A little lost...

Off-topic
1

So im fed up of throwing endless money away each month renting an apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the UK. Its not like I have money to burn :crazy:

So me and a friend have been looking into buying a place between us. My question is I’m looking for someone who works in morgage and property. Or someone who generally understands the market well enough to offer a few friendly pointers. I know morgage advice is readily available professionaly but to say im on a buget is not even close :slight_smile: I dont wanna bend someones ear for hours on end just want to know the reality of my expectations and be pointed in the right direction to get me started.

This is the single biggest investment I will ever make and to get it wrong could mean being trapped in a situation I really dont want to be in for sometime. There will be a cuppa in it for you maybe a pint? dependant on where you live?

Sensible offers please PM me?

Terry moto before you say owt I know cardboard boxes are a good alternative :smiley: so feckkkk offff before you start :smiley:

2

You in Kingston aren’t you? Well, having bought a place here 18 months ago, I know a bit about the local market and local estate agents.

Also, as an ex accountant, I know a bit about money matters and investments, though never worked as a mortgage advisor and/or IFA.

Bought and sold a three times, so no a little bit about the costs and hassles involved.

More than happy to offer any advice if that helps?

(Am in Kingston off the Fairfield - happy to offer any advice…if you get the first pint in!)

3

Technically, have a look on the internet for the best deals - you don’t have to apply to get the various calculations, and there are plenty of web sites that will give you estimates of legal cost etc;. I would also expect lots of web sites discussing this way of shackling yourself with debt.

Don’t forget that buying a place has implications, such as you can’t just give 2 months notice that you want to move out to shack up with some bird/bloke (delete as appropriate), you have to pay for any repairs etc;.

However, my first reaction was “Oh my god. Were you drunk when you thought of this?”

There’s been a series of programmes on this sort of thing over the last couple of years. You’re entering a minefield that could tie you down more than marriage.

My advice is to think once, think twice, think three times then sleep on it (if you can, with the nightmare of your mate getting a girlfriend in, there being no way he can buy you out, as one example, and boyfriend not girlfriend as a second example).

You also have to take a view of the costs and what house prices are going to do. Me, I rent because I think that is cheapest and because I think house prices are going to fall by at least 20% more. I also live 25 mins from work rather than 10 mins from work as it’s cheaper - you can always move away from Kingston!

In the end, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

Good luck.

Ian

4

Appreciate your point of view Ian,

that exactly why i started this on here. May seem a strange post I know but I really wanted to get some impartial advice from people not financially or socially connected with my situation.

And to be fair the think once through three times then sleep on it suggestion pretty much sums me up. I’ll look at every final avenue before making a decision.

Its just feels like me being mid twenties in a stable and good career with no type of debt i couldnt clear up if I really needed to has such little choice available to me. Anyway Ive had a kind offer of a pint and some impartial advice from bluelagos.

Its an interesting subject though and I’d like to hear from anyone else who has maybe bought a house as part of a shared mortgage with friends? or who has recently decided to take the plunge and buy their first property.

5

PM sent.
:slight_smile:

6

The numbers published by media and official are just wrong.
They look at the drop or raise in asking price on site like right move when the only thing that matter should be the archived prices and those have not drop as significantly as they say (I should know I get fairly well paid by developer to advise them on prices)

Further more, there is a limit to what prices will ever fall. Mainly cost of land+development+build and the rental value.
Property will not become cheaper to buy than rent… ever!!! At least it never happen in recorded history.

However, what the property market will do in the short term is irrelevant.
I brought my first property in Versailles in December 1990. February 1991, Mr Bush Senior start desert storm I, property market crash, my flat is worth 25% less after 6 months.
Who cares… I didn’t need to sell then! I eventually sold it a few years after to purchase my first London flat and made a nice 300%+ return
Only thing that matters is what you pay for it and what you sell it for. What it does in between is absolutely irrelevant unless you pass your time remortgaging (not that I mind, I may a squid in prop fees on remortgage over the years)

Also you have to consider that the real estate market as two different drive.
One is cyclic: economy is booming, money is easy accessible, unemployment is low = price rise
economy is in decline, lenders are getting arsy about their lending criteria, unemployment rise= price drop to a break even-rent cost level
That is about everywhere in the world with a few exceptions…

the other one (London, Singapore, NY upper east side, and a few others) is structural: employment is better in availability, variety and salary than everywhere else in the country and most part of the globe for white collar workers; land is scares and planning regulations make development difficult; demand is both sale and rental far outweigh the supply both available today and in the near futur (5 years)= prices adjust compare to the inflated level they usually are then go back to a slow rise before taking off as soon as the rest of the country stabilize.

Super prime London Market has barely been touch (5M to 10M properties)
Prime market did drop by about 10% since peak
less desirable and regeneration area have drop by about 15% for resell and 20% for new build.

