Owning your own home

I hope you like beams

When our leaseholder (who I mentioned a few pages back) was in this exact position, the freeholder's lawyers went direct to the County Court who pushed it to the FTT. I have two cases going through the FTT at the moment and both have been put on hold indefinitely. Not going to argue any further, I think my advice was fine from a layman's perspective.

Higgs in particular

Is your other cat called Boson? That would make me unreasonably happy

Her last name is Boson.

Looking at the numbers I could possibly rent my current flat and buy the house that we were originally looking at.

If all goes well (rented 11 months out of 12, property prices don't plummet in the medium term, rents stay stable, interest rates don't shoot up) then the numbers would look pretty similar to selling and buying.

Is it a terrible idea though given the possible uncertainty coming up? We will obviously be much more exposed to any drastic changes in the property market and I don't particularly want to end up as a landlord.

Any thoughts?

How would that work with the deposit on the new place? Would you extend your current mortgage to buy the new place, with your existing equity as the deposit?

Yes, if I remortgage my current place at 75% LTV I'd release enough equity for a 25% deposit on the new place.

Do you think the mortgage co's will provide a decent valuation at the moment? Serious question - it's possible we could move by getting the equity from my other place out via a new BTL loan.

Other things that might concern you -

• the govt. has been attacking private landlords for some time by eroding financial incentives. I'm not sure if there's anything left for them to take, but they could do more. Who knows.

• additional stamp duty although you can get it back if you don't rent long term

• once in, it's difficult to get out. Rented properties are hard(er) to sell

What’s the attraction? The yield on your capital will be pretty uninteresting.

If you want to move chain-free it’s probably cheaper and less stressful to rent another place, sell your current place, then buy something else.

And if you “can’t” sell your current place now - well you can, you just haven’t accepted what it’s worth...

Do you think the mortgage co's will provide a decent valuation at the moment?

Good question. My broker says that he hasn't seen evidence of valuations dropping yet but all valuations have been put on hold whilst we are in lockdown so who knows what will come out the other end. If valuations do drop then we'd have to reflect that in our offer.

Yes, the tax situation is pretty poor. The only further adjustment I could see would be removing the tax relief on the interest (or just an increase on tax rates across the board) but that wouldn't be a huge impact on me.

Realistically the additional stamp duty pushes it over the limit for me and I would need the vendor to drop the price somewhat to take that into account.

I have been pondering about the awkwardness of selling whilst tenanted. I guess you stand a fair risk of an empty period with the associated costs.

Yes, the return is fairly minimal. Realistically any substantial return would only come from property prices increasing.

The main reason I'm considering pushing this through now is we have a baby on the way in a few months and would prefer to be out of the flat and into a house at that point (or soon after). I suspect that if we don't move soon then the likely stagnant property market and lack of first time buyers could mean we may not be moving for a number of years.

the return is fairly minimal

Have you worked it out? Use the money you put in at the beginning, not the current value.

Anything around 4% isn't a complete disaster. Put in the context of the battering my investments have taken over the last couple of months, the minimal yield my other flat has paid over the last eight years looks like pretty reliable if unremarkable performance.

we have a baby on the way in a few months and would prefer to be out of the flat and into a house at that point (or soon after).

You could consider renting a house. Looks a bit shit on paper but I suspect there will be quite a few empty properties right now or stock that people wanted to sell but now cannot so they'll rent until this either blows over or we get a better understanding of what the new normal looks like.

Having had a new born in a top floor flat I would suggest doing whatever you realistically can to get yourself in to a place with a bit of outside space and another floor.

It's under 2% using original purchase price + improvement cost.

I'm not convinced that renting would work. Would be looking at a couple of grand a month at least so a year of that would cancel out the extra stamp duty for instance.

The tax is too high to make it worth moving out of my place, renting it out and renting somewhere else.

I suspect that if we don't move soon then the likely stagnant property market and lack of first time buyers could mean we may not be moving for a number of years

Good time to rent rather than own I think

Am I mad buying this? And offering well over the asking price? We do very much like it though.

Anyone have any thoughts on post-war non-standard construction properties?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-90339206.html

Isn't that one of those prefab houses that it's impossible to get a mortgage on?

Nice part of the world though.

Guess I'll find out in the coming weeks.

Drop Aidan a message - I think they had some complications with their mortgage because of non-standard construction but got something sorted in the end.

I'd been looking in the Surrey Hills area, but my girlfriend objects due to "all the drivers being cunts in Surrey", and a lack of the kind of lanes that Kent has. I looked at Kent, and golly - in-house Weatherspoons style bars, multiple hot-tubs in the garden. Kent is livelier than I had thought.

I'm now thinking about either the South Downs or Ashdown Forest - I'd like a railway station with fast access to London as one of the tests I have (which several places I've looked at in London have failed - is the ability to be in Covent Garden using nothing but trains as transport in an hour and a half from my doorstep.

ability to be in Covent Garden using nothing but trains as transport in an hour and a half from my doorstep

Haslemere. It’s just about West Sussex not Surrey and the drivers are no more cuntish than elsewhere in the UK. Hour’s drive from LHR as well.

I grew up there - 10 mins walk to Haslemere station, 50 mins fast train to Waterloo, tube to Covent Garden...

Tunbridge Wells?

It's not covent garden but you can get into Euston if you live on the Kent Coast in about an hour.

Royal Tunbridge Wells isn't it?