Owning your own home

If only it didn't rain all the time.

I think it's sensible, if you can get in the game get in the game. If it can contribute with rental income as well, from holidays, then great.

Get one close to the mountain regions and you'll be able to let it out to walkers?

And a nice place to go yourself. Cairngorms can be accessed via train from London but you'd pay a premium for it.

Scotland is a big place. Whereabouts?

It's just north of England.

There are desirable places (to us) from the borders to the northern Highlands. Lovely places 20 miles outside of Glasgow (a distance I used to cycle one way in London for work) to fucking remote.

This makes it hard.

A house may lose value though, money in the bank probably won't.

Money in the bank does.

With interest rates at, essentially, zero percent, our savings are looking to take a four percent hit over the next year. Are house prices going to do that? And if they do, we'd still have the house mortgage free.

Really happy to be told this is dumb though.

Just to spice it up you could take a punt on Brexit continuing to butt-fuck our currency, and therefore choose to purchase a house in (say) Stockholm.

I got a new washing machine delivered today. The old one was in the kitchen when I moved into the flat in 2000, so I got my money's worth out of it. However, I had to rip the door lining out to make the bloody thing go in.
The old one just about went out ok, but the new one was about 3mm too wide for the doorframe.

I'd check first that your MIP would cover a purchase in Scotland. I suspect they won't like it if you're not gonna live there full time.

You def wouldn't be able to use a U.K. Mortgage to buy a place in Stockholm. Unlikely a Swedish bank would lend to you unless you've lived there a while have a job there etc.

Good advice - thanks - but the point is to not have a mortgage. We have enough savings to buy a place outright in Scotland. So the idea would be move our money from the bank/ISAs into property, reaping the benefits of having a "holiday home" (which could potentially be a full-time home at some point depending on things ), while initially continuing to rent in London (where our jobs are).

They may do. Obviously very hard to predict. A few years back a lot of prices dropped and people were stuck with negative equity (obviously not a problem in that aspect for you).

Ironically a big increase in interest rates could cause that but no-one knows what's going to happen.

Other issue to consider is the tax if you suddenly need the money and you haven't been living there. You need it to be your principal residence if you want to minimise tax.

More helpful notes, thanks.

Mark Carney has said he won't be bumping interest rates any time soon despite inflation. God it must suck being Mark Carney right now.

What taxes are you referring to? Capital gains on selling it? I'd be thrilled to be in a position in which I need to pay capital gains (especially over the allowance!). If you meant stamp duty, it doesn't apply on flats below 125k. But maybe there are other things I'm not aware of?

Buy in Eire get European passport.

If it's a second home, or buy to let, you still pay 3% on a place under 125k even though there is no stamp duty. As of April this year.

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Good to know (and makes sense), but it would be neither of those things.

(Also, quick Google shows that in Scotland first 40k isn't taxed).

Capital gains, obviously depends on the property value, how long you have it for, it increasing in value, etc

I'd say the most important thing is getting a property that you'd be happy to live in if everything goes tits up.

Personally, if I had that much money I'd look at buying in London. Whether or not London will carry on as it is though is anybody's guess and you could be in a worse position if the market sunk and you had a mortgage so it's understandable you're not convinced by that.

I'd say the most important thing is getting a property that you'd be happy to live in if everything goes tits up.

Agreed. And it's amazing what's available that fits this criteria that is below what we have to spend. It's nuts.

Thanks for thoughts people. I am not an economic genius by any stretch of the imagination and have no sense of this shit, so thoughts and comments supremely helpful.

Buy a garage in London! They've been good investments over the last 10 years and you can rent it out or use it yourself. Fewer overheads/complications to deal with than a remote property.

If it's in Scotland, you'll pay LBTT instead of SDLT. They are similar but there are differences, don't assume that the same rules apply, so it would be worth looking into further

Buy a garage in London! They've been good investments over the last 10 years and you can rent it out or use it yourself. Fewer overheads/complications to deal with than a remote property.

If you buy a garage local to me then I will happily pay you a fair market rent for it.

Consider how many weekends you realistically want to use it vs how often you would have to go up for maintenance etc, and if there is a gap between the two whether you'll need to hire someone to look after it. My parents used to have a holiday home but ended up selling it when they found they were having to go up every other weekend to miw the lawn, air rooms etc. And that was only 1.5 hrs drive.

Possibly why he's considering buying in Scotland - expectations are a lot lower, for e.g. having glass in the windows qualifies as posh.