I am currently pricing units in Sutton for 2 sites that will go on sale from May 16th and I actually just review my marketing prices 5% up base on the sale result my team manage on new build sales within the M25 over the last 3 months and the very significant increase in interest by purchasers (mostly first time buyers)

People that rather rent do it usually for 3 main reasons (other than being ill informed on what the market is and is likely to do):
Not is a stable situation both personally and professionally (either unstable work pattern or uncertainty of where work will be location wise in the near future -that was my case for a very long time as I was moving country every few years)
Not able to secure financing (high current level of debt, nonresistant or bad credit rating, lack of personal fund for cash deposit and other fees and taxes)
Renting from social housing any love living on the back of other tax payer…

Sure you are none of the above but that is because you are the exception to the rule :wink:

7

Not trying to get rid of you Ryan :smiley:

Cheapest places to live



Asuncion, Paraguay1. Asuncion, Paraguay. Cost per month: £135.Apartments in the downtown area cost about £75 per month and the most expensive hotel in town costs £12 a night. The average local salary is about £110 per month, and what you pay for coffee in the world’s most expensive city, Moscow, will get you 2 and a half cups in Asuncion. Bargain.

Nice to see your relationship with Bill is blossoming Mate :stuck_out_tongue:

8

Frenchie is your man for this, get him clove of garlic and he’s all yours, lol.

9

Actually for a professional, quite a lot of that is balderdash. And of course being in the industry there is noooo benefit for you to talk up property prices at all…just like the media surveys you refer to :wink:

You buy a home. Or you speculate on property. Or you rent.

If you buy a home then you live in it and any price rises are just incidental, paper money cannot be realised.

If you speculate on property then you take your risks (and the amount of re-possessions amongst BTL’s currently will tell you that this has hurt many people).

You rent for some of the reasons you mentioned - lack of job stability or deposit…or…you just don’t want the hassle of expensive boiler repairs, possible subsidence and mowing the lawn every Sunday. You want freedom in short. In fact long term rental is the prevalent model for many countrys outside the UK - it really is strange how ‘An englishmans home in his castle’ mantra has pushed the wealth of the country into bricks and mortar.

Anyway…in short, look at your circumstances, look at your finances and affordability (especially if interest rates rise as they are artificially low right now), look at the area, look at the market and look at how you can safeguard your investment into the property if buying with a friend via a legal contract.

10

As a first time buyer there are a number of things you will need to overcome:

Finance - ideally you will need a pretty big deposit to get a good mortgage deal

Job security - not a given in today’s market, make sure you are safe

Sharing the property - all OK, but you may have problems with raising enough cash if you are depending on joint salaries.

Get a good agreement to cover you both legally. You need to think about what will happen if one person wants to sell and the other one doesn’t, if one puts more money in than the other, what happens if a girlfriend moves in.

Also think about the kind of property - new build feels great and there can be bargins, but somebody is paying for all that glossy marketing. An older property that needs work to do it up will be a better investment.

Never buy a house close to a railway, main road or airport - if it’s cheap, then it’s cheap for a reason.

11

Actually as my job is to advise developer, I do a lot better when they are in the **** and desperate to get out of developments that they have started and not sold.
When all is good, they don’t really need me and when they are smart enough to know they still do, my fees get a lot more negotiation that they do now!!!

As an IFA dealing with the high end of the market, pretty much the same thing as it is a lot harder than before to get 3,4 or 5M mortgage (especially when you are not UK resident for tax purposes as most of my clients are)

However, the rest of my business have seriously dropped and I no longer get work for the 6 people I used to… For them it has been a bitch!!!

As far as the long term rental philosophy that you find in most Europe, it is partially due to the fact that most country have pensions in line with your salary unlike the **** you end up with over here.

And as a man that have family asset in many countries other than UK, land and property ownership is still the best investment you will ever make in the long term as long as you follow a set of simple rules to insure that Location (geographic, economic and politic), build quality, finance & tax awareness are locked after.

12

All true and good advise except for the new build comment (for the time being) as they mostly have to sell at loss push by the banks that lend them the money on the first place)
A lot of development that started build about 12 to 18 months ago are now on what they call fire sale prices which are usually between 5 to 10% below RICS value (and they are very conservative in their valuation at the moment)

13

this post has come up at a really interesting time as I am in a very similar position…

I’ve been looking to buy for a few months, I was made redundant in Dec and got another job fairly quickly and with the pay out I got, I wanted to use this to help fund a house.

So i got my finances in order, got together my budget for how much I “could” afford, which means, not stretching myself, still being able to enjoy my life which is what I want to do. I got together with a mortgage advisor and agreed the mortgage in principle…

I started looking, first thing looking at where I wanted to be and then looking at what I would get for my money. I quickly realised that my initial budget wasnt really going to get me anything in the area that i was looking, so I re-evaluated and decided that I could increase the amount i was looking to pay.

Then a house came up… I was really happy, it looked lovely, it ticked the boxes, was close to the tube for the missus, and not too far from my office, the inside was nice, it was livable from the start and there were no issues that I could see. So I put in an offer that was 10% below their asking price whihc was rejected and then put in another offer that was 9% below asking price which was accepted. Happy Days.

I had the survey done that indicated there was about £3.5k worth of work to be done on the house, a new rear window was needed, one wall needed damp proofing, ventilation bricks in the roof were needed and there was some woodworm that needed to be done, these were the “urgent” items.

The survey worded it so that the house was worth the amount only if you assumed the cost and inconvenience of getting this work done, so i asked the vendor to have the work done or to lower the house price by the £3.5k. She said no, so I said will you pay for £2k of the work, she said no and offered to pay £1.5k. I then told the estate agent that I was no longer interested… and walked away. The estate agent called the next day saying she would offer £1.6k (half the total costs of work needed) so I said ok, subject to her leaving the heavy appliances, the cooker, the fridge and the washing machine. He took it back to her and she said no to it all, so I was honest with the estate agent saying that I thought the woman was a mentalist, he had told me that she gets hysterical about the negiotiations…I told him that I’d been very up front that the asking price was at the top of my scale and that i needed to get a vendor who was decent and who would play ball. I said that I didnt have confidence in the vendor not to do something stupid before she moved out and the likes…

The woman is moving in with her partner and has no need for all the appliances and was just being vindictive and spiteful, the estate agent even said it! What really annoyed me was that the agent had told me that the house was under offer in jan but the vendor pulled out because the buyer wanted to lengthen the process, but he’s said that in that round of negiotiations, the vendor had dropped the price by £5k because of the results of the survey, but this time was only offering £1.5k.

So I’ve spent the weekend thinking about it and I was actually relieved when I spoke to the agent on monday and told him it was going to happen. I’d been snappy with my missus over the weekend and it was really getting to me, so on monday I felt this weight off my shoulders which was great. I’d been dealing with the whole process myself and was incredibly stressed out about it, so was happy to get it out of my mind.

I told my solicitor to write to hers saying that I was no longer interested.

The agent called me again this morning and now she is offering me £500 more off the house and a cooker, so that means £2k off + the cooker, but there is still £1,5k of work to be done + the appliances that I’d need to buy… so my head is chokka block thinking about it again.:doze:

It’s one of the most stressful things I’ve ever been through, which is what I expected, but its emotionally stressful too, I’ve found that I was relieved when the stress was over, which made me think that it was the right decision to pull the plug, but now its back on my mind with the new offer as the vendor doesnt want to lose another sale.:ermm:

So I’m back to where I was last week, trying to work out whether it feels right or not. Part of me doesnt want to give this woman my money, the other part says that I do want my own house, the the other part says well actually where I live now isnt that bad, its a bit far from the office, but is 45mins on the bike or an hour in the car if i leave early, I’m close to angel and my missus’ family then the other part says how long will it be before i find another house?

Sooo… where am I going with this, well, I’d just make sure that you are 100% certain that this is where you want to go. Get yourself prepared mentally and emotionally and get ready for a stressful and hugely time consuming process. If you are stressed at the minute, it might not be a good time to start the process!

If you have any questions then just drop me a PM…

14

IMO if you intend to buy, on prices it comes down to a series of tactical decisions, particularly on when to buy. Here, get as many opinions as you can and go for the middle ground.

kml uk, every negotiation I’ve had has been entertaining, and the entertainment didn’t stop when I walked in the front door on completion (e.g they were contracted to leave the cooker, but a day before swapped it for a cheap second-hand one - memo to self, check house before final payment is made), so good luck. I worked with a bloke who had this couple around a barrel as they needed to sell, and the things he did were criminal, using one pretext after another to get the price lowered - I could understand them murdering him.

There is no spoon, interesting comments. But then you lost it when you said

You’re a salesman…and you should never believe a salesman.

From what I’ve seen, the movement in domestic property prices over the past year or so is highly dependent on the type and location of the property - some locations have heavily over-built flats with a consequent drastic effect on flat prices. Some under-developed areas might have seen price rises.

“Looking long-term” is a favourite of IFAs as it solves many nasty discussions/problems. Yes, you might have made on your property long-term, but a short-term tactical decision to delay for a year would have saved you money (provided you hadn’t invested in some worse-performing investment in the mean time).

However, what I am making my judgement on is my experience of owning property almost continuously over the past 25 years. House prices go in cycles and I believe we’ve just passed the peak of the last one. I heard the same arguments as yours in 1988/89, when the value of my house dropped from £80,000 to £50,000 (actual sales of similar houses).

At the end of the day, you pays your money and takes your choice.

Ian

15

Mmmm, I forgot to add it’s one of the most stressful things you do.

We bought a re-possessed house last year and right up until the day we exchanged I thought we were going to lose it (and we paid over the odds).

Stuff that happened included the estate agent having to advertise the price we had offered for 2 weeks, giving the original owner the chance to pay off the mortgage (twice) and a gazumper who put in a crazy bid and then dropped it before he went to exchange, hence the reason we got in at the last moment again.

yep, it’s right up there with divorce, marriage, birth and death