Gazumped

[kingandy]

Apparently, samharber has got bored with waiting for me to buy the house next to him, and is buying it himself (with a work colleague) to rent out. They're charging less than bacony and I are paying together right now, but bacony has already said she doesn't think the house there is large enough for the two of us to live in properly, and I don't think I want to pay that much by myself. Well, I could afford it, but it would curtail my frivolous spending somewhat. And anyway, it's a bad idea to have a mate as your landlord. I'll just have to find somewhere else to live when the contract runs out in June...

If only house-buying wasn't so daunting. It's not the expense, I'm reasonably sure I could afford it, it's just having to talk to a mortgage person, and a lawyer, and a surveyor and whatever the hell else and get it all organised ... if somebody would do all that for me and all I had to do was hand over the cash, I would probably have bought the house myself. I know that people are going to say that if Sam and Nook can manage it then it can't be that tricky, but that doesn't make it any less scary.

Oh well, I'm young yet. No need to rush into buying a house just because it's next door to my friends...

UPDATE: Having consulted with bacony, we have decided to see if Sam is still willing to rent to us. TO BE CONTINUMANUDE>

Comments

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

Well its quite east if you go via one of these all-in-one conveyancing firm deals you often get via estate agents. Sure you pay a bit more but you only have one number to ring every day to find out whats going on.

Its not *that* hard ;-)

[kingandy]

Yes, I suspect the House Next Door's independent sale nature, while reducing pointless estate agency feels, may have been one of the things that put me off actually doing anything. Soooo scary.

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

My house was found on Loot so not via an Estate Agents, however we did go and see 2 IFA's, one attached to Countrywide which is where we got introduced to the service. Have you actually been through step 1 which is find out how much mortgage you can get?

[arwel.livejournal.com]

Fuck IFAs. Do it all online, from reserch to applications. You'll probably have to find your own solicitor though. Never go with the easy option and ask do everything through the estate agent since they're all bastards.

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

We had no problems with our purchase. It took less time than the deed transfer that I did via an independant. Sure you have to be careful with IFA's (especially when it comes to bollocks like endowment mortgages) but there is a lot to be said for the easy option.

[kingandy]

Not recently, but using rules of thumb I can probably expect about 60K.

No, that's not a massive amount, but I should be able to get something in Bolton...

[ghostbritain.livejournal.com]

That will get a nice house in Bolton, not just the one next to Sam.

[zheers.livejournal.com]

How lazy are you?

[kingandy]

It's not so much laziness in this case as fear of getting something wrong. Like, buying a house and realising that it doesn't have any floorboards, or I haven't paid the giant pixie tax, or something.

[zheers.livejournal.com]

I wouldnt worry, the giant tax pixies will find you no matter where you hide. They even manage to get to your money before you do!

fear is the mind killer.. fear is the little death that brings andy housing oblivion

look on the bright side, at least you wont be able to roleplay ever night now..

[bacony.livejournal.com]

As much as I would love to say "Don't worry Andy, I'll make the decisions, you put in the money" this is slightly bigger than just ordering pizza.

I'd love to help you, and while I think it will be a bit of a squeeze in that house, it won't be so bad as long as we can find inventive storage solutions for the kit. We need to do something and if you think now is a good time to get on the property ladder, I'll help as best as I can.

storage solutions.

[spodula.livejournal.com]

Get a garden shed for the kit!!

Everyone needs a garden shed.

Re: storage solutions.

[bacony.livejournal.com]

Hah! You assume the place has a garden...

Re: storage solutions.

[kingandy]

We can peer over Sam's fence next time we are there. It should at least have a back yard, if it doesn't then that means it has extra interior space...

Re: storage solutions.

[spodula.livejournal.com]

If its like Sams and/or nooks it will have a yard. Perfectly usable for a shed. (May have to get a strong padlock though.

Once you have a shed, you can get power tools. and from there the world.

Very handy for when the Zombie's come a' callin.

(Do Jehova's witnesses and insurance salesmen count as Zombies? either way the phrase "I have a leaf blower in my shed, and i'm not afraid to use them" will probably put them off their stride.

Ho hum.. Lets see.. Ah yes, the point...

The garden is strictly optional. Also if you dont have a garden, you dont have to pack it with all those annoying gardening tools which will detract from its intrinsic value as a place to put random stuff.

[foul-temptress.livejournal.com]

Suck it up andy, u know ur gonna have to do it eventually,
You could always pay someone you know to do the hard graft, they can just present you with random things you must sign.

actaully seconds thought...that maybe a bad plan.

[zheers.livejournal.com]

If you do go to an IFA, just ignore the first 10 things he says, check out what he doesnt recommend, and then ask Gems dad.

Oh, also you have to read a fair amount of the junk they ask you to sign, I'm fairly sure the halifax stuffed me and gem cos we didnt read the fine print. What we signed wasnt what we asked for. gits. if I could be arsed reading the fine print I would take them to task about it.

[kingandy]

Current plan: Rent Sam's second house. Though having a friend as your landlord may be a dreadful idea in general, it will give me opportunity to look for a proper residence without worrying about matching the end of a fixed-term contract (one would hope).

