House Prices #4 Property market, buying and selling

[Sure…Media!]

Sounds like Australian prices!

 

[IOrderedASandwich]

We're looking at buying in a city outside London now remote working/one day a week in the office is a thing, and a) we can easily afford a flat but leasehold seems like the biggest pain in the arse ever invented b) we could likely afford a house, but then could we easily pay off the mortgage in time to retire, is it too much space for us, what if there are more things to maintain, is the council tax going to be way too much?

There are approx. 12 flats in our budget within a few miles of where we live now (zone 4 London) that aren't 'short lease - cash buyers only!' and they all seem to have maintenance charges of about £300 a month, meaning we'd be paying £500 each month more than we pay right now for our rental flat. I'd rather be putting that £300 into my savings or directly paying off the mortgage with it, and I'm not sure it will help much with lenders being cautious about affordability.

My intention is to find somewhere we can afford as FTB that suits our lives now (we're in our forties, no kids, just two bikes) and hopefully never have to move again BUT should we need to move in future I'm wary of the headaches leaseholders have had with selling, and also it's an ongoing cost for as long as you're living there which will only keep going up - bar the extra security how realistically different is that from renting? Like I said. Pain in the arse.

 

[SpindleWhorl]

I’ve always thought it strange that these longer fixes aren’t available as readily in the U.K. as they are in other places. In the US I’m pretty sure people often fix for their whole mortgage term.

People want the freedom to move though, its rare someone buys a house and lives in it all their life. You can't get out of a fix rathe without paying a hefty penalty

 

[Shinythings]

Question. If you move in and find out for example boiler isn't working or massive problem with electrics for example that would have been obvious to seller and not declared, can you take action against them?

 

[Jellycat369]

House on market end of of June '23
Accepted offer from buyer end of August '23
Had our offer accepted on house we're buying October '23
Hoping to exhange and complete this month!

We had our first quote through yesterday for removals. JFC!! I can't believe how much it was. Our last move was 6 years ago and we moved from one end of the country to the other. This time we're only moving 20 mins down the road. And the quote we recieved yesterday was about £700 more than what we paid for the cross county move. I wouldn't say we have that much more in the way of belongings/ furniture either.

This worries me so much. We had really low moving costs when we moved into our house as we just hired a van and did it ourselves, including a cross country collection. We had the luxury of being a new build and coming from a rental where we had a month overlap. Won't have that this time

 

[Choco88]

I commented a couple of weeks back I couldn't work out if house prices were rising again or people were putting overpriced shit on. So I decided to follow a few. They have all had price reductions, some quite significant ones.

Only the 3 bed semis seem to be selling here.

 

[Jellycat369]

As we're no longer going to be able to move to the dream house, we're focusing on our fixed rate ending. We think it ends February 2025. I'm planning on returning to work from mat leave beginning Jan 25 so if I'm to provide 3 payslips, I'll only have one month at full salary, one month of nothing and one month of SMP. Does anyone know if this will impact an application for a new fixed rate?

 

[Kittylover2019]

Hiya hoping to get opinions. We want to upsize, our house is three story which we hate and doesn’t have enough downstairs space (2A 2C). We can’t have people round for dinner or socialising as we don’t have enough space . We would be paying an extra £500 a month on top of what we do now. It’ll be tight but do able
am I dreaming. Is it too risky?
It’s a bit decision so I’m a bit scared
Thanks

Is there no way of redesigning the space to make it more user friendly?

 

[Notworthy]

Get a couple of agents in on the pretext you're considering selling

 

[Shinythings]

We changed providers at our last remortgage and didn't need solicitors involved

Yeah same. No solicitors are involved in a remortgage.

Would you avoid a broker who you pay fees for? My usual broker charges a fee (it's a percentage but can't remember what it is off the top of my head). I'd rather avoid a fee if I can but is it worth it if they get you a better rate than anyone else (as was the case last time)?

 

[AladdinSane]

If you haven't yet exchanged then you are within your rights to change your mind about leaving any specific items you'd previously said you'd leave.

It would be different if you had exchanged and then failed to leave the item on completion as you'd be breaching the contract. However, until exchange it's not binding.

