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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask you to explain buying a home to me like I am 10

46 replies

house887 · 14/04/2023 16:46

I need it dumbing down as we are first time buyers! It’s a minefield and it doesn’t seem like there’s a simple explanation online even though I’ve been googling for days

We’re going to our second viewing tomorrow. The house is a fantastic deal in the best possible area and we know it’ll be snapped up almost immediately. Estate agent has said we’ll be first to view as it only went on rightmove today.

Deposit is across a few accounts, mine, DHs and my parents who are gifting us something towards it. Does that matter at this stage? What do we need to do tomorrow if we like the house and want it? Do you make an offer there and then? We have a mortgage in principle and a broker who is working with us but haven’t researched solicitors or surveyors yet

Thank you x

OP posts:
Fluffymule · 15/04/2023 20:19

Another good resource is Martin Lewis' MoneySavingExpert guides on buying a house. He's produced some great pdf guides that walk you step by step through the process, with helpful links along the way.

Well worth a read, particularly as first time buyers, and useful as a physical checklist too:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/buying-a-home-timeline/

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-guide/

Daftasyoulike · 15/04/2023 20:39

When buying any house that's previously been lived in OP, can I suggest that you don't just wander around for a few minutes, looking at the walls etc, but actually