Or, build up capital to buy it off him. One or the other...

[samharber.livejournal.com]

Its hardly going to be a case of having a mate as your landlord.
The plan is that my colleague starts up a property company. I invest x amount of money into it, the company buys the house.
My colleague will be the landlord, I'll just be a shareholder in his business.
As part of the Mate Rate though, I'd expect the terms on duration to be slightly more flexible.

When in June does your current contract expire?
Also, I'll be sorting out some proper shelving in my storage room, so if you need more space, I'll happily oblige.

[kingandy]

I think the end. Katy thinks the beginning. We will have to check, but I am reasonably sure it is the end (Student contract and all).

Do you know, we were just having an MSN conversation about shelving, and your spare room did come up. ;)

PS, we love you.

MOVE TO BOLTON, DANG YOU!!!

[pkgem.livejournal.com]

Move to Bolton. You don't have to move near Sam, you could move near me! And buy a cat!

I've successfully purchased houses twice now. Both times I got to purchase them as a first-time buyer (seems crazy but true). Both times I went via the Halifax. Both times I never read the small print; I know you should read the small print but generally it is written in legalese and doesn't make any sense anyway. I just trust to the Estate Agents, hand over cash, await confirmation, then move in. It's worked so far...
(OK, yesterday Paul and I discovered that Halifax fucked up our house insurance and that Halifax (who own us, I mean hold our mortgage, and arranged the house purchase) had insured the house we moved from all this time, not the house we were buying with them!. Luckily we weren't robbed in that time because if we had, I'd have sued them for incompetance - morons!)

Re: MOVE TO BOLTON, DANG YOU!!!

[kingandy]

Pah, you practically live within walking distance of Sam's. A long walk, to be partaken in the warmer months, but a walk nonetheless.

Re: MOVE TO BOLTON, DANG YOU!!!

[zheers.livejournal.com]

Check what type of morgage you have actually got.

I'm fairly sure we where never going to get an interest only morgage. cos they are a stupid idea. but hey, thats what I ended up with! (not any more tho, finally ditched the halifax)

Re: MOVE TO BOLTON, DANG YOU!!!

[ghostbritain.livejournal.com]

Andy, if you want we can look at some stuff in Bolton next week. Just a bit of a gander. Nothing too strenuous.
But it'll give you an idea of area and price, of house type and availability.

If it's sunny, mind...

Re: MOVE TO BOLTON, DANG YOU!!!

[pkgem.livejournal.com]

I think I do have an interest-only type of mortgage. The type were you pay of a set ammount towards your mortgage each month for the set period (25 years) and this is affected by interest rates and when the Halifax decide to put it up annually, until you threaten to move it. If that is an interest-only mortgage then that is what I have. Also, what I wanted; which may explain why our old mortgage (now yours) used to be one. Not that I remember demanding one but somehow Halifax must have listened to what I said. People do that sometimes; I've no idea why...

Re: MOVE TO BOLTON, DANG YOU!!!

[arwel.livejournal.com]

I'm not an IFA, and my recollection of such things is hazy...

Intrest only is where you only pay off the intrest of the ammount you borrow over the 25 year period and then you're still left oweing the value of your house. This is usually a bad idea. Typically you'd have an endowment or something to pay off the value of the house in the end.

With a repayment mortgage you actually pay off both the intrest as well as a chunk of the money you actually owe for the house each month. It's what we've got for our house, we've already payed off several thousand pounds in 23 years we will own it outright.

You then have fixed rate or variable rate mortgages, which dictate how your intrest is calculated. For a fixed rate intrest will be fixed for a set term, whilst a variable rate will usually fluctuate with the base intrest rate. Variable are cheaper but exposes you to the risk of intrest rate increases.

Re: MOVE TO BOLTON, DANG YOU!!!

[zheers.livejournal.com]

Dont think so. Interest only is just a cheaper form of rent isnt it? As in you only pay the interest off, not the actual outstanding balance.
I think these where introduced so that people could actually get on the property ladder.

Dont personnelly like the idea, as at the end of the 25 years it still isnt yours, just the increase in value of your house.

But I think I ended up on one once we split the morgage ( they didnt take your name off as i remember- it was effectively a whole new one - little bastards pulled a fast one )

moral of the storey - read the fine print. and always shoot IFA's as they come up the path

Re: MOVE TO BOLTON, DANG YOU!!!

[pkgem.livejournal.com]

Arse. Yes, we had a repayment mortgage and that's the type we asked for. Halifax are sneaky cunts for swapping the type of mortgage after we split it. Talk about taking advantage of people. I presume you have requested them to change the mortgage back to a repaymernt one?

Re: MOVE TO BOLTON, DANG YOU!!!

[zheers.livejournal.com]

Nope. I swapped to the HSBC for a repayment morgage to free up some cash so i could waste it on consolidating huge credit card debts, maybe a holiday if I don’t waste the money before June, and a car that far to far expensive :) :)
some things never change :)