Owning your own home

Ground floor plan.

1 Attachment

• Building_Regs_REV-Ground Floor (1).pdf

We love it too but moving north at short notice and would like a reasonably quick sale.

Its guided at 240-260k and offers over 250k would be preferred. Its not quite there...we had a baby daughter 1.5 years ago and didn't want her living in a building site. That said its totally signed off as completed with building control. Could use a sexy kitchen and bathroom refit, some more Sandtex masonary paint, door handles (!) to upstairs doors and I might consider relocating the stove to the ground-floor reception room as this would better heat the entire space and this would make space for a third upstairs bedroom.

Also Medway is possibly one of the last affordable parts of Kent within an hours commute to LDN now that Thanet is getting filled out with DFL's priced out of the market there. Its in line with other 2 beds in the area.

Its is a lot of space for not a lot of money which is why we moved out of our overcrowded house share in Peckham. Nobody there appreciated my tyre pile.

It was the depth of the internal window reveal I was looking at, esp in this photo: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/fullscreen/image-gallery.html?propertyId=60971332&photoIndex=3

It doesn't even look the depth of your new Celotex, must be deceptive photoze.

Yes I was on the hunt for gems during construction but mainly found watch buckles, empty fag packets from the 80's and feathers. Maybe my Henry sucked up all the traces.

Indeed it does look skinnier than it is IRL in that shot.

Going to let my flat, and rent someone else's, because I'm moving town. Renewing the mortgage because it was up anyway. Reason for not selling up immediately, is that if things go tits up, I have a safety net and can move back, also house prices here rose by nearly 10% last year (although I think that's slowing a little). If things go well in new town I'll sell up in a year and buy there.

Is the sensible choice to go interest only (and save my money for legal fees on the next one) or repayment mortgage?

Currently looking at repayment with 0 early exit fees for flexibility, but that was sort of by default as I've no idea about interest only.

My understanding is that interest only mostly made sense because you would subtract the interest costs from the tax you pay on the rent you receive, so you get to keep more of it - there are risks as you still need to be saving the capital repayments too. However, tax treatment of residential rental properties is changing (you get a limited deduction and may still pay tax even where you don't make an economic profit) so that is called into question.

I think you need to run the sums and see what is more profitable. IMO, tax on rent is the main reason why renting one place while renting out your own is likely to be less cost efficient than just owner-occupying, but YMMV

round the corner from me. I would have it but im still building up deposit for a place and nowhere near close enough yet for this place.

It's talk like this that makes me think I should probably just sell the place and bury the money in the ground. I'm not ready to be this grown-up yet.

tax on rent is the main reason why renting one place while renting out your own is likely to be less cost efficient than just owner-occupying, but YMMV

but this is likely to be offset by the strong rising house prices in Bristol right, so it still makes sense to keep hold of it?

It's definitely more complicated renting than just owning / buying!

As to whether it is likely to be offset by rising prices in Bristol - no idea. I have some doubt about continued house price growth in the UK generally, given brexit.

but this is likely to be offset by the strong rising house prices in Bristol right, so it still makes sense to keep hold of it?

That assumes that house prices in Bristol do continue to rise. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. It's tough to tell at the moment.

Depending on what you are earning elsewhere you could be paying a fair bit of tax on that rental income
http://www.which.co.uk/money/tax/income-tax/guides/tax-on-property-and-rental-income/how-rental-income-is-taxed

Yeah, been trying to get my head round that. I'll still be in the basic income tax bracket, so this would mean I basically only pay tax on the income after monthly interest mortgage payments and agency fees right?

@andyfallsoff & @aggi, of course, prices could fall as well as rise etc etc. I appreciate that, but this'll be for a year at most, e.g before brexit. I could potentially be in the arguably favourable position of not owning a home when Brexit happens, and wait to see what happens before buying again.

There are transitional arrangements in place for interest so you'll need to check how much you can deduct. I don't think it's all of it but not sure what the current rules are.

The agent I spoke to today will do fully managed at 10% of rent + VAT. That sounds alright for not having to deal with tenants and combined with an interest only mortgage should leave me a few quid for rent money, although I'm going to be speaking to a few others over the coming days. As much as agents are subhuman scum for the most part, I really don't want to be a landlord right now.

I thought the mortgage interest as an allowable expense is over. So your pay tax on the full rent, minus a few expenses (eg replaced a washing machine, etc).

Ah I see. The extra 3% on stamp duty is in place though right? I seem to remember a mini rush to buy properties before the deadline

I would imagine the pass-through of these costs will be <100%, i.e. the burden gets shared between landlords and tenants.

I found a very old photo of a girl playing an upright piano in our dining room. Possibly means I'm living in the plot of a Stephen King horror novel, but never mind, the photo looks cool.

... Also found a cat's skull underneath the living room floorboards, so that may mean that I'm actually living the plot of Pet Sematary*

*American spelling.

If you hear a piano it is time to GTFO

*shudder*
I mean, who does that?
I found a couple of cat skeletons in the garden, that seems somewhat more normal.

It's there to ward off evil, obviously.
Probably the cat skull is the only thing keeping the piano ghost away.

Haha. There was also a frightening pencil drawing of a boy with angel's wings underneath a lot of layers of wallpaper.

frightening pencil drawing of a boy with angel's wings underneath a lot of layers of wallpaper.

Once or twice I found all my tools that I'd left all over the floor were mysteriously arranged upon the tool board the next morning.