Owning your own home

I currently have a tracker mortgage, interest only, taken to allow maximum yield and flexibility (0 exit fees) while I decided if I was living in another part of the country, I'm now returning to live in it, but was going to keep the mortgage for the same reasons. If it weren't for Brexit the ideal plan would be to continue renovation for 1/2 a year then move on. Worst timing.

Now I'm really unsure if it's a good ideal to wait that long. I think I have enough deposit for the new place without selling my flat, so am considering renting or air bnb that place for a couple of years then claim back the stamp duty, but not having loads of debt hanging over also feels quite appealing. This is Bristol, so prices still rising (for now).

tl:dr first world problems

fuck, new page, that was in context of my last question.

tldr; our vendor told us there was no major works 'to her knowledge' this is untrue and i dont know why she thought we wouldnt find out (or she is genuinely an idiot)

scheduled in 2023 so no actual plan or costings have been laid out yet.

we want 15-20 off asking price. but we'd also take 10k in cash if that was an option, we've seen the option of retainers but our solicitor doesnt sound encouraging on that due to it being so far away.

Is there any process for just getting 'cashback' almost? our mortgage and the sale price remain unchanged, but the vendor has to give us £X on completion?

Just written into the completion docs I believe. We got £2,500 that way. I don't think you could go up to £10k though

Fingers crossed. 🤞🏼

I did this at exchange. Our solicitor wrote an adjustment agreement that stated that we would transfer the deposit less £X in full settlement of the contract, with the sale price and mortgage unaffected.

It can also be done in a way that reduces the mortgage, which takes a lot longer as the bank need make a new mortgage offer, but is cheaper as no interest is then due on £X.

Next door is up for grabs if anyone fancies joining the tentative DFL takeover here in sunny Faversham. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-54834867.html

does anyone actually like kitcheloungen combo things?

No

Kitchen diner is fine though

does anyone actually like kitcheloungen combo things?

The washing up is more likely to be done, parties are better

yeah but where can you go to quietly cry away from prying eyes of other guests?

Thunder-chamber

If the kitchen is in the lounge, what makes you so sure the thunder closet is in a separate room?

Next door is up for grabs if anyone fancies joining the tentative DFL takeover here in sunny Faversham. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for­-sale/property-54834867.html

Nice amount of space outside to leave my elderly transit van whilst I find it a new gearbox, I'll call the estate agents now.

In the sento.

The most important thing is to have a plan based on your likely personal circumstances. So think through your personal scenarios.

For eg; we paid the premium for a 5yr fix, not because we actually thought rates would rise over 1-3yrs, but because we worried that if we had a kid in yrs 2-3 and our incomes dropped we'd struggle were there an increase in rates. We had been out of the country so had less choices of lenders, so if kids weren't in our mind we may have gone for a 1yr, followed by a 2-5yr but with more choices of lenders at that point.

My 2p is that any rate increases will be super slow so as long as you can afford 0.5% you'd be fine. But ideally you should be able to withstand 1%.

If it's any consultation we paid somewhere between £25k-50k too much for our place and our interest rate is almost 3%.

In terms of moving your LTV, lenders are notoriously bad at adjusting upwards to the market value. So honestly that £50k may well be better spent paying down your mortgage if reducing your LTV is the aim.

As to housing prices, the UK still has excellent property laws, a strong legal system, great luxury shopping, and some of the best tax planning minds in the world. Combine that with a weak pound and London will still attract foreign money looking for a wealth preservation strategies.

Lovely.

Found myself bristling at the description of Faversham being mentioned in the Domesday book. Leyton is ALSO mentioned in the Domesday book. I believe it comprised of two blokes and a pig.

Unfortunately for us the pig had more sense than the men. He moved out to Faversham.

Best part of £600k for a three bed terrace in Faversham?

It’s nice... but Christ

@umop3pisdn
thanks both, this is what i think we'll try and go down i think. a contribution from vendor + £1000 a year savings in service charges compared to other places we were looking at and we hope we'll be most of the way to the bill by 2023

This.

I'm in a house split into two flats (one upstairs and one downstairs, both equally sized 2 bed flats). I own the upstairs flat, someone else owns the downstairs flat and we each have a share of freehold. Until recently we've split the buildings insurance 50:50.

I've now had a loft conversion so my flat is a 3 bed over 2 storeys. What's the best way to split buildings insurance now. I expect to cover more of it but wondered if there was a standard way of allocating it. Square footage (which would be a bit of a guess), number of bedrooms, number of storeys?

I know it’s a bit of a stretch innit? To be fair they are nice houses, 2 mins from station and it could easily take four or five bedrooms with minimal work. That family have only one kid so have gone for loads of living space. Ours is the same layout except for our redundant basement level shower room (vestige of when it was converted into two flats). I want to knock that shonky extension down and do a proper job to extending the kitchen out the full width of the house at some point. That’ll be a few years off tho as we’re pretty broke at the moment what with Mrs Fatberg our of gainful employment... nice to make plans though

Don’t you dare.

Rate increases may be slow but don’t forget that fixed rates are priced off the forward curve so can tick up much faster than the bank raises rates. By the time rates do start rising, it’s probably too late to go into a longer fixed rate to hedge.

1% rise is really very little by historical standards.

The positive is that theoretically the Bank of England doesn’t have to defend the pound - their mandate is price stability. As we saw after the Brexit vote they are happy to tolerate a short period of FX-driven inflation without hiking rates in order to avoid tanking the economy.

Or bought anything in the Good Food Deli.......

Actually, apologies, I've got it wrong, Catford IS gentrifying.

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Get out whilst you can