Owning your own home

estate agents may be looking to buyers as harder to justify high fees to sellers, given its a sellers market at the moment then some hard negotiating before giving instruction can reduce fees, given a well presented property can effectively sell itself how much work is actually being done.........

Srs question: what will burst the London 'bubble'?
Mark Carney has twiddled his forward guidance and suggested interest rate rises from 2015, which will make mortgages marginally less palateble for buyers, but that is a year away?
Unemployment is down, the economy is growing and the outlook is positive.... so, what could reduce demand, or free up supply, such to influence the escalation?

Nothing. BUY, BUY, BUY!

At the moment, nothing seems likely- unless a significant amount (i.e. thousands of homes, possible hundreds of thousands) are "discovered" inside the M25, all available for vacant possession.

Or, the flood waters continue to rise and the whole of London's middle classes relocate to Edinburgh, taking The City and Westminster with them.

Alex Salmond could then be used to get one over NIFs as he'd achieve fusion without external energy.

build on the parks!

I really want to see new bridges built for habitation, with non-motorised transit designed in.

A new version of the old London Bridge, essentially:

's'all about plants now mate. Coming over here, nicking our bridges

Let's see a plant get a mortgage.

Let's see a plant get a mortgage.

Don't be daft, this isn't 2007.

I really want to see new bridges built for habitation, with non-motorised transit designed in.

A new version of the old London Bridge, essentially:

Been done. Pultney Bridge, Bath:

Admittedly it's all shops and restaurants now though.

That little cafe on the bottom right is nice.

Been done. Pultney Bridge, Bath:

Admittedly it's all shops and restaurants now though.

I was thinking at a bit of a larger scale- think Shard sort of size

Why not go the whole hog and pave over the Thames? Can't see anything going wrong with that.

Let's see a plant get a mortgage.

Would have more success than me....

Why not go the whole hog and pave over the Thames? Can't see anything going wrong with that.

I can see how you got confused:

Vs.

Still can't see it.

http://rocker-lange.com/blog/?p=164

Whats a bridge?

http://rocker-lange.com/blog/?p=164

That'd ruin the view from every other bridge part from that

On saturday I'm going to view a flat with only 67 years left on the lease. I don't yet know why it's slipped so low and apparently the landlord hasn't looked into the cost of extending, although the estate agent reckons it's be in the region of £25k to extend it. I'm thinking it'll more likely be £40k. My mortgage advisor has said there shouldn't be a problem (which surprised me). Beyond bargaining very hard, what are the poignant things I should be aware of with such a property?

If the lease has slipped like that, maybe the freehold is similarly relaxed, ie: have things been getting fixed in recent years, is there a stockpile of money for emergencies?

I am such an amateur, by the way. Just a suggestion.

I just sold a flat that had a 66 year lease on it, but I owned a share of the freehold of the house, so could extend at minimal cost - still a ball ache.

As I understand it, the freeholder can charge you the market rate and legal costs for extending the lease, I think Land Registry have a page on their website, which will give you an estimate of market rate - a combination of property value and length of lease remaining, from memory.

The bigger issue might be getting a mortgage, as many lenders won't lend on sub 70 year leases, although that might depend on you LTV. You could ask the vendor to extend before completion, which is what I had to do, or you could use it to negotiate down the price by the estimated cost of extending - but make sure you do so soon after buying, as this cost will only increase. The vendor will have the same issue with any other buyer.

Have a look here http://www.lease-advice.org/calc/

From what I've read you can't extend a lease until you've owned the property for a minimum of 2 years so I'd need to negotiate the renewal with the vendor as a condition of purchase

In your position, with no share of freehold, I wouldn't consider a property with such a short lease.