Owning your own home

My primary reason for sticking my money into a house was because I knew I'd spunk it on a Porsche, coke and whores. Anything left over I'd have just wasted.

lol at someone talking about others being thatcherites then discussing getting balls deep into a newly privatised company because he

BTW, an investment suggests that your primary reason for putting money in is to extract a profit. My primary reason to have a house is to live in it and protect myself from the below standard rental laws in this country.

Everyone read this post.. it shows DST gets it!
If your buying a house for any other reason.. you probably don't
Although there are some major tax advantages too.

Do we need our own thread or can we share?

If you want to discuss rental issues, laws ect ect, start a new thread. If you want to discuss investments, start a new thread. Your original post wasn't clear what you wanted to discuss.

What are the tax advantages BTW?

Buying a home is an investment like any other.. look at the return it gives you and work out if its the best option for your money.

The fact I'm explaining the concept ROI on a thread for people about to make the biggest investment of their lives really shows everything I feel is wrong with the current system.

Please google return on investment

Baring in mind I've been putting together ROI models this week in my job of course I know what that is. But first and foremost for most people buying a house it isn't an investment, it's a home. Somewhere that doesn't have a tangible value as an asset unless you want to turn it around quickly.

Mine wasn't an investment when I bought it - I bought it to live in.

B&D right on the money again. Well played for sticking with the place as well.

What are the tax advantages BTW?

The main ones.

No capital gains if you also live in it.
No IHT if you give it to a spouse

Lower stamp duty than other equity.. none at all if below a certain value.

Quantitative easing / inflation is form of tax on people not taking on Debt.

You also gain in means tests as the equity in housing is not recorded as an asset.

Please post others I missed.

God - if its that good, you should buy a house.

Has this bubble burst yet?

or just steal one. That'll show em.

move to liverpool

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24465114

£1...?

#NegativeEquity

good scheme.

Does anybody on here have experience of buying property abroad?
If so, how does it work? How does the tax work? I can imagine there would be some considerable costs incurred moving money from one country to another?

Sorry if this a dumb question. It's new ground for me.

i do. france, for eg, has a whole cottage industry helping brits buy locally with total purchase cost around 8%.

i dont remember fx costs being significant, but obv you are exposed to fx rates fluctuations if your mortgage is local.

Thanks for this graph. I'd also like to see the proportion of salary that people paid for housing in London over the period (rental or mortgage repayment). I'd be interested to know from any recent buyers (if they are willing to share), their monthly repayment as percentage of monthly after tax pay?

Sparky and WjPrince - when I went through all this with my missus yesterday she had intuitively reached your conclusion, so looks like the search will continue on the basis of :

• finding a house and area that we would be willing to live in for circa 10 years
  
• getting a mortgage that doesn't overstretch us
  

Buying a home is an investment like any other

I just did a DCF valuation over a 30 year projection with following assumptions:

• My LTV, interest rate, operating expenses and estimated WACC
  
• 1% per annum growth in house price
  
• Cost of renting would be equal to cost of mortgage repayments for like for like property
  
  

Which gave me an IRR of 3.1 percent. Are there any equally stable investment opportunities that would give a better rate of return if I rented and stuck our deposit into those instead?

I was chatting to a neighbour a few months ago who was selling his house. He was very happy as he marketed it on a Wed for £475k, had an open day on the Sat which 22 buyers attended and accepted £480k on the Monday. Further down the line he's gone, to let signs are up and the sold price is £400k on Zoopla. WTF? No way he had £80k knocked off and I have heard of people paying £10k 'for the sofa' to but £80k? Does anyone have experience of this? Thinking of you Jeez.

Zoopla error. He was lying. Massive structural problem that he did not know about and buyer negotiated the price down. Who knows

Either that or the saucy cunt of a purchaser "chipped" the price on the day of exchange and to avoid the rigmarole of having to go through with finding another purchaser, the vendor just took the reduction on the chin and proceeded.

Usually Zoopla error. It's common enough that they need a special button to report it.

I was wondering more if it was feasibly that it could be fraud to avoid stamp duty? Does it happen to that extent?

I still say chipping.

80k on 480 is a Iot and pushes it to less than they paid. The amount of interest around here would make me think they wouldn't take it.

So after searching for a really long time I found a place and have had my offer accepted. The vendor is trying to buy a property that is owned by the council and literally nothing seems to be happening on it. She has offered the asking price but they still haven't accepted her offer. This seems strange as it's been on quite a while and there is no other interest etc.

The vendor of the property I'm trying to buy seems like she wants things to move as quickly as I do but I feel the council are going to be a real pain. Does anyone have any experience of buying from councils in London? Was it a very slow process?

Think you can find a savings account that will give you that rate of return and if in an ISA wrapper it would be free of capital gains.

But if you invested in FTSE 100 tracker which the value can go up and well as down (to zero), but Id suggest that carries a far lower risk the chance any home you buy has subsidence.

In the last 10 years this has given close to 50% return
https://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXFTSE%3AUKX&ei=XcRVUojoFMnCwAOKjAE

I just did a DCF valuation over a 30 year projection with following assumptions:

• My LTV, interest rate, operating expenses and estimated WACC
  
• 1% per annum growth in house price
  
• Cost of renting would be equal to cost of mortgage repayments for like for like property
  
  

Which gave me an IRR of 3.1 percent. Are there any equally stable investment opportunities that would give a better rate of return if I rented and stuck our deposit into those instead?

Thanks for this graph. I'd also like to see the proportion of salary that people paid for housing in London over the period (rental or mortgage repayment). I'd be interested to know from any recent buyers (if they are willing to share), their monthly repayment as percentage of monthly after tax pay?

Sparky and WjPrince - when I went through all this with my missus yesterday she had intuitively reached your conclusion, so looks like the search will continue on the basis of :

• finding a house and area that we would be willing to live in for circa 10 years
  
• getting a mortgage that doesn't overstretch us
  
  

26%

I was wondering more if it was feasibly that it could be fraud to avoid stamp duty? Does it happen to that extent?

Very unlikely. Would you exchange contracts at £400k with a promise your buyer would give you a brown bag with £80k in it afterwards? That's a big risk to help a buyer save £2400.

I'd be interested to know from any recent buyers (if they are willing to share), their monthly repayment as percentage of monthly after tax pay?

Sparky and WjPrince - when I went through all this with my missus yesterday she had intuitively reached your conclusion, so looks like the search will continue.

26%

26% for me too.