Buying a house (and renting)

He never misses that guy

My roof tiles got put on while I was away on holiday so our moving in window has been reduced from 3 months to 2.
Really really didn’t want to come home but this is something to look forward to I guess.

sawyerpip wrote:

Lotus wrote:Been looking at houses and mortgages recently, and the cost of everything is really putting me off the idea of moving. For the kind of places we're looking at, Stamp Duty alone is estimated to be around £35,000

That alone just makes me not want to bother and save the money

What area are you looking in? That's like a £900k property

Sorry, only just seen this. Nah we're looking at a budget of around £600k, but for various complicated reasons we need to hold onto my current property initially. That means buying a new place will technically be a second home, hence the higher rate. I'll be selling as soon as I can though, so I should be able to get a refund on the extra stamp duty. Still stings though - even if we were first time buyers it's £20k or so just gone like that. I'm sure when I bought my first place stamp duty was like £3k, which at the time I thought was annoying enough

So instead of actually addressing the crux of the issue, which is ever growing house prices the Government just want us to take on even more debt.

They should be looking at supply and building more homes, exponetial council tax increases on second/third/fourth homes, ban buy to let and stop corporations hoovering up properties.

But the Tories are landlords so instead they'll just make us shoulder the burden with multi generational debt. No pay increases, work til you die and you won't even own your home. Joke.

Saw someone comment on this that the UK economy is essentially just a ponzi scheme based around house price appreciation which is depressingly accurate.

What the energy efficiency drive means for UK property rentals

https://archive.ph/OsIM0

Landlords are under a much tougher timescale. Ministers are asking them to ensure homes for rent reach level C or higher for all new or renewed tenancies by 2025 and by 2028 for all existing tenancies. The government has yet to respond to a consultation on the matter, which closed in January 2021.

Among the options for improving a home’s energy efficiency are insulation, double glazing, draught proofing, installing a condensing boiler, fitting low-energy lightbulbs or installing renewable energy sources such as solar panels or wind turbines. But the extent of the problem is daunting. Around one-third of buildings in the private rented sector were built before 1919, making them harder to improve, compared with 20 per cent of owner-occupied homes.

Some landlords whining about making home improvements to their assets further adding to the value of their asset.

How Britain betrayed the buy-to-let generation

Really need to invest in a company making tiny violins.

https://archive.ph/mRTzI

The Tories were once the party of landlords, seeing rental as a legitimate business which benefits tenants and investors alike. But after more than a decade of repeated interventions by Conservative Chancellors, landlords have become overtaxed, over-regulated and increasingly likely to give up altogether.

But the real sea change came during the coalition years. The logic was two-pronged. “During austerity, the Treasury spotted landlords as a wealthy group that they could attack,” said Mr Norris. Post-financial crisis, then chancellor George Osborne needed cash and landlords were sitting ducks.

Second, the number of renters had swelled so significantly, they suddenly became an important group of voters that needed to be courted – an approach that this government has continued. Since buy-to-let mortgages were introduced in 1996, the number of private renters in England soared from less than two million to 4.4 million.

“The Tories increasingly realised that renters do vote and that they want those votes,” said Mr Smith.

Tomous wrote:Saw someone comment on this that the UK economy is essentially just a ponzi scheme based around house price appreciation which is depressingly accurate.

The White Paper also comes on top of plans to introduce new energy performance certificate targets for the private rental sector. By 2025, all newly let rental properties will need to have an EPC rating of C, with a deadline for all existing lets of 2028.
Under the proposals, landlords will have to spend up to £10,000 per property to keep them rentable, or face a fine of up to £30,000.

I've also read it described as:

The Conservative vision for Britain is a care home with an army attached, and given current trends I wouldn’t bet on the second part standing 20 years from now.

Equal parts amusing and depressing.

Put an offer in on a house today after viewing it this morning - just the asking price - I guess we'll see if it escalates. Can't imagine we'll get it, it's gorgeous, in a fantastic area, absolutely perfect all round. But still, here we go!

'Just the asking price' crazy isn't it. in 2018 I put in an offer for 10K below an asking price on a house worth £180K and it was accepted. I backed out in end as I moved away from the area. But it's crazy how quickly the times have changed.

I've had to go for 95% LTV and use the rest of my deposit to bring me to ~10-15% above the asking price. Years of saving.

At a stretch we could offer 10% over, maybe 15%, and I'd be willing to as I think long term you wouldn't lose that money, it's an attractive house that wouldn't be hard to sell, but I figure we'll start with that and see how it goes. The guy selling is keen to sell it to someone who really wants it and would love it and would fit in with the community of the terrace (they've lived there like 40 years), and he seemed to really like us, and has offered us another look round on the weekend. We're also willing to wait as we're not in a chain, and they need time to find a house in Scotland, which might put some people off. There's also no parking. But we'll see... Ugh hate this waiting.

Red wrote:Put an offer in on a house today after viewing it this morning - just the asking price - I guess we'll see if it escalates. Can't imagine we'll get it, it's gorgeous, in a fantastic area, absolutely perfect all round. But still, here we go!

Good luck!

We put an offer in on a house last Wednesday. It was the perfect house but asking price was the very top of our budget. 2 hours after the viewing we had sorted out mortgage in principal and sent an offer in writing. They had no more viewings until the Saturday so we were hoping they might just accept asking price as they wanted to move very quickly (they'd already sold property in January but that buyer was moving too slow and not sure they even wanted to move). They decided to let the Saturday viewings go ahead to try and get a better offer.

