Buying a house

[Crusoe]

Fucking scary, isn't it?

Putting an offer in tomorrow. I feel out of my depth.

[Guest]

Buying a house

Word. I'm in the middle of it right now, just got my mortgage confirmation through the post. It's a great place,but I'm totally terrified of doing this.

Where about are you buying?

[Crusoe]

Buying a house

Assuming - with no grounds at all, since we haven't even made the offer yet - it all goes through, Tooting.

[Heliotrope]

Buying a house

There was a stage where I had a headache every day for at least a week after I'd made an offer and had put down a couple of deposits.

Good luck, Crusoe.

[Crusoe]

Buying a house

Cheers. To be fair my wife's put in 99% of the effort and I'm just getting involved now. Still hate it though.

[Guest]

Buying a house

Pfft! Me too! Tooting Bec. What about you?

[Crusoe]

Buying a house

Heh. About 500m away, round the corner (more or less). Keeping it quiet for the moment as there's a couple of other, er, couples interested in the same place.

[Guest]

Buying a house

Sound, good luck. I'm going to edit the street name out of my post, as I realised I just posted where I'm moving to on the interweb. Probably pretty stupid.

What's the flat like?

[Crusoe]

Buying a house

Small terraced house. Bit poky but not a fixer-upper (no inclination to DIY on my part). You?

[Guest]

Buying a house

Ground floor maisonette - bit bigger than we thought we'd be able to get, wee garden at the back. Nice place, really hoping it all works out.

How long have you been looking man? We looked for about 4/5 months, but it felt like a lot longer. Fun for about a week, then just like having another full time job, that sucked.

[Crusoe]

Buying a house

We've been looking in earnest about six weeks, but browsing places online for months before that. I know what you mean about the job - full day at work, then either viewings or searching online. My tube pass has been getting a right work out.

Just hope they accept the offer, really, or on it goes - and we have to leave our current place by the start of December.

Good luck!

[Guest]

Buying a house

Cheers man, you too.

[Guest]

Buying a house

Best of luck Crusoe (and Workingstiff), hope it goes well.

I used to quip good-naturedly to friends that the housing market would crash ten minutes after I bought my house. I was out by a year and ten minutes.

[Incandenza]

Buying a house

Going through this now as well. Found out tonight that the seller's agent, who received our offer on Monday morning, still has not present our offer to his clients. He's been pestering us and our agent to "improve" our offer, like writing a letter stating how high we'd be willing to offer. Uh, yeah, right. The thing is, we saw this place when it first came on the market two months ago, there were renters living in it then, but now it's vacant, so the sellers are losing money. Their agent is telling us that they rejected offers matching our amount earlier, but obviously the situation is different now. Seems like he wants us to jack up our offer so he can get a higher commission.

[Mitch]

Buying a house

When was the offical peak of the market? I bought my house two years ago, and if it wasn't actually the worst time to buy, it does sort-of feel like it!

Inca: Isn't not passing your offer on to the sellers illegal? I mean, there's the time-honoured tradition of a 'cheeky first bid'.

[Guest]

Buying a house

Good luck guys on your prospective purchases.

I totally understand your fears.

The idea of a sense of permanace fightens me to be honest. The figures involved in the purchase of the house added to which I never really have job security has kept me delaying.

I've never had a relationship long enough or stable enough to buy with a girlfriend and for most of my life I've been unable to buy a place in a decent area on my own.

Its getting to the stage now where if I don't buy in a couple of years then I wont have the mortgage paid off before I retire.

Inca, tell him to fuck off. Its a buyers market.

[Ek weet nie]

Buying a house

My home was purchased via an affordable homes scheme which was great as I'd never have been able to afford it otherwise.

Mine too. I'm still not sure what happens with regards the clawback in terms of negative equity though. All the examples they gave me when I bought in late 2006 were happy tales of homes appreciating.

[Ek weet nie]

Buying a house

The clawback applies for twenty years for me. After ten years it starts to fall by 10% of my discount each year.

Which county council are you with? I got mine through South Dublin County Council.

[Eggchaser]

Buying a house

Crusoe, a few points to remember:-

1). Estate Agents are all lying, venal horrors. They will pester and nag and bother everybody and in my experience tell barefaced lies and use intimidatory tactics until contracts are exchanged. At this point, their commission secured, you will never hear from then again.

2). Most conveyancing solicitors are worth what you pay them but get someone recommended to you. Don't go to a Conveyancing factory, the fees may be cheap but the service is generally shocking. Also, if you think solicitors' fees are high, consider the pay scales between estate agent and solicitor for what they do. Estate agents take a percentage slice of the sale price for making some phone calls, sticking a poster in the window and pointing your living room wall out to strangers. Solicitors have a huge job to do, confirming title, searches, agreeing the contract, sorting out the exchang and completion with the mortgage company, etc. etc. for a lot less fees, plus they are the ones who get sued when it goes wrong.

(Can you guess what I do for a living)

3). Once you've got the house, if you can afford to, overpay the mortgage as often as possible. It's a far more effective way of saving money than, well, saving money - the interest you pay on your mortgage is always going to be much higher than any interest accruing on money in the bank (outside your fighting fund, if you're lucky enough to have one). It will also help when you come to remortgage.

[Max Payne]

Buying a house

Villain wrote:

Inca, tell him to fuck off. Its a buyers market.

In the UK it is. In Australia the housing prices continue to go up. Where the fuck are poeple getting the money?

[Gangster Octopus]

Buying a house

Eggchaser wrote:

Estate Agents are all lying, venal horrors. They will pester and nag and bother everybody and in my experience tell barefaced lies and use intimidatory tactics until contracts are exchanged. At this point, their commission secured, you will never hear from then again.

Fuck off Eggy.

[Ek weet nie]

Buying a house

I didn't and don't see my apartment as an investment, it's solely a home to me. I'm not planning on selling anytime soon unless forced to for work reasons. It would be nice to know exactly how one stands regarding the clawback situation though.

[E10 Rifle]

Buying a house

I used to quip good-naturedly to friends that the housing market would crash ten minutes after I bought my house. I was out by a year and ten minutes.

Heh. I was out by about seven months and five minutes meself.

Too right that homes are somewhere to live, not investment options - one of the most pernicious ideas of our age, that.

I found buying a place stressful and terrifying, not just the little expenses that kept piling up but that sense of apparent permanence. You suddenly find yourself talking about 25 years into the future, and as someone who's never been able to formulate long-term plans about anything much that's scary. The next possible step, of course, is buying a place with another person. How does that work?

[Ek weet nie]

Buying a house

According to the house price survey that Irish Nationwide carry out here, the peak month for house price values in Ireland was February 2007. I signed for my apartment and handed over the money in February 2007.

I knew you weren't suggesting I did CV. Part of the issue with the clawback is that each council set up an affordable homes office and there were different criteria for eligibility, and terms & conditions for buying in each area. As a result, there is a fair amount of conflicting information available.

[Bill Poster]

Buying a house

The 'permanance / long term' thing is just a state of mind though. It passes. After all, we sign up for pensions when we start work and that's more long term than a mortgage.

Once you've got your head round taking out a huge debt (admittedly one with an asset that should be worth more) then you're home and dry (whey hey).

And if first-time buyers think that life is stressful, try buying and selling houses at the same time. It's akin to trying to spin plates while standing on a vibrating platform lodged on a rollercoaster.