Owning your own home

Living in Streatham, I mean

Suspicious lack of windows in the pictures...

Not a good house to christen with your first poo.

#page766bantz

Yeah it's a basement flat, but somehow more shit.

2-bed tho...

Yeah, not touching that with a barge pole.

Actual lol. Those windows. I mean vents.

£900 per year grount rent and service charge too... for what exactly?

Small areas of the floor bound to be bathed in natural light though

Could have a natural light foot-bath.

£900 per year grount rent and service charge too... for what exactly?

To enrich the freeholder, who probably owns the house, who thought he could turn his basement in to a flat and sell it to some mug. He probably can, too.

you'd have a tough time hearing any screams coming from that basement.

Anybody got a help to buy isa? I am looking to transfer to lifetime isa with Skipton as they are the only ones offering it. This will increase my government bonus.
And help me buy something.
Anyone done this yet? What are the pit falls? I've heard that lifetime isa is part of annual allowance so lower your overall cash isa, which is fine as I am not likely to get anywhere near the limit of 20k

Yeah. Very cheap looking conversion too.

what's the name of that shelving system that's a bit like String?

On second thoughts maybe it's worth a look...

@ChasnotRobert - Ladderax / DK3 Royal System or try Vitsoe or even Very Good & Proper Croquet shelving.

@skidlidsid - Forest Hill is awesome. Both @Dammit & I live here - great neighbors!

Thanks - Vitsoe was the one I was trying to remember. Will check out those others as well.

Both @Dammit & I live here - great neighbors!

Yay - internet friends in the area is one step up from no friends in the area!

Mustn't get carried away though - this is the first flat I'm looking at. It's been suggested that I oughtn't just jump on the first one that comes along without thinking it through properly. Plenty of time!

Just buy @Sparky 's flat.

Just read back in the thread to find out what you meant by this. 270k's out of budget, I'm afraid. If @Sparky can get down to £240k-£250k we can talk...

Alternatively you can take the view that overpaying is effectively the same as having a shorter mortgage term. With that proviso, you could take the mortgage out with the longest term you can get and then choose to overpay to bring the term down to what you actually would rather have.

Just to dredge up one more old post before I go to bed.

I had a call with my bank today and they wanted to to the affordability calcs using a 40 year term (I'm 26). I balked at the idea of the extra interest and insisted on a 25-year term for the purposes of her spreadsheet, but in theory (if there are no overpayment fees and I'm disciplined about overpaying) are there any downsides to maxing out the term length as a safety net?

It's all a bit meaningless, you can overpay and you'll be getting a new one in 2, or 5 years probably. I knocked a year off my mortgage accidentally at one point by giving the wrong number when I was renewing.

Easy to say the wrong number, innit? I added an extra £1k to my salary on the phone earlier because it's £x,950 and I usually round it up to £(x+1)k in my head. Ended up saying £(x+1),950 by accident. Didn't catch it until she was reading everything back at the end...

Luckily it didn't affect the outcome... agreement in principle obtained!

in theory (if there are no overpayment fees and I'm disciplined about overpaying) are there any downsides to maxing out the term length as a safety net?

Not that I can see, really.

It might have an impact if you're taking out an insurance product as well to cover an inability to pay, I suppose.

There's usually a limit to what you can overpay each year so if you think you'll be getting close to that it will be something to consider the impact of.

Finally and it will depend on the mortgage, see if you can choose to underpay later on if you have overpaid - our YBS mortgage does, although we have to ask them before we can do it (I doubt they'd disagree). That effectively makes your overpayments a savings account although you can only 'draw' money out at whatever rate you're allowed to underpay by, and probably only within the year.

i.e. if my mortgage were £1,500 per month and I were to overpay by £1,000 a month for 3 months, I probably couldn't choose to underpay £3,000 one month. I may not even be allowed to underpay by £1,500 per month for 2 months - they might want at least something paid, so I might only be able to underpay at say £500 a month meaning it would take me 6 months to get my £3k overpayment back. Hope that makes sense.

Lots of unknowns there, lots will be provider-specific and I've not explored in detail.

chippenham is not far from where i grew up 25+ years ago,,, if you wanted to be a :first mover" in a craft beer bar or cool street food type place i reckon you might actually do ok... there... the provinces are only just catching up to london circa 2005 now...

I'd love to sell it to a forumenger but...

Want to come around and see it?

That actually could be beneficial, couldn't it? Even if you're not willing to drop to my budget it'd be good to see what a £270k-er looks like. PM'ing you now.

I like where you're going with that...

From my point of view though, £250,001+ is a new stamp duty bracket. Jumps from 2% to 5%.