Owning your own home

Money can't buy taste, eh? Or a decent painter/decorator.

The lounge isn't too bad but it's a bit changing rooms.

Give us a clue!

Someone off of Suede?

The street name is apposite, if its who I think it is?

Winner.

Although that word was most synonymous with later work of his more famous band mate.

Horrorshow

Did your original post always say 'noughties'? For some reason I read it as nineties.

yes

Dumb question but here goes. Can anyone recommend a 'decent' estate agent in Tooting? My sister's having trouble selling her house, I'm not in the UK so don't know if it's just a soft market or a shit agent or both or something else. The house is lovely and it's on a good street. Ta!

We are selling my mother house just down the northern line in Morden, market is a bit quiet atm and again it’s supposedly on a good road.

Can anyone recommend a company to install some solar panels? (London area)

Okay so this may be a dumb question but bear with me.

We're looking to move and have the option to port our mortgage (it's not something I've done before)

The mortgage we currently overpay on each month and it's at a very low -pre COVID interest rate.
The house we're looking to buy will mean we'll be borrowing more but can take the existing mortgage at the low rate + extra at 5.2ish

Am I best to stop overpaying for now to keep the low rate part of the mortgage as high as possible and then use what I would have paid to lower the higher interest total amount when it comes to move time?

Yes, I think so.

You may even be able to withdraw some overpayments on the existing mortgage to reduce your borrowing on the spendier rate.

Can someone please share the forum approved mortgage broker?

It is time.

Mike Brown https://crystalclearfs.com/

Thanks!

Linking to this, how long does it take to sort a remortgage at the moment roughly? My fix expires in about a month (dreading it)

Depends on the lengths of several pieces of string.

You may find your existing provider offers a vaguely competitive (in the current market) rate with reduced fees because you're staying with them. We just did this (Santander) and it was literally a few clicks on their website and done in under 10 minutes. This avoided having the faff of valuations, income/affordability checks/etc. We just automatically switched the new higher rate once our old fixed rate had finished (*crys in tory inflation crisis*).

I could have probably found a cheaper rate by remortgaging with someone else, but it would have taken way more time and hassle and maybe not even saved me anything (the extra fees/costs eat up the interest savings).

Haven't remortgaged to a different provider for ages, but I seem to remember it being anywhere between 2-6 weeks the last times I've done it.

I repriced late spring with my current lender Nationwide and did it through a broker.

He was pretty honest about him taking a cut if I go through him or I could just do it myself.

Went with him instead as I rather support a mate and didn't want to have wasted his time since he did look at other lenders if there were any more competitive rates.

Has anybody had soffits and fascia boards repainted lately?

I've just had a quote for the front of our 3-bed semi, "rub down external woodwork and fill...two undercoats and gloss" for just under £3k. I don't really have any frame of reference so its just gut, but that's probably more than i was expecting.

they also quoted to sort out our rotting porch for £800 which is probably about what I would have expected, so maybe its just coz im clueless

Does it include all materials and access? Seems a touch higher than I might expect but it's a lot of time spent up ladders so not a quick and easy job plus I dunno what condition they are in etc

Dunno if @Airhead would have a better idea

they sort of give the impression is all-encompassing, doesn't mention materials but does specify that all the rubbish will be taken away etc. I imagine it to be a full day of sanding and filling, plus whatever the painting takes, its not a massive house. plus the premium for working at height obv, like its worth X from the get go coz i pretty specifically don't want to do it myself up in the roof apex.

I just had our soffits painted, one gable end and soffits above the porch, was £500 inc material. Was the same rub down, fill and undercoat + finish.

We're in Glasgow so don't get the London tax.