Owning your own home

Actually the reason I came to this thread was to ask if homeownership has made you just overall more uptight over time? Since I have been lucky enough to get a house in the last few months it's all been about getting it 'right' and my focus on house project / improvements have been unnecessarily testing and irritating.

Thing is tho it's fine home and we all fit in it. Have the rest of you felt this same pull for insufferable exactness (in say kitchen cupboards) that is draining emotionally and personality-wise has made you boring to talk to? I feel like it's this black hole of DIY I'm going to get sucked into if I don't relax about it right away. Does it improve over time or do you have to consciously fight against it? It's not easy when the handyman forgot to fill a 2 inch gap of electrical caulking that I've already paid for.

See what a irritating prick I've become!

Ours was up in July, went with a 5-year and annoyingly rates went down just after we re-completed. Only to the tune of a few hundred £ over 5 years but still...
Decided during looking that 2 year fixes are a scam as the headline rate is ruined by high fees and having to do it all again in 2 years. I also did not realise that you need to either pay a conveyancer (£500 or so) or choose a provider who does it for you, which isn’t information that is immediately obvious.

To help me decide best ‘value’ I made a spreadsheet that compared overall cost with capital repayment and the ratio between the two (where 1 is 0% interest with no fees, 0 is interest only). Low monthly payments =/= best if they whack on a big fee.
If your mortgage is much larger than ours (105k-ish) then the fees have less impact but it’s worth a decent calculation.

We used a mortgage advisor to avoid awkward questions about income and maternity leave/etc but she did not seem to understand any of the above despite all the letters after her name.

I rather enjoy the maintenance/DIY aspect. Bit like fiddling with bikes but bigger.

you don't have to disclose your change of circumstances, right?

That's the thing, I've no idea. We were self-employed going in and even though we had a whopper of a deposit it was still a real ballache to get it agreed. Not sure if, as we're flagged self-employed on the system they'll default to 'well we better check you out'.

@chrisbmx116 Don't want to say 'nothing has changed' if they come back and ask for last 2 years earnings again later.

lels

There are loads of jobs we need to do, the most pressing being getting a garage built so we can store all the crap in boxes that's taking up so much space at the moment... And bikes and lawnmower, etc... All very bourgeois... Still cheaper than renting...

It's taken me two years to finally get a toilet roll holder sorted in the bog... We're not very neurotic about our house, I know loads of people who are tho'... They aren't very interesting people usually...

not very neurotic about our house, I know loads of people who are tho'... They aren't very interesting people usually

Yeah this is what haunts me because I'm already a pretty bland dude

I've always been an irritating prick so its hard to gauge.

Yeah this is what haunts me because I'm already a pretty bland dude

I feel this. So much. Quite sure I've become an insufferable bore (even more than pre-home ownership)

I don't think home ownership screwed me that badly, but add the child that came shortly afterwards - that killed it. Dull as f**k

Jersey = A great place, but no hiding for crims.

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Mate just remortgaged with HSBC. ~2% 5yr fixed.

It's best to work our your 2, 5, and 7yr plan and match the mortgage up to that. No one will be able to advise you of your options without understand the factors that will play into your lifestyle/cost of living.

As I understand it from ppl who've remortgaged, if you stay with the same provider and have paid all your repayments, they won't do an affordability check. This obviously means you loose the competitivity of the market, but you shouldnt' be overly concerned.

Cheers for the info.
As I've just moved I'm not thinking of going anywhere soon, although global warming and sea level rises may have an effect, but nowt I can do about that.

yep, currently windsor to reading isn't super easy by train - but a piece of piss by car as it is directly up the M4. crossrail will alleviate that (same goes for the slightly cheaper Maidenhead)

you'd also be extremely close to swinley @Dammit

Things to consider are...

• Major house works cost?

• Are you going to have kids in the next Xyrs? Or if you have kids are their going to be new outgoings - nursery fees, school fees, uni fees in the next Xyrs?

• Are you/partner going to go back to education in the next Xyrs?

• Will you turn 40 in the next Xyrs, and if so what will your Ti bike cost to build?

etc.

If there are no events on the horizon that will impact your income or cashflow, then do what thingybob suggested and work out what is cheapest.

North Norfolk coast (Sheringham)

As I understand it from ppl who've remortgaged, if you stay with the same provider and have paid all your repayments, they won't do an affordability check.

I've remortgaged twice with my current provider (Santander). It's been done over the phone each time (and they didn't need to confirm that my wife - joint mortgage - was happy with it - I'm sure she could have done the same without them needing to speak to me), not even a question about affordability but then the rate has always gone down both times I've done this. Last one was done 3 months early and the money that saved covered most of the loan fee, so that was a very simple choice.

Fixed rate mortgages are still a gamble, it just becomes a timing gamble. The longer the term the higher the rate as the mortgage company is pricing in the expected uncertainty in rates. But it's still an absolute gamble as to what the rates will end up looking like in 5 years. 5 years could dump you out into a period of high interest rates whilst 2 years or 7 years not so much, who knows. If rates do start to head North whilst you're on the fixed rate then you need to have a plan of what to do when your fixed rate period ends as the jump in interest charges can be substantial.

Personally I find 5 year fixed rate deals the best trade off for us, but then I've got <10 years left on mine although I'll probably need to move to something different for the last 5 years as the ability to make overpayments would be quite limited in the final years as the capital is almost completely reduced.

no idea how to reply to your post and link what you said but to paraphrase, you said driving round walthamstow is awful, with closures to rat runs and traffic calming being put in.

Isn't it a bit ironic that you are on a cycling forum complaining about a borough that is promoting cycling and installing measures to encourage more people to get out of their cars and cycle? are you lost mate?

i see from your previous posts you live in leytonstone...this makes sense. i'm not sure why everyone living in leytonstone moans about walthamstow, it's like they have a complex being the poorer relations. i guess its good for bombing up and down the highstreet in your car with all the other boy racers/drug dealers.

you should stick to cycling and not driving...i would recommend it

My remortgage completed yesterday.

Told IFA I'd be happy sticking with Halifax out of convenience, but when he suggested I could get 1.69% 2yr fixed with the Coventry compared to 2.4% as the best follow-on deal, it would have been daft not to switch. Conveyancing taken care of by the lender.

funnily enough i had two bikes in the back of the car whilst i was trying to navigate through the streets of baghdad, sorry , walthamstow, one of which i had just collected from the bike shack in leyton after being repaired, and the other one i was on my way to drop off at a bike shop on forest road to be repaired.

still, i note that from the following link Walthamstow is rated as the second worst place for crap driving https://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/14325901.e17-named-second-worst-postcode-london-dangerous-drivers/

It's well bad, cars have been known to run over their owners in E17

Only if you eat jacket spuds.

ok have some #rep for that

It was 3 Jacket Spuds actually, with Tuna, totally understandable.