Owning your own home

id look in chingford or somewhere around there then

decent size house and garden, zone 4, can still cycle into central easy enough - all for about 400k

But then you're living in Chingford

Ha, yeah, think I might just have to admit I'm never going to have the house I want in London... in less I win the lottery.
Prices have gone up daft amounts since I bought which was only a few years back.
The flat I was renting sold for a shade under 400k, in bed, viccy park, with a tiny garden, 3 years a go... I cant imagine its gone up as much as places like Leyton and Clapton have...

I thought E3 was nice until I moved somewhere actually nice.

Ha, do tell...

E3 is quite handy for the park, underground/overground/transport, nice pubs, etc, etc, but when I was looking, for the same price as a 2-bed Victoria flat, I could get a 3-bed Victorian house in Leytonstone. All depends on your priorities at the end of the day.

I reckon the percentage rise for E3 and E10/E11 are probably similar [goes to Zoopla].

Can you post a pic of your house Rob? I would love to see it.. or is that a bit weird? I dream of a 3 bed house... kinda feels like a 3 bed in Leyton would of cost half as much 3 years a go where as my 2 bed by Viccy park has only gone up errr... 2/3rds?

Ha, do tell...

To be fair I was living on the wrong side of Mile End Road - Brokesley St, down near the cemetery, flanked by estates - but even so, having moved first to New Cross Gate/ Telegraph Hill, and now to Brockley, Mile End and environs seems horribly busy and grey and quite threatening in places. Possibly just my age and latent middle-Englander coming out though...

I'm on the old ford road and would stay here without a doubt if I could drop 6-700k on a decent sized house

but I cant.

:(

Where abouts prince? I used to live at 356 I think.. or 352? Saw one of those 3 beds go for 680k recently which is about the same as the one I rented at the time... which was yearssss ago... feel the area its its upper limits and other places have caught up.

Sorry, I am bored at work today.

in the factory building slightly further down the OFR..

Ahhhh I know it... left hand side? Those new builds just past you look near bareable too. I was talking to someone about buying that dance studio building on the other side of the canal and developing it into flats... had a divvy up and came up a couple of mil short though (total budget raised was £3.36 and a pack of half eaten tic tacs).

yeah thats it

dont rate the new flats. had a look at them and v small. studio flats sold in there for 250/260 and 1 beds for high 300s....

That's ridic.. you could move west for that. :)

#westisbest

No, just the vast majority of it.
;)
I'll be 56 when I pay mine off (at normal rate) - but I hope not to be a 56-year-old living in a flat in Downham. We'll see.

Ha me and you both.

I hope to be debt free way before that though.

Once the renovations are finished (haha will they ever be I hear you cry) I'll be over paying double on my house.

So, should I use mortgage brokers or not?
And what's the catch. Do they charge me?

Mine sped my application up significantly, and got me a better rate than advertised. Avoid online applications, and think about whether or not there are any large sums of money deposited into your bank account which they may question.

I assume they got paid my Nationwide somehow.

Mine sped my application up significantly, and got me a better rate than advertised. Avoid online applications, and think about whether or not there are any large sums of money deposited into your bank account which they may question.

What constitutes large?

So, should I use mortgage brokers or not?
And what's the catch. Do they charge me?

The way I understand it is there are independent (whole market) mortgage brokers and tied mortgage brokers.

The former have the pick of the market, but the latter may have preferential deals through the companies they are linked to.

We are using a tied mortgage broker based on a personal recommendation, which I found more important than going with someone who was linked to a company or estate agent.

We viewed houses through Bairstow Eves and they basically forced us to talk to another advisor before we were allowed to view houses, as they are owned by a company with mortgage advisors. She was very pushy and really gave it the hard sell, and tried to strongarm us into getting a mortgage agreed in principle with her so that we basically owed her money and were tied to that mortgage company. Avoid them.

Our mortgage broker charges a flat fee on completion of the deal.

I would have needed to replace several panes of glass in our flat out of frustration without our broker. He gats paid by the mortgage lender and also by the life insurance provider

Sound like a good idea then. Cool.
Any experience with john charcol?

Look for an IFA.

Some advisors can just advise on one lender's products, some from a panel, an IFA is 'whole of market'. Lots of IFAs won't charge you and will be paid a procuration fee by the lender, but the fee varies so there may be a tendency to suggest a lender that pays a bigger fee.

To be sure you get fully independent advice it may be sensible to pay for it.

I knew a bloke who ran a branch of Haaaart once. Less than half their turnover was fees from selling houses, most was from pedalling mortgages, surveys, conveyancers and that.

What constitutes large?

At a guess, in excess of £10k. I loaned my Father lots of money over the last five years or so, on the condition that hoard it all back to me plus interest. The mortgage company were not happy about this, and wouldn't accept it unless I declared it as a gift and got him to sign a disclaimer after he returned it.

Worse than that, I had ISAs which I paid into my current account, and they wanted a full audit trail for where the money originally came from. "It's MY money!!!" .

I had most of my saved money in my ISA, I just sent them statements for the current account and the ISA. Once they gave me the mortgage offer I moved all the funds to my current accound so it was easier to make payments on the fly (in my mind anyway - dangerous now it is running on a bit). My folks gifted us £9k which stuck out like a sore thumb in my current account but they didn't even mention it. I reckon it would have to be well over £10k for them to query it but my IFA just said to let them ask the questions. Which they didn't.