After the weekend they had two other offers all at asking price so we then had the dreaded 'best and final' offers stage. We had no more to give but decided to add an extra £10k that we can borrow from family. That was enough to swing it along with us being first to offer and responding quickly..

Except they took a few more days to think it over and then today decided to stick with their original buyer and reject all other offers.

That was the 5th property we've put an offer on and it's not been accepted. Every time we've gone above asking price.

We keep being told that we're in a good position as our current property is under offer with a buyer just waiting for us, and we only need 50% mortgage which we have in principal. Yet somehow it seems impossible to buy anywhere.

Pembrokeshire second home owner sells up saying he's 'never felt so unwelcome'


Yes Wales

Went back for a second viewing on the house we've put an offer in on to ask some more questions and try to show were very serious buyers, and it is SO GOOD. Arghhhhh. Should find out the situation on Tuesday.

Tomous wrote:Pembrokeshire second home owner sells up saying he's 'never felt so unwelcome'


Yes Wales

If you want to live in Pembrokeshire, sell your other home. It's not that hard. The wealthy and their expectations of the world is crazy. Hopefully his home can be used by a local, but most likely they won't be able to afford it xD

House prices in the area should drop if second home seekers all strawberry float off

Next year we'll be looking at Price of moving to a bigger 4 bedroom home vs Cost of a 2 storey extension to turn 3 bedroom house into a 4 bedroom house with bigger living room and kitchen.
We like the area of the current house. Not far from my parents and brother, at one end of the road is a nice set of shops and at the other end of the road is one of the highest Ofsted rated nurseries/Primary/Secondary schools in the local area (The caveat being it's technically a Catholic school, though they don't seem at all strict on that with admissions given that my niece got into the nursery despite not being christened and having never set foot in a church, nor her parents having set foot near a church in decades) and even after extending at the back of the house there'd still be plenty of garden left.

No idea how much the kind of extension would be though. It'd be a two storey extension on the back of the house and moving the existing wall between the kitchen and living room further out into the current living room. I could easily see it running into the £50-60k range. About £20k would come from savings with the rest being extra borrowing on the mortgage. There's about £115k left on my mortgage, while the house is probably worth anything between £160-180k at the moment I think, so financially I'm suspecting that moving will probably be cheaper, especially after another year or so of mortgage payments (including £50/month overpayment).

Factor things in like Stamp duty and solicitor bills as well.

Lagamorph wrote:Next year we'll be looking at Price of moving to a bigger 4 bedroom home vs Cost of a 2 storey extension to turn 3 bedroom house into a 4 bedroom house with bigger living room and kitchen.
We like the area of the current house. Not far from my parents and brother, at one end of the road is a nice set of shops and at the other end of the road is one of the highest Ofsted rated nurseries/Primary/Secondary schools in the local area (The caveat being it's technically a Catholic school, though they don't seem at all strict on that with admissions given that my niece got into the nursery despite not being christened and having never set foot in a church, nor her parents having set foot near a church in decades) and even after extending at the back of the house there'd still be plenty of garden left.

No idea how much the kind of extension would be though. It'd be a two storey extension on the back of the house and moving the existing wall between the kitchen and living room further out into the current living room. I could easily see it running into the £50-60k range. About £20k would come from savings with the rest being extra borrowing on the mortgage. There's about £115k left on my mortgage, while the house is probably worth anything between £160-180k at the moment I think, so financially I'm suspecting that moving will probably be cheaper, especially after another year or so of mortgage payments (including £50/month overpayment).

Unless you're absolutely in love with that house and are going to stay there for 10 years after the work, I would just move house. Find somewhere that has done all the work for you.

I think they need to drop perks for the military as well.

You know most military families can get amazing perks for house buying, and because they're always on the move, they just buy homes to rent out? It's mad.

(And yes, if anyone asks I am a hypocrit as I move around as a Civil Servant and my dad looks after my house for me...I don't get military perks though as a Civi)

From google -

If you're a regular serviceman or servicewoman in the armed forces, the Forces Help to Buy scheme could let you borrow up to 50% of your salary to a maximum of £25,000, interest free. This loan is for buying your first home or moving to another property on assignment or as your family's needs change.

To put this into perspective. Most junior officers in the military are earning 40K by the time they're 25. That's 20K interest free to go towards a deposit on a home they'll likely rent out.

The armed forces HTB loan is already scheduled to end in December.

Our armed forces is too small for such a work perk (taxable benefit in kind so interest-free repayments + lower take home pay kind of act as a type of interest) to make much difference to overall house prices anyway.

The regular HTB loan is much more worthy of your annoyance. It inflates already pricey new builds but many of those who used it are on quite a bit more than 40k and despite being called Help To Buy it's more accurate to call it Help To Sell.

Some 58 per cent of Help to Buy properties in England were sold to people with household incomes of more than £50,000 in the six months to June last year, compared with 29 per cent when the scheme was launched in 2013.

One in 14 properties went to buyers with a household income of more than £100,000, compared with one in 30 when the Help to Buy loan scheme was launched.

It was targeted at first-time buyers, but the Ministry of Housing figures show that about one in five homes were bought by people who had previously owned a property.

Almost half (47 per cent) of the buyers who have used the loan scheme since it began had a household income above £50,000, and 5 per cent earned £100,000 or more.

https://archive.ph/JuKFs