Owning your own home

The plural I believe is Nandi

This is quite nice: https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/photos/48533674?search_identifier=6cf696fcc35d48ef49ad1993676d9426

I did both hamstrings in a Nando’s once.

Nandoes

very @6pt

i bet she does.

Which sauce did you have on them?

Love that.

TODAY!

They're nice, but if you want that vibe I'd look in Peckerman's wood etc.
Great Brownings is a bit too close to the main road, also - you're liable to hear my family falling out with each other everytime we have to walk the path from the station.

In no particular order:

https://www.onthemarket.com/details/5242268/
https://www.onthemarket.com/details/5202672/
https://www.onthemarket.com/details/4754185/
https://www.onthemarket.com/details/5028093/
https://www.onthemarket.com/details/4535840/
https://www.onthemarket.com/details/5257041/
https://www.onthemarket.com/details/5442837/

Seems too cheap given location - what's wrong with it?

It's not a great location, the houses are quite small and you get to hear me and my family shouting at each other.

Fair enough! I probably did exactly what the estate agents hope and just saw Dulwich village...

I feel personally attacked. Red sofa?! That media unit?! >>>

Also I can’t see any storage, I have a lot of bikes and two cars.

Put the bikes in the cars and park on the street.

Offer accepted! time to instruct surveyors!

Bit left field, but have you thought about a new build with indoor parking - then try and negotiate a second long term lease on someone else's parking space? No idea if it's still possible to buy anything near Canary Wharf in budget. But I knew someone who moved out there back in the day because its the only place he could afford to keep his green Lambo sheltered.

Or can you find a mixed commercial property... something like a tyre or MOT place that's already a garage, then form some sort of cost covering business below, then have the property above it to live in?

Tbh I'm on Mrs D's side here. I wouldn't give up London just so my other half can keep cars indoors.

Dig for victory (and storage)!

Kindof this. Basements become value-for-money at about £800 per square foot.

A few months ago I was posting in here about my GF and my first explorations into buying our first home, and received some very helpful advice. At the time we decided that our slightly uncertain job security meant that the moment was not quite right. We've been renting since then. However, my sister and her BF have recently split up and need to disentangle themselves from the house that they own together and there is a suggestion that my GF and I buy out my sister's boyfriend.

The potential deal (as I understand it) is that the property is probably worth around £275,000 (at a guess) and that my sister and her BF both own stakes that they estimate are worth approximately £40,000 each. My GF and I would then pool our deposit money to buy out the BF’s portion so that my GF and I would own the property jointly with my sister. My GF and I would live in the property and pay the mortgage contributions (based on the current mortgage, the contributions appear to be about the same as our existing rent) while my GF would act as a silent investor. When the time comes to sell the property, my GF and I would hope to recoup our £40k stake plus the relevant amount of mortgage repayments while my sister would recover her initial £40k (all of us would also hope to benefit, in proportion, from any gain in house prices).

The logic behind this plan is (a) that it would help my sister out, but more importantly (b) we anticipate that this would be cheaper than the counterfactual of us buying a comparable but different house without my sister's involvement.

My main difficulty, is calculating roughly what this proposal might save us when compared to the counterfactual option. Below are some of the potential savings and costs that we might encounter but I’m sure there are many others that we’ve not thought of:

Stamp duty (saving ~ £4000?)
Surveys and other expenses (saving ~£5000?)
Other tax implications (unknown)
Lower mortgage repayments with £80k deposit rather than £40k (unknown)

There are also some wider considerations such as the potential for house prices to fall (it strikes us as likely with Brexit?) and the potential impacts of rising interest rates. Also, it isn’t unrealistic that we would be forced (or want) to sell in 1-2 years either if my sister needs to liberate her stake or if our job statuses change.

All things considered, I think that we would only proceed with this if the potential savings make it a “no brainer”. Our job situation means that we had already temporarily suspended our house buying aspirations and while we can see that this new house was clearly very well suited to my sister, it certainly wouldn't have been the house we would have chosen and not in the same village. Therefore, we would need a very favourable deal to make it workable for us.

Does this sound like a stupid idea? What am I missing? what are the important things I need to consider?

I'm trying to book an appointment with a financial advisor but there is also a lot of useful experience in here.

That's a lot of variables.

First and most importantly, do you and GF want to live there?

Your cost savings sound reasonable. But you would still have costs around transferring ownership from BF to you. A factor in favour is whether you and GF could buy something similar (factoring in it will only be 50%).

I would sit down with your GF and work out what your ideal scenario is for the next 5yrs. What circumstances would cause you to sell between now and then?

You absolutely need a side contract between all of you to map out what happens in the various scenarios - break-up, death, unemployment, relocation, etc.

You mention selling in 1-2 years. Personally, unless you have a very specific plan mapped out I would be wary of owning a property for less than 3-5yrs at the moment. Is it at all likely you and GF would be able to buy Sister out in 1-2yrs?

Strongly suspect hmrc will want it's stamp duty.

Yes, although the advantage when transferring percentages is that you pay the amount for 50%, rather than 50% of the amount for 100% of the price, if that makes sense. So it means the rate of stamp duty is often lower.