Owning your own home

Yeah, we did the same thing with ours regarding a boiler. Pushed it a bit and then gave up on it because I wasn't about to restart the whole process over £1k. I'd definitely give it a go though because paying for stuff when you don't own the building is a bit different to asking for discount for something broken or whatever.

As well as the utterly shit overflow which WILL cause you a problem in the future when the silicone fails you should also query why no heat sheilding was used when soldering the joints. You may be about to redecorate but they shouldn't be leaving huge scorch marks on the wall like that.

If this person is on the gas safe register, which they absolutely should be if they are doing boiler work, you might want to consider reporting their work to them?

They do look nicer than the average one. I don't think I'm looking for anything that permanent though. It's also the window that I look out of when I'm working so still want to see the sky most of the time.

Our fixed-term mortgage expires in April 23, and we are selling up, (we live abroad and the house is becoming an anchor and getting a new mortgage would be difficult). How fucked is the housing market going to be, and is it work the GBP10-15K penalty we'd pay for early re-payment to try to sell earlier?

It's just about to play out now but current predictions are at a drop of 10% for next year.

Edit: "at least 10%"

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/28/uk-house-prices-predicted-fall-mortgage-interest-rate

Balls

Isn't that just taking a bit of the froth off that people hyperventilated themselves into during the pandemic?

On the flip side, predictions post covid were that property prices would drop and they've done the opposite.

I'm in a similar boat and was planning to remortgage and take out a chunk of money based on the increased value due to work done....

Ha, my response was more that 10% is lots more than the early repayment penalty, so I need to get my arse up and do something now.

In the grand scheme of things, yeah, we've doubled our investment over 8 years, so the world's tiniest violins will play for me.

Anyone making predictions on the housing market is just pulling it out of their arse, it's impossible to say what will happen as who the fuck knows what the cunts in charge will actualy do next? People are going to lock themselves into a higher rate long term mortgage which will either be good safe move or turn out to be more costly, it's just a complete fucking gamble.

The only thing I'm sure of is we're all getting fucked, just for some it'll be just be the tip and for the rest it'll be balls deep.

No, a lot of conservative friends are making huge money off this. As ever.
Just the plebs loosing out.

Is it really going to result in lower prices?....People locking themselves into a 10 year fix mean fewer houses going on the market, no?

That will be a portion of the market but how many are up for renewal now? How many of those will be offered a 10 year rate and how many will take it? Don't imagine it's a huger % of the overall market.

That's a pretty small minority, there are plenty of home county tories mortgaged to the hilt who will be well and truly fucked .

I saw a stat somewhere that ~ 300k households come out of a fix each quarter.

My totally unexpert opinion is that some houses may be affected, things like holiday homes in Cornwall but there's so much pressure on housing in the cities that I can't see them dropping much if anything.

The cheap 10 yr fixes are gone already though, right? If i was remortgaging right now there’s no way I’d tie in long term as i am hoping rates drop again.

our mortgage was approved 48 hrs ago (luckily, I think) - we weren't offered 10 year fixed at all, nor were we at the AIP phase

some houses may be affected, things like holiday homes in Cornwall but there's so much pressure on housing in the cities that I can't see them dropping much if anything

I would say the opposite. Cornwall holiday home owners have just had an income tax cut and are likely not to have mortgages (or small ones they can afford with the aforementioned tax cut). Normal stuff in cities is mostly bought with mortgages - if banks only allow 4x income borrowing rather than 5x that's a massive drop in effective demand.

You are also more likely to have forced sellers in the towns as people have to move for family / job reasons? I suspect most holiday home owners would avoid crystallising a loss. Maybe the leveraged AirBnb landlords would get fucked (good!)

You could be right actually. I guess it may cut out the people buying holiday homes on a mortgage. I won't get myself excited thinking it will stop people buying second homes altogether

I guess it may cut out the people buying holiday homes on a mortgage

I think that's true for sure. Also maybe some people were releasing equity from their primary home to buy a second?

Definitely the BTL and Airbnb stuff will start to appear on the market (I think this is one for example)
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/127186061#/?channel=RES_BUY

I've pencilled in a 10yr with First Direct today @ 3.9% (60% LTV).
(5yr was 3.6%)
Existing fix expires in Jan
Still pretty annoyed I didn't get around to doing this all a month ago

Ours is up at the end of Jan. Broker got us hooked up with a retention deal - 3.13% for a 2 year fix, hoping things will chill out in a couple of years. Fixing for five or ten years seems like madness.

After having had an offer accepted at the start of the month after endless instances of being outbid, we prepared all of our paperwork and got a mortgage AIP in place just before all of the recent lunacy. What would you know, we’ve just heard back from our broker that the valuation from the mortgage company came back as unmortgageable. Apparently due to the flat (which is above a clothes shop) having a shared front door with the retail unit and no independent access. We’re absolutely gutted. The broker was amazed that the EA hadn’t flagged this as a potential issue earlier down the line and the fact that there was no mention of this in the paperwork meant the broker was unaware until having gone through all this rigmarole. When I spoke to the EA they said they knew the valuer and that he was a “muppet” but that now, given the current climate, it would mean that it would be impossible to get a mortgage on it. Our broker was also unable to arrange a mortgage with any other of their lenders. We’re just glad we didn’t pay the solicitors to do anything yet but this feels like a pretty massive sucker punch especially given the sudden hikes in interest rates that we would have (just) avoided had all gone through.

Sorry to hear about this and I am surprised the EA had not flagged up this potential mortgage during viewings.

I was also in a similar situation a few years back for a flat above a commercial unit in Camberwell. What I took from it was not to look at victorian type flats above commercial units ever again, unless I was a full cash buyer!