Owning your own home

Part of my mortgage is up for renewal at the end of this month - question is...2 year fixed at 1.98% or 5 year fixed at 2.45% both carry a product fee of £995?

What would you do internet people?

23% larger interest payment a month.

For me (~£230k outstanding) that'd be an extra £92 a month for the interest part.

So over 2 years of that would be £2208 extra.

That's less than 1 month of my actual repayment part.

For the security of having a 5 year fix (who knows how Brexit/Covid will affect things longer term) I'd be happy paying a bit more each month, but then I'm quite risk averse.

Hmmm. The benefit of the 2 YF apart from the lower interest is that it would coincide with the renewal on my other borrowing, circa £75k.

Probably, but it's a risky choice. Engineered wood is for people who want the practicality of laminate but also want to look down their nose at people, and as such is an inferior option as it outs you as either a snob or too poor to back up your woody aspirations.

This caught my eye because we had this problem. You really need to address the source of the damp. If you have render bridging the damp proof course outside -- which is surprisingly common and very stupid -- it's an easy fix. We got a building surveyor to look and he figured it out -- he charged a bit but it saved the chemical damp proof treatment which doesn't address the problem.

@TW gives pretty good advice to start with.

Reading that, the first quick & easy fix would be to remove the concrete plinth up that is bridging the damp proof course, and to stick a French drain in there, and strip the render back above the DPC. Then strip the plaster back to brick, and leave it over winter to see if it fixes the problem.

This is what we did 15+ years ago and it has been fine ever since.

edit: also check for cracked or blocked down pipes and drains in the vicinity.

Or someone who needs to have a floating floor for technical reasons (such as having a membrane under it to keep out petrol smells from the vintage Bentley in the garage of their nice mews house) but wants it to look nice.

Entertainingly specific but still pure vanity. Laminate would do the job just fine.

Unless they like wearing a lot of polyester worsted trousers, and the static build might prove fatal.

Laminate is plastic shit.

No looking down noses here, just poor and fed up of chipped shit laminate in my life.
Sounds like the words of a hair shirted laminate convert after a particularly bruising encounter with a parquet floor.

I did hit my head particularly hard.

Laminate is obviously and distressingly shit and in my eyes there’s nothing wrong with engineered floor at all. It’s likely considerably better than the mixed selection of wonky floorboards we’ve got on display here. I just wanted to see how it felt to live the @amey life, and the position isn’t particularly defensible.

Thread-relevant chat time: people who’ve bought listed properties (Grade II only, no * or I trickiness), talk to me. Is it a huge mistake?

Depends whether it's structurally sound and what you'd want to do with it, if anything.

Only amey can be amey.

With the world going tits up, what can I do to avoid the work house and poor credit ?
Is going on an interest only a good idea? I don't think it is. Should I try and see if the provider would extend the period of the mortgage to reduce the payment? I can't take another holiday. What's the least worst option?

Interest only is ok as long as you have a plan to pay back the debt at some point. This could be selling the house when you retire and moving to the coast or whatever. Assumes the house is worth something when you retire but if it isn’t you’ll have bigger problems to deal with.

Obvs IO is extending the term but to infinity so would give you the most headroom each month. You might find providers who allow you to repay capital as and when you can.

Your options are largely defined by how much you need the money each month and your plans for retirement.

Retirement?
Like that'll happen.
Hmm. Swapping back to payment would require paying back the full amount right? Sigh.

i LOVE laminate, we have an office grade (and aesthetic) laminate all over the house, so robust, my kid has started banging toys and I couldnt care less. The whole house fitted was about £1700

Much more likely to get an interest-only deal through an IFA.

We got our original mortgage at a time when Mrs GB was between jobs and my salary wasn't quite enough to cover a full repayment mortgage so the IFA (paid by commission not by us directly) who helped us arrange it agreed that we had a plan for the repayment side (the plan being that when Mrs GB is working again we'd have the money to make overpayments and/or stick money aside to pay off lump sums at renegotiation times).

We also got the interest-only mortgage in 2009 which was before the banks got really spooked about sub-prime and clamped down on it. Once we had the interest-only mortgage we've stayed with the same provider and watched the interest rates fall on a 5 year fixed (5.09%, 2.89%, 1.98%).

We've effectively got a mortgage with as many repayment holidays as we like, although that comes with the obvious pitfalls. We're probably 2 years behind where we should be (with 8 years to go) but I'm not fussed as we can just extend for another 2 years or, as I hope, we work a bit more (or go to more demanding jobs) when MiniGB starts secondary school and needs us around less. Yes we would have ended up paying more interest than if we'd paid it off as a standard regular repayment mortgage but, by my calculations, it only amounts to a couple of months of extra repayments which seems a big amount on its own (>£4k) but is worth is for the flexibility that we've had.

With the interest only part we're effectively paying £400/month rent (although we are our own landlords so we have to cover major problems/wear/tear etc) instead of £2400 of a repayment mortgage.

tl;dr speak to an IFA and get them on board that you have your own repayment plan

We bought a grade II listed house with bits dating back to 15th century. Bad condition, hence affordable. Not sure yet if it was an awful mistake, but we are now spending almost as much as the purchase price on sorting out its problems (rotting timber frame, collapsing mud walls etc) and having a complete nightmare with an idiot conservation officer at the council. I’d say avoid it if you can.

This sounds troubling, I wish you the best. I’m idly looking in an area where a large proportion of the houses are listed (but largely mud-free!) so hoping the conservation officer isn’t too jobsworthy. If I add being listed to the dealbreaker pile then things get much trickier, but the flip side is as much as I like burning piles of money in arbitrary pursuits, I’d rather not be pouring endless sums into a property forever.

What term is left on your existing mortgage? How old are you? Are you in a fixed deal right now?

I’d rather not be pouring endless sums into a property forever.

I've got some bad news for you about /owning your own home/... if you want a vision of the future, imagine your house stamping on your bank balance -- forever.

If house number one is anything to go by there’s a point beyond which the numbers get drastically smaller. We’re almost there...

Depends on your plans and whether you wish to do any form of renovations/extension/building works. It also depends on the reasons for the listing (can be found on Historic England) and your Local Authority's aversion to proposed changes (look up simial applications to listed buildings in your area).

Generally speaking, it will be a thunderous PITA and you will bemoan it for the full duration of any proposed changes. It is likely that you will spend considerably more, and end up with considerably less than you originally wanted as well.

Having worked on numerous grade II and grade II* listed buildings, I do not think I would ever entertain buying one.