Comments | rainfx: More Housey Stuff.

rainfx

More Housey Stuff.

Apr 12, 2007 13:42

Soo... we had a chat with an IFA last night about mortgages. All very good, very informative, explained everything to us and possibly more besides, very friendly and helpful and doesn't charge us a penny for his services.

As far as I can tell, the upshot of it all is (or why we should buy rather than rent) is to do with building up equity. At ( Read more... )

house

Comments 10

arosoff April 12 2007, 13:14:19 UTC

I'd say you could do better for £250K even in London. £250K for a 1 bed in Perivale sounds like a lot of money. I did a quick search on Perivale on rightmove.co.uk and a few houses showed up at the £260K mark, and loads of flats. If you widen the search area a bit you should be able to find something pretty good for your money and not have to move too far.

rainfx April 12 2007, 13:34:54 UTC

Where we are at the moment is generally considered Ealing\Perivale\Greenford (delete the last two as applicable) borders, and the prices around there are generally between 220k and 250k for what we're after. Purely, I guess, because of the location.

Think about where your cattery is... it's closer to that than it is to Perivale itself, really.

arosoff April 12 2007, 13:42:48 UTC

Ah right - thought you were in Perivale proper, rather than more Ealing based. Still, that's a lot for a 1 bed flat... would you consider moving a bit further?

I know I'm one to talk, we only have a 2 bed flat because we stayed in Finchley, but if you're thinking of staying in a place for a while a 1 bed flat might be too small. What if the missus gets broody? :)

rainfx April 12 2007, 14:10:30 UTC

As flats go, it's quite spacious. The lounge is about 15'-20' long, about 10' wide; most new-build flats have lounges about half that size. Suffice to say, though, I'm not going to pay 250k for it! It's more of a reference point, really.

We have (and are) considering moving further out (Ruislip is one consideration), but the missus doesn't want to stray too far from Ealing.. :)

No kids for at least 2 years.

Thread 5

Re your second thought... ruthytoothy April 12 2007, 13:40:26 UTC

Is it likely that you will want to move house / flat in the relatively short term (say within 5 years or so)? If so, it'd be worth bearing in mind the following ( ... )

Re: Re your second thought... rainfx April 12 2007, 14:24:19 UTC

Well, we figured on at least another 2 years here - the advice from the IFA seemed to suggest that too, and the mortgages he suggested to us were around the 2 year mark with no overhang (no extra 18mth lock-in), and portable.

The costs of selling and moving have crossed my mind, though - and I suppose it's one of my bigger concerns. I suspect our flat would sell fairly quickly - the market does seem to be moving fast there - but yeah, the assumption was that the increase in value would pay for the move. Not sure how convinced I am of how much it'll increase in value (depends on how much we pay for it too), but I wouldn't say I was in it for the money, in any case - I think I'm a bit late for that.

*thinks* if the price stays the same, the equity is the deposit + what we've paid for it to that point. Hmmmm...

It all depends on how the housing market behaves over the next few years. Most people seem to think it'll keep going up. Trouble is, it seems in their interests to promote that view...

ruthytoothy April 12 2007, 17:22:55 UTC

Your IFA sounds fairly useful, so far ( ... )

rainfx April 12 2007, 21:40:07 UTC

Please feel free to splurge as much as you like! It's all useful stuff, it's very likely to pick up on something I've missed too - this is a pretty big, important thing, so it's important (especially for me) to make sure I've got as many bases and corners covered.

Regarding the difference - from what I recall of the IFA yesterday, you could use the equity built up in House A (150k price increase + 5 years mortgage payments) to get a mortgage for House B.

I think I'll have to go away and think about that...

ruthytoothy April 13 2007, 10:42:52 UTC

Clarisinda made a good point in my LJ about house buying, which I thought might be relevant too, so I'll quote it verbatim (cos I'm lazy!):-

"As I see it the main reason for buying a home is so that when you get to retirement, and your income inevitably drops, you are no longer having to pay rent or mortgage. And although your equity is tied up in your house, there are various ways of releasing it (so long as you are not hoping for any children to inherit it, which we're not) whilst still living there - though it's not something I've looked into in great detail yet, as it's 30+ years until I retire, unfortunately ;-)"

This was one I'd not really thought about, and has given me yet more pause for thought!