I guess it's what happens when you live in a village and want all the modern conveniences.
This grinds me as well.
People moaning about new houses being built but spamming kids out.
It goes Down well when you call people out on it!
Either don't have kids and moan.. Or do and don't. Can't have it both ways.
That's because you have your thermostat too high
. Currently costs about a grand per year for heating and water for us. Was closer to £3k before I binned the Aga. 4 bed & 270sqm.
Caporegime
Part of peoples objection to new housing estates is that they are built with little thought to anything but cramming as many houses into as little space as they can, they are ugly and they don't adapt the local amenities to the increased population/traffic. Of course plenty of it is NIMBYism as well. I mean I can understand why people in a lovely little village don't want massive housing estates popping up on their nice countryside.
Soldato
Mate.. one chap wanted the local councils to supply three affordable houses one for each for his none working kids as he got wind that they was thinking of building some houses.. lol
Well he he worked, he may be able to help his kids get on the property ladder…
Soldato
The issue with my village is that they are not prepared to let their kids move out of the village, yet they can’t afford to buy a current house in the village and not let any new builds occur.
Some of the people here don’t want to even leave the village to work.. they post on FB all the time asking for jobs in the village. We are one street that everything branches out from.. they could pop into every shop and company asking for work in a space of 3 hours.
Caporegime
That's because you have your thermostat too high
How!? You either don't heat that house and live like the amish or you have a mega insulated house and some sort of green tech to keep it warm.
Seems fine to me. Only 20 years old so maybe that helps. Nothing else involved. I ordered 1500L oil in May according to Boilerjuice and probably have enough until then unless it stays cold for a lot longer.
Edit. Have a log fire in sitting room but it's open so totally inefficient except for that room. Firewood is free except for my time.
Edit 2. EPC was D 5 years ago.
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That is crazy.
I think it costs us 400 a year for heating.
Heating the room we are in to. 20-21c.
Think water is 300 a year. But it can't get much cheaper than that
But these are tiny rooms compared to yours.
House is also 20 years old. Old gas boiler. I think it's as old as the house.
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Caporegime
I guess it depends on how much wood you burn. £800 just on heating isn't uber cheap although its very cheap for the size of house.
Soldato
We're being offered 4.56% on a 5 year mortgage or 4.59% on a 2 year mortgage. I'm feeling very uncertain as to what we go for considering the fluctations in the market at the moment. I guess it's FOMO; what if the rates go down? We've been on about 1.5% the past three years so this is a big hike, about £550 per month extra.
Associate
Im going through this at the moment, 4.39% for 2 years of 3.86% for 5. Thinking going for 2 years and switching if needed later down the road, as I think 5 year will fall further, perhaps to 3% in a year.
Associate
I fixed for 5-years in December 2021 at 1.45%, at the time against my mortgage advisors' advice may I add! So got in there just before it all went to hell, hoping come my next renewal interest rates will have somewhat calmed down, but I'm also paying chunks off through-out the year, so my remaining mortgage loan should be well down by then anyways, fingers crossed!