We have completed, we completed on 20th. However we advised our solicitor on 9th November that we would no longer be leaving the washing machine. Simply because it had completely broken and we were told by our buyer, in writing, that they had a spare so not to worry.

We informed our solicitor early so if there were legal ramifications, we could get those sorted prior to completion. We were never told of any issues, just that she'd informed their solicitor

 

[Shinythings]

We could be neighbours!

Ohhhh! Without giving too much away where are you?

 

[SpindleWhorl]

Hey all, not sure if this is the right place to ask this but still

does anyone have experience of buying someone out of a property? Without going into too many details it’s something that could happen to me in the near future so would like to know what id need in place in order for it to happen.

for context, had our offer accepted July/august 2021 and our house completed in feb 2022 for 176k

Tia x

You'd need to raise enough to cover the current mortgage plus half the equity xx

 

[MissTeddy]

After some advice or words of wisdom please.

House is on the market (seperation) fixed rate 0.99% runs out in December. Viewings but no offers. Price already been reduced to quite a bit.

What can I do?

House has to be sold - I won’t get the mortgage just in my name - also come December I doubt I’ll be able to afford it it’s going on to triple?!

Feel alone in this and just twiddling my thumbs but time is moving on.

Can you put it on the rental market for a year and see if things are calmer next year? You could use the rental income to supplement rent for yourself in the short term?

 

[Shinythings]

No Brainer, House 1, you've got £50k+ to make it better than the others
ETA 1920's houses tend to be well built and have decent size rooms, loft insulation is cheap and easy to DIY so don't worry about that.
One thing to look out for in houses that old is type of build, will most likely be solid brick but there are cavity walled houses of that era. You can tell by the brick work, if all the bricks are long ways it's almost certainly cavity wall and if there are long bricks and short bricks it's solid brick. If you can't see the brick work then measure the depth of the wall at the window, anything around 225 to 250mm will be solid brick, anything around 270to 300 will be cavity. Insulating solid brick is a ball ache.

Yeah, I think the more we think about it, the more number 1 seems a no brainer. That house if we kept the period features but modernised it a bit would be GORGEOUS and if we extended into the loft we could make a beautiful space up there. Then we'd also have that huge garden that we could potentially put in a garden room and still have loads of space.

The brick thing is good to know. We're going for a second viewing tomorrow so will ask. Where would I look for the brick pattern? Outside of the house?

 

[Megansnarkle]

I have asked if his rates are negotiable and he has said they are not. He's an independent agent so I get where he's coming from as he doesn't have a regular salary like high street agents so his fees are as they are so he can make a living (but he's fees are the same as high street agents). So that's fair enough.
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Yes, I have considered this. His statistics that he could show me shows his average sale price is 106% above asking price. This compares to others in the area at 102%. So would balance it out but if course mine could be a property that doesn't sell on it above asking.

What does 4% represent for your house asking price if the stats do bear out for your property? Ie. how much more would that be than the difference in price?

 

[Yel]

"Help to stay" loans in Wales

Mortgage help offered for struggling homeowners in Wales

People who cannot make mortgage repayments could get interest-free loans from the Welsh government.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Pinkpenguinx]

After a bit of advise where we start

Husband and I have been approved for a mortage, we were looking at a brand new property and they put us in contact with a mortage advisor they use for free. This mortage advisor gave us a max figure we could borrow which was just enough to buy this brand new property. Anyway on getting more info on this property it really didn't appeal to us or our needs.
Other lenders ( spoke to one advisor at lloyds, offered almost 100k less ) are coming up a lot lower than that original advisor, is this normal?
I have after reading some of this thread about to arrnage with a different advisor.
Were on the south coast so prices are literally extortionate.
Im a first time buyer, husband is not but co owned a property woth his ex who had already purchased when they met he just took it on so were both pretty clueless about this.

 

[Meg78]

According to the HPI calculator from Nationwide my house will have only gained 0.51% value since March 2022…… surely that can’t be right?

 

[SpindleWhorl]

Anyone have any experience porting a mortgage? What if the house you want to port to is cheaper than your current? Do you just pocket the equity?