Owning your own home

My mother’s house has just gone on the market and listed on websites, going to be interesting to see how it goes and if selling someone else’s house is less stressful.

Fingers crossed. What was the solution? (and sorry again for misreading/causing confusion)

Current pipe dream is to migrate to E10 (from E17).

Had a stroll today around the streets off Francis Rd, seems nice.

Any E10 massive in here want to offer any pros and cons, things I should think about?

Don’t know full solution but the quick fix is employ a solicitor and don’t fanny about trying to save a few quid!

E10 is hugely different from Road to Road. I’m on the Lea Bridge Road and the Warner estates are generally lovely but bridge court is a bit grim. I love the area just north of Blythe road but it feels a bit Essex. If I was going to do a proper move around Francis road ish I’d be looking at the space around the Northcote pub, west of grove green road (which apparently gets a bit rough). Northcote is one of the best pubs I’ve ever been to - dog friendly, drag friendly, West Ham working class geezer friendly - and lots of Victorian housing stock. Don’t go east of the high road or outside the 406.

We missed a place on oakdale road and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. Definitely a place someone could build a really nice life

thanks - i've walked past that pub but never been in, will pay a visit.

yeah, pretty much thinking of the area bounded by Norlington Rd, Grove Green Rd, High Rd Leyton, Hainault Rd.

Edit - not sure I'd want to be too far west of Francis Rd. One of the things I'm not fond of about our current place is being 10 yards off Hoe St.

What's the current thinking with 2yr fixed rate mortgage rates?

Many of the lenders have cut their rates recently, despite the base rate rise: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66459129

My current fixed rate deal (1.95% ... sob) will end 2nd October and my lender (Santander) is letting me change rates early (with the new rate coming in from 2nd October since it'll be way more than our current rate). As of today (12th Aug) there's a 2 year at 6.16% and a 5 year at 5.63%. Plan would be to renew on 2 year and then see how things are going after that, hopefully rates should be back down to something more "normal" in ~2 years.

Not going to sign up for 5 year rate at 5.63%. That's obvious given the 5 year rate being lower than the 2 year rate so they're already pricing in the expected fall.

So, crystal ball time (since I know no-one actually knows the future). Go soon (assuming Santander have cut their rate) or hold out a bit longer (we have until 2nd October)?

Switching vendors not really an option as it would mean having to wait until 2nd October (where we'll be on a ~7.5% standard tracker rate) or have to pay ~£5k in early repayment charges to switch before that date.

We've also got a mortgage deal coming to an end in October.

0.97%...

When we discussed it in April we thought the best thing would be a tracker mortgage with no early repayment charges so we could switch if rates came down - but if that no longer seems so imminent (back then they were talking about 2.5% by the end of the year - those were the days) then maybe that's not the best option any more and I'd also be interested in the replies you get.

I’ve had pals live round there for the last 5 odd years, it’s a great area, housing stick is pretty mixed and Francis road isn’t as vibrant as you’d first think, but still a nice area. My pal bought for 500k maybe 18 months back, total doer upper though. Place opposite went for north of a mil on TMH.
Pub is great, he’s a northern gobshite who’s made pals with every local he can.

thanks, sounds kind of what i'm expecting. I've walked down Francis Road lots and as you say, it's not that busy, quite a few places have been and gone but hopefully it's building up a sustainable core now.

I'm trying to imagine what i'd miss that I can walk to now.

There is one more MPC meeting for you? We have 2 so have a one year deal in the bag but hoping it might drop a tiny bit more before we commit in late November.
All I can say is it’s not going to be 1.5% again but would imagine we are near the top of rate rises.

We live just off Vicarage Road, bought a wreck 8 years ago for dirt cheap.

Love the area. Loads of parks big and small, marshes, Olympic Park and Epping Forest nearby, many LTNs making residential roads feel peaceful, good schools nearby (Willowbrook in particular), lower house prices than E17 and further away from the A12 hellscape than a lot of the roads with more grand housing stock towards E11.

Francis road is OK but having lived in Leytonstone for a number of years I can't help but think it's charm is 80pc the nottinghill esque paint job it's had.

There is still a lot of crime, anti social/gang/ misogynistic behaviour around there.

thanks - haven't looked around so much to the south of high rd, will take a look.

There is still a lot of crime, anti social/gang/ misogynistic behaviour

my feeling is that's true for most places in London where normal people can afford to live. sadly.

The triangle inside Lea Bridge Road, Church Road and High Road Leyton is where we and all our friends live. Some of the roads have massive gardens, are all quiet due to LTNs, and equidistant between Leyton and Walthamstow tube, with Leyton Midland overground as well.

There is a pocket of value around Leyton midland station but I can't say I've noticed any of the houses in e10 having large gardens - the average seems to be about 30 feet long.

My 25 ft garden was why I ended up moving from Leytonstone to aldersbrook - it was just too small with two kids. My old house was lovely though and a totally manageable 1300 sq ft.

Look at Manor Road, Lea Hall Road, Vicarage Road, Grange Park Road etc, all 100ft+ gardens, which is ‘frikkin huge’ in my book.

Ours is an impressively average ~30ft tho…

thanks - had a walk around today. some interesting nooks and corners in this area.

I’m not a huge fan of that area, feel like people think Francis road is something it isn’t. Pain to get to, don’t think it’s great value. We moved out in 2020 and feel similarly to @princeperch

Francis Road is a bit of a forced gentrification folly, agreed. Always feels dead and a tad tragic. House prices in the immediate vicinity are over-inflated also.

The ‘golden triangle’ I mentioned on the north side of the high road is cheaper and feels nicer imo.

I'm in the equivalent area to the west of where you are (south of Lea Bridge Road, between Lea Bridge station and Church Road) and that's also quite lovely. Has a really good sense of community - mostly warner flats though.

We had the choice to move out of the area but we love it here and are - if the gods are kind - moving this Thursday to the same area, just north of the Lea Bridge Road (behind the Aldi). It's rough round the edges, but we love it. As a couple with one foot in hipster culture and one foot in old school east end London, it ticks all the boxes.

it's all a bit of a dilemma for me, tbh. We lived in Lloyd Park area for 6 years and have been in our current place for 20 years now, so you can guess we are not the types who move around a lot.

lots of trade offs with capital cost, running cost, living space, garden space, transport links, somewhere with a bit of buzz vs peace and quiet.

i guess we need to nail down our priorities so we can be a bit more analytical about what we are looking for.

I bought blind 8 years ago, had no experience of E10 (was renting in Homerton for ages), and Leyton back then was firmly in the uncanny valley of ‘looking nice’ having had loads of Olympic regeneration cash slung at it (Notting Hill pastiche shop fronts & that), whilst not quite having reached a critical mass of hipster Hackney refugees buying up relatively cheap houses.

Was a bit of a dump behind the polished facades, and only recently have the coffee shops and double dormers started popping up in earnest, making it feel like more like Walthamstow but with better transport links and access to green space.

Not going to sign up for 5 year rate at 5.63%. That's obvious given the 5 year rate being lower than the 2 year rate so they're already pricing in the expected fall.

No idea if this is useful/relevent but if you have the fixed rate for two years and your mortgage is >£470k (approx) the extra 0.53% interest costs you £2.5k a year, so you'd break even with a £5k early repayment charge if you take the 5 year and switched after 2 years.

We got 4.3% for 2 years in May/April, everyone seems to have thought "this looks the top" every month since. BoE only have the one lever to pull and given only 28% of properties have a mortgage it seems that rates would have to go quite high before they start to impact the economy of the whole country. Kinda regret not going for 3 years personally, but we also thought "things will be normal again within 2 years"