Owning your own home

Thanks for the reply, this is all way over my head to be honest...

Basically, if you are fricken lazy, chuck it at your mortgage, assuming it doesn't trigger early repayment fees. You can't lose. You don't really win either. But there we go.

If you aren't fricken lazy, and like a little risk in your life, invest it. The return you get should beat the small but fo' sure return you'd get by paying down cheapo house debt.

I love it up here, now in Wood green which isn't quite as nice as the rest but definitely better.

Turns out London property values have been pretty stable in the past year and have actually gone up slightly in most areas.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-house-prices-falling-at-fastest-rate-for-nine-years-a3940096.html

Nicer ≠ better, of course

Any forum approved surveyors in deepest SE London? Asked Collier Stevens mentioned above for a quote, would like something to compare it to.

@cake I think Fi and I shall be looking to you to be our local guide. We can pay bribes in alcohol or dinners.

Separately, I've now found the extra £15k I needed... the universe is still working as I hoped it would. Life remains weird. Clearly I'm over-extending though, to have needed that, and that's going to be something very tangible once we move in as we'll not be able to do much with the property for a long while. Thankfully, it's really nice and nothing is needing to be done.

I've been doing the valuation scoring based on what I perceived was the avg sq ft price, and there was huge deviation across London, everything from £500 per square foot for ex-council / needs overhaul, through to around £1k per square foot for marble lined bathrooms and Neptune kitchen with a garden. For the places we were looking at we were seeing prices consistently around £750-800 per square foot for being quite average. The place we are attempting to buy is £693 per square foot and above average condition, comparative places nearby are closer £800 per square foot.

Yes the place is at our upper end of affordability (because it's larger than what we were looking for), but I think we're getting a really good deal and are just very fortunate that the personal circumstances of the seller (they've bought in Surrey and are paying twice, and their child starts at a local school there imminently) resulted in them needing a quick sale.

We are stoked. And we also have a huge loft to hide all our skeletons in before we convert it into a bedroom or dungeon or observatory or something.

Just make sure the £15000 comes from a deemed acceptable source, seems like unsecured loans and gifts from none close family aren't acceptable but i don't know enough about it to be sure https://www.onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk/other-mortgage-info/where-can-my-deposit-come-from/

Just make sure the £15000 comes from a deemed acceptable source

This

A decent solicitor should pick this up

Selling advice needed: would it be likely to return investment in smartening up the front of my terrace flat in preperation for selling?

Things that need doing that I've never got around to are:

1. mending a few bits of crumbled ribbon pointing
   
2. mending 1m length of edging at bottom of bay window
   
3. scraping off flaking paint at <1m, making good stone and overpainting
   
4. replacing broken tiles & steps with new recon stone / concrete slabs
   
5. filling and painting front door
   
   

Unfortunately it looks like I'll have my hands too full to do these myself, which was always the plan, so would need to pay someone.

Or do I just leave it to the buyer. Received wisdom is that 'kerb appeal' is quite important, but it's all extra cost to fix.

Thanks.

The deposit is 100% covered from my own savings.

The shortfall is part of the stamp duty, fees and moving costs so I am not sure it matters as it seems unrelated to the borrowing part, but I'll point it out to my solicitor in case it isn't immediately obvious that free money has arrived from an external source (still UK though, which I've noticed seems to matter).

I hope you’re using better measurements than estate agent floorplans for your calculations!
Even the EPCs can be a bit suspect in my experience...

We house viewed with this:
https://lasers.leica-geosystems.com/uk/disto/d2

Truly :)

Measuring a room takes as long as viewing it and the thing stores the memory of the measurements and I tot them up at home afterwards.

The estate agent was also bemused by this part of the process, as well as the methodology and other quirks of behaviour :D

Hah, I clicked on that fully expecting it to be a 3d laser scanner thing! Fair enough though, I think I would get bored quickly and annoyed by non-rectangular rooms.

The shortfall is part of the stamp duty, fees and moving costs so I am not sure it matters as it seems unrelated to the borrowing part

I'd expect it to be part of the mortgage affordability checks. They'll often need to know about existing and planned spending commitments. Maybe not moving costs but I'd expect solitictors fees and stamp duty to be checked.

Ha pop up to Norths when you move in there's a bunch of us in and around that area, including @Mikey5000 who lives in the middle of Crouch end

So long as non-rectangular rooms remain a subset of rhomboids they can be treated as rectangles :)

It's bay windows and other trapezoidal spaces that are annoying :D

newb chain question: Do I find a buyer first, or a new place to live?

As an aside, how beneficial is it to remove myself from the chain? Considering it would involve signing up to a 6 month let, or a very pricey AirBnB type arrangement...

I did suggest moving in with the OH's mum for a bit but she's not keen.

You can do it simultaneously but you may struggle to get an offer accepted until you have found a buyer for your own place - sellers want to know you're:

1. serious
   
2. in a position to move (once they have in turn had their own offer accepted...)
   

you'll need to have your gaff up for sells before most estate agents will give you the time of day.

Unless you can suck up a double mortgage for a while and have the readies for the deposit and extra 3% SDLT

No one would accept an offer from us until we had a viable buyer in place recently.

Understandable. Also in times like these who know if a seller will get close to asking, which could affect their budget.

Sell first. Find a place with a monthly rolling contract if you can’t find a place to buy in time.

Find a place with a monthly rolling contract

These are expensive or do not exist. You'd have to get a standard tenancy with a break clause. Or just bail and bin the deposit.

our neighbours air b n b their gaff out to builders for weeks at a time with annoying regularity. so you could give that a whirl.