Buying a house (and renting)

PostRe: Buying a house by **OnlyShallow** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 11:12 pm

Week five in the mother in law's house and I still have not killed her. Surely this must be some kind of record/miracle?

As for the new house.... Jesus wept.

New heating installed only to discover that there wasn't an actual gas supply to the house. Southern gas say "Oh, hello! That will be £720 please! Have a lovely day!"

I have ripped out a built in wardrobe only to discover the previous owners had installed an electrical death trap behind it. In fact, most of the electrics have a certain Fizziness about them.

We had Virgin installed two days ago and today the electrician snipped the telephone cable...

We have no water pressure. The water that does come out of the hot tap ressembles week old menstrual blood.

I single handedly discovered that relaying the laminate flooring that the heating engineerers ripped up is a two man job.

The freestanding shower in one of the bedrooms was gouged out of the brickwork.... I am now an expert on applying filler.

The storage heaters we ripped out may or may not have been constructed entirely from asbestos (apart from the bricks as they are constructed from ton weights). Only time and a lung transplant will tell.

The tiles in one of the bedrooms were built into the foundations.

I discovered that knuckles have quite a few layers flesh until you hit bone. This discovery was made whilst finding out about the tile/foundations connection.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Iron Nan** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 9:24 am

I hope you haven't bought yourself a money pit dude.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Drumstick** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 10:10 am

I think you should document every stage of the, er, restoration, from start to finish with pictures.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Rex Kramer** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:38 am

The guy we bought our current house from had a certain relaxed attitude towards electricity. Some of the things he'd wired up beggared belief, such as a completely exposed wire wound home built transformer to step down the mains just to run a doorbell extension. That Heath Robinson has a lot to answer for.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Lotus** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 9:45 pm

Currently looking into mortgage rates, and weighing up what kind of price range I need to be looking at for a first house. Bit of a mindfuck. :fp:

PostRe: Buying a house by **Fargo** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 9:50 pm

Hearing the horror stories of people in Ireland who are stuck with 100% mortages on homes that have lost 60% of their value in the last 3 years or so terrifies me. I'd be so careful about buying after the housing crash we're currently going through.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Lotus** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 9:52 pm

Fargo wrote:Hearing the horror stories of people in Ireland who are stuck with 100% mortages on homes that have lost 60% of their value in the last 3 years or so terrifies me. I'd be so careful about buying after the housing crash we're currently going through.

But if I buy now while prices are low, and don't move for at least 5-10 years, I'd probably be ok, right? Right? :shifty:

Something Fishy · PostRe: Buying a house by **Something Fishy** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 7:37 am

Probably. Prices aren't really low though.

In a lot of areas like this they're still 14 times average income on average compared to 3.5 in the late 90's. It just can't sustained. I can't help thinking we'll see a much bigger crash yet.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Errkal** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 8:06 am

they will never be that low again.

but house prices are at a low point, people have less money so are less likley to buy, therfore low demand and so low prices, there will of course be places this doesn't apply but for the most part...

now is a good time to buy as the price will only go up !! just dont get a 100% mortgage its not a good move not unless you know for sure the value will go up, like if you are buying a mess of a house that needs alot of work.

PostRe: Buying a house by **OnlyShallow** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 9:07 am

It may be a good time to buy but considering banks aren't lending it isn't that easy. 100% mortgages don't exist anymore (the example earlier requires a guarantor ie the purchasers parents.) so a typical deposit is in the region of 25% upwards (ours was about 50% on a £300k house which had initially been put on the market at £330k.).

PostRe: Buying a house by **Slartibartfast** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 9:40 am

I wouldn't bet on prices not falling. Asking prices are static (thus falling in real terms) but actual transaction prices are lower - plus London skews the entire UK average. Houses are still overpriced, too.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Rex Kramer** » Tue Oct 18, 2011 10:11 am

I remember when we bought our first house in 2004, first time buyers looking for a 100% mortgage. It was ridiculously easy to get money at that point, we were offered 110% of the value of the property at 5x joint salary. We took a £125k mortgage but could quite easily have borrowed well over £220k. It was so obvious that it was unsustainable, the levels they were loaning at were strawberry floating stupid.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Hexx** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 3:50 pm

Wait? So I have to buy B&C insurance before I even get those house or know th end date.

Silly system!

PostRe: Buying a house by **Lotus** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 6:01 pm

Anyone know anything about these shared ownership schemes? They seem too good to be true, so I'm guessing they are?

PostRe: Buying a house by **Andrew Mills** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 10:09 pm

After 3 months of too-ing and fro-ing we've FINALLY completed on our house sale and are now - technically - mortgage free as of today! :mrgreen:

About strawberry floating time too, as the buyer was beginning to rip the piss a lot towards the end. But we got there in the end. Won't be buying again for at least another 2 years, as I don't want this sort of stress again for a LONG time...

PostRe: Buying a house by **Hexx** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 11:20 am

Got the keys on Friday, cleaned over the weekend, and moved in today.

So. Many. Boxes.

I don't even know where to begin to unpack!

PostRe: Buying a house by **abcd** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 5:10 pm

Lotus wrote:Anyone know anything about these shared ownership schemes? They seem too good to be true, so I'm guessing they are?

I have a house on shared ownership....

We did it with our council, although I don't think that's possible now.

We got a mortgage for 30% of the house and we pay rent to the council.

We can increase our share in the house any time we like, by increasing our mortgage, or paying a lump sum.

We did have to pay a premium however. It was £10k and that went to the previous owners. When we move on, we can expect the same premium to be paid back to us.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Pan** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 8:17 pm

OnlyShallow wrote:It may be a good time to buy but considering banks aren't lending it isn't that easy. 100% mortgages don't exist anymore (the example earlier requires a guarantor ie the purchasers parents.) so a typical deposit is in the region of 25% upwards (ours was about 50% on a £300k house which had initially been put on the market at £330k.).

We got an 80% mortgage through my union, and bought a property on the First Buy scheme, where you buy 80% of the value and the remaining 20% is in the form a 5yr interest free equity loan.

PostRe: Buying a house by **Lotus** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:42 pm

I went to view a flat today - very nice, good location in a village, countryside around, close to motorways and A roads, etc. Great inside as well.

One thing I noticed on the 'brochure' though as I was leaving was that the place has Calor gas heating.

Does anyone know if I'm right when I say this means I'd have to fill up a gas tank thing? Anyone have any experience with how much of a pain this is, and how expensive this is compared to mains gas?

Something Fishy · PostRe: Buying a house by **Something Fishy** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 5:32 pm

My sister is going through this at the mo (albeit with cash in hand to buy outright as she is moving back from the SE).

Still a bloody minefield though especially with Mundic houses down here as we just saw today on our vists.

Buying a house (and renting)

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