Owning your own home

I suspect even if they reduce it again they are sitting on a realistic capital gain of just shy of 300 grand

Yeah, I called up Theydons and they said arranging viewings in the New Year.

The house is priced high but I still find it strange that with two estate agents they've not had any open days in 2/3 months...

We're weighing up going for a loft conversion, so just wondering if its the market or there's something else.

Is there any point getting my house re-valued now that the internal work is done?

By an estate agent, or a professional?

I'm getting my loft conversion done end of May. Found a good guy to do it and he's opening up our front and back room and doing a few other bits and bobs too.

I think that with the L shaped loft realistically the house would be worth about 585-600k. I think your neighbours is realistically worth the lower end of that figure. Cheap kitchen , ok but not great conversion and it's all been done to a price.

Would be interested to know how you get on with him.

In other news - this evening I found 5 or 6 blue bottle flies buzzing round. Now I suppose this means something is dead in my house? I dont have a chimney and there's no smell anywhere. They're congregating in the downstairs hallway - is this likely to be near the source?

I've been up in the loft and no flies that I can see. Could it be under the floor?

Discovering the decomposing remains of a previous owner; a timeless Christmas tradition.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a-brief-history-of-people-getting-stuck-in-chimneys-and-dying-302

I had about eight ladybirds turn up in my kitchen the other week. Kept appearing one after the other, fluttering near my lights. Got rid of them
And never saw another again. Quite odd.

Are you planning on moving? Why does it matter?

We just got one of these Karcher vacs and they're boss, cleaning the kitchen sliding door is relatively painless now.

Do it when you remortgage to get into a cheaper LTV band? Savings won't be massive though - 50 bps on interest rate or something?

We just got one of these Karcher vacs and they're boss, cleaning the kitchen sliding door is relatively painless now

That sounds so fucking middle-class. SOLD!

Everyone who has one of those things says they're the greatest invention known to man.

Does anyone have any experience of the help to buy equity loans? I'll be looking next year and it seems like a good way to be able to afford something other than a shoebox.

Help to buy equity loans are only available on new build homes through builders that are registered with the government to be part of the scheme. I know the help to buy mortgage guarantee scheme ends at the end of this year and there is no word on if they are extending it, not sure about the equity loans though.

I had a look in to this because some friends just bought with the help to buy mortgage guarantee scheme and said it ended this month. I can't find details anywhere that they are planning on finishing the equity loans.

I knew it was new homes only, slightly limiting but I need more space and this looks like the best option.

Some banks (Halifax for sure, HSBC also have one I think) are replacing Help to buy mortgages with there own 5% mortgage product.

Perfect, thanks very much for the info.

The industry expectation is that a lot of lenders will start to offer 95% LTV mortgages in the new year once that component of the HTB scheme is formally withdrawn so even if Halifax are the only mainstream lender lending on those terms now you can expect that to change fairly soon.

Excellent, maybe we will be able to buy something!

a lot of lenders will start to offer 95% LTV mortgages in the new year

Credit market be going loopy again

NatWest are also offering 95% LTV...

Can't be as bad as when northern rock gave me a 100% mortgage without even seeing my bank statements