Ooooo - that's a very good point. In general our mortgage broker is excellent... but he does like to keep us on a revolving remortgage train every couple of years. Whilst that's suited us well in the past, we're now borrowing more money to do a loft conversion and I think it's time we locked in for a longer deal.
The nervous wait to exchange....
- Thread starter noj
- Start date
Ooooo - that's a very good point. In general our mortgage broker is excellent... but he does like to keep us on a revolving remortgage train every couple of years. Whilst that's suited us well in the past, we're now borrowing more money to do a loft conversion and I think it's time we locked in for a longer deal.
We've just got a 5 year fix at 1.19% and £995 product fee if that helps. As said already, we've gone longer as I can't imaging rates will drop much more, and that way we don't have another product fee in 2 years.
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Jan 2006
- Posts
- 4,531
What's the LTV to get a rate of 1.19? We've gone for an 85% at 1.69% (giggidy) fixed for 5 years. We're hoping to have the property revalued after the 5 year fixed and fall in to a much better bracket.
Went and had a look at the house again today, wanted to see how serious this potential issue with the garage was.
Its a tough one, it doesn't look as bad as I was expecting but it is something that is going to need looking into.
The bricks of the garage outer wall are coming away from one of the support pillars slightly, so either the ground has moved or the workmanship was poor given its not a particularly old house. Its not a complete show stopper for me, from the second hand information I'd received from my mortgage broker speaking to the lender I was expecting to see a garage that was ready to split in half.
Emailed a couple of structural engineers to get a feel for the cost of the report, if its less than a grand I'll probably go ahead with it, anymore than that and I'll probably pull out and go back to searching.
Its a tough one, it doesn't look as bad as I was expecting but it is something that is going to need looking into.
The bricks of the garage outer wall are coming away from one of the support pillars slightly, so either the ground has moved or the workmanship was poor given its not a particularly old house. Its not a complete show stopper for me, from the second hand information I'd received from my mortgage broker speaking to the lender I was expecting to see a garage that was ready to split in half.
Emailed a couple of structural engineers to get a feel for the cost of the report, if its less than a grand I'll probably go ahead with it, anymore than that and I'll probably pull out and go back to searching.
We've on 50% LTV, borrowing £437k, so I guess that explains the difference in rates.
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Jan 2006
- Posts
- 4,531
That's a healthy LTV indeed, and will make considerable difference to rate. We're keeping fingers crossed to get in to the 60% LTV bracket after the 5 years, assuming no market crashes we should be fine.
Yeah, I'm starting to lean that way. To be honest, at 5 year fixed we're actually paying less than our current deal despite borrowing an extra amount.
Associate
- Joined
- 11 Aug 2011
- Posts
- 682
I'm in two minds over moving home at the moment.
We've had our home valued and would be looking to move to the better side of town nearer my son's school.
I'm just a bit hesitant as I'm worried about being trapped by negative equity should the housing market have a down turn.
I'm at the beginning of a new career so we'd be unlikely to be able to afford a "forever home", more a home that is an intermediary to where I'm hoping to be in several years time.
The other option is to wait a few years and move when my son becomes old enough to play out by himself. The local kids on the street are nice (well behaved, polite) but there are a number of older kids in the area I'd rather that he didn't interact with.
We've had our home valued and would be looking to move to the better side of town nearer my son's school.
I'm just a bit hesitant as I'm worried about being trapped by negative equity should the housing market have a down turn.
I'm at the beginning of a new career so we'd be unlikely to be able to afford a "forever home", more a home that is an intermediary to where I'm hoping to be in several years time.
The other option is to wait a few years and move when my son becomes old enough to play out by himself. The local kids on the street are nice (well behaved, polite) but there are a number of older kids in the area I'd rather that he didn't interact with.
Soldato
How long would you be there for? Unless you think it's hugely overvalued or you won't be keeping it for very long (less than 5 years maybe) then I wouldn't be worrying about negative equity.
Associate
- Joined
- 11 Aug 2011
- Posts
- 682
I suppose it is a time issue really. I'm a graduate engineer with 1 years experience and my goal is to be chartered as soon as possible. I work for a small company so I'd unlikely get the breadth of experience required for chartered, so maybe I'd be looking to move on in 2 years time for work reasons.
I've been looking at local house price history and have found some people local to me who bought in 2008 who will only just have gotten out of negative equity this year. Perhaps this wouldn't happen to me, but today's prices can't be the new norm as they've been driven up by lockdown saving (no holidays etc) and people who really hate where they live.
I read a stat recently that 50% of lockdown buyers have regretted the price they paid. I'd obviously hope to be happy that I've moved.
Soldato
Considering the market at the moment, I don't think I'd choose to move if I didn't realy want to. It'll take months for any move to even take place, and if you're planning to potentially move again in just a couple of years, a significant portion of that could be taken up with the move itself!
I read a similar article but the gist I got was that a lot of "younger" (vague) people that moved out of cities etc. because they saw a new rose-tinted view of the remote working world - have now become bored of the countryside/small town life and getting severe FOMO now that everything is opening back up again. Restaurants, bars etc. I certainly don't regret buying before the stamp duty change but we were in the fortunate position of having a big enough deposit to make our mortgage pretty much the same as our rent. Therefore if you think over a longer term, it was a no brainer really. We could lose money on any sale in the future if prices dip, but we're also technically "losing" money by paying rent anyway.
If everybody worried about negative equity when buying, nobody would ever buy. It's far more likely something completely unknown will crop up to cause it anyway. In which case there's no point worrying about it. You only have to look at the longer term where house prices just consistently go up-and-up in this country. And look at how much politicians do to keep that status quo. Great example is the stamp duty holiday. It cost the government £500m in lost takings for the sake of what exactly? And in the middle of the pandemic as well, when our NHS and other public services really could have done with that money. They could have ploughed it straight into hospitals, front-line workers etc. But no. Proper up the housing market. It's laughable how much money they will throw at it just to keep it afloat. That £500m was only gauged in Feb 2021 by the way so take into account all of the last minute transactions they're probably hitting close to £1bn in lost revenue I'd imagine.
I think he was suggesting he'd move job in a couple of years. Not house.
AS someone who bought it 2006 and who's house has been valued in negative equity until this year I say it's not much to worry about. The 15 years of payments still left me with a substantial amount in the bank (even when I did attempt to sell under value in 2019 I'd still have had plenty for a deposit etc).
It's still better than in a land lords pocket if you ask me.
It's still better than in a land lords pocket if you ask me.
Soldato
So, Natwest have undervalued the property we've made an offer on, £15,000 no less. Vendor isn't willing to renegotiate either so hopefully an alternative lender will agree the list price is reasonable otherwise its back to the drawing board.
Soldato
Santander? We have same deal but broker we have gone via has £250 cash back so £750 fee in reality - ive been with Santander before on property with ex and always been on, i was pleased to get a 10 year fix at 2.59% 6 years ago, crazy you can get under 1% these days!!
Of course he does, he gets a kickback from the lender each time.
TSB
Associate
Buyers had their building survey done today, hopefully doesn’t throw up any issues that cause a problem for the sale!
Is this for the insurance/rebuild costs? I'm pretty sure NW undervalued ours on that but nobody cared. They still gave us the mortgage
