Owning your own home

I would't feel bad about giving them a number you think it's worth. For reference, for my flat I offered 60k under asking and bought it for 50k under asking.

@plantasia good work!

100% this! BS5 all day long.

@Señor_Bear https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56315729 hopefully a bit of light at the end of your tunnel.

Yeah it's good news but there are still a load of hoops to jump through that involve the landlord creating a document for leaseholders to give to buyers/lender/valuers - sounds relatively easy but I suspect it will be a clusterfuck for a while.

IKEA induction hobs are cheap though. If the hole in the worktop is the right size its a cheap upgrade, no? (Needs electrician to confirm correct rating of cables and probably to do the install itself)

oh yeah, definitely easy to fix, just an unexpected expense

Fair. And probably not the last of the expenses either. Still, you're adding to the value of the place!

More garden clearance photos plz.

That path will scrub up lovely, draw your eye down.

Found the same when I moved into my place. Fortunately it was a 32A electric hob so I just found an induction hob that required the same size hole and bought that.

If you have a copy of the Seller Property Information Form, or can get hold of it, check to see if the leak was mentioned, if not get on to the sellers solicitor for a forwarding address to send the bill to the previous owner.

Potentially you could get the cost covered if the issue was misrepresented by the seller.

Was hoping to start bagging up the cleared stuff today, but my Screwfix shredder is not ready until tomorrow. Did pick up a water butt that may as well have been made for a dead space between the patio doors and lean to. That downpipe only serves a tiny portion of roof above the patio doors but dumps out onto the patio so should take some of that away.

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Has anyone any experience of remortgaging and renting their current home in order to buy elsewhere using the equity as a deposit on new place?

Getting a bit peeved with the same feedback from viewers on ours saying the parking/footpath situation puts them off (the house was built pre cars and is on a narrow footpath about 30m from street parking) as all of this information is available on Google/Maps and in the meantime the places we're viewing are being sold.

No road traffic passing by the house? Cleaner air and quieter too - that should be a selling point! (Sorry no help on the remortgage situation)

I'm sure you know this, but just to flag that income tax is now payable on all rental income (i.e. not just anything beyond mortgage payment) which really does make this harder to achieve financially, but can be done I guess depending on circumstances....

This is actually one of the reasons we bought it, the house fronts on to a footpath and then on to a large green space, west facing so sun sets over the green with views from loft office and master bedroom too. Plus cats and daughter are away from traffic.

Yes, so our costs are likely:-

Gas and elec safety certs (+ any work to bring up to current standards as there is some older wiring in places)
Remortgage with dedicated BTL lender with exorbitant product fee
~10% p/m to letting agent
Taxes
Maintenance
Void periods
Refurb after tenancies if required, hopefully not (or go after deposit if necessary)

Has anyone any experience of remortgaging and renting their current home in order to buy elsewhere using the equity as a deposit on new place?

I seriously looked at this when my sale fell through. My conclusion, for my circumstances, was that although it looked like a good plan on the face of it when I looked at the numbers in detail it just became too risky.

Once tax was taken into account the returns weren't great. An empty month or two or a big repair bill would have wiped out any profits and I was also very exposed to property price and interest rate fluctuations.

There's obviously the increased stamp duty with buying a second property and it then becomes much more difficult to sell as you've either got to time it with the tenants moving out (and show it with tenants there) or take a hit on the rental income.

It seemed like a lot of effort and risk was my conclusion but the main thing is to have a very close look at the numbers.

There’s a website you can sign up for that shows all sold for prices in your postcode. I think my discount was within the normal range. Will have a look later for the name of that Site.

Ooh I didn't realise the "Stamp Duty Holiday" didn't include the second home surcharge, that's a considerable difference, close to 10k for the houses we'd be looking at which would wipe out any rental profit for at least two years.

Has anyone any experience of remortgaging and renting their current home in order to buy elsewhere using the equity as a deposit on new place?

Some lenders don't like you doing this, and your mortgage broker might recommend that your remortgage reason is stated as improvements.

Your current lender may also instantly add on 1% for a let-to-buy mortgage. And then on top of that, interest only mortgage (because your yield on a capital repayment mortgage will be buttons) rates tend to be higher.

This is not financial advice etc...

Nationwide did actually mention this when I asked them so we'd likely look to remortgage with a dedicated BTL lender and release equity at that point.

If you explained the release as funds for improvement would the bank not be wanting to revalue the property after works and then notice you didn't improve the property?

If you have a copy of the Seller Property Information Form, or can get hold of it, check to see if the leak was mentioned, if not get on to the sellers solicitor for a forwarding address to send the bill to the previous owner.

Potentially you could get the cost covered if the issue was misrepresented by the seller.

Yes, it's not mentioned on there. We will definitely be trying to get the costs covered! Have the water company coming by to investigate now.

If you explained the release as funds for improvement would the bank not be wanting to revalue the property after works and then notice you didn't improve the property?

Probably worth checking with someone that works in the business, but my understanding is that a lender never has any interest in following up. Unless you specifically asked them to re-value (e.g. if you were looking to re-mortgage in the future, at a better LTV).

Back up sorting the "stinky room" as mini_com calls it. Chance for a better photo of the garden. Green line is the far boundary, red line is what was the right hand edge of usable space before clearing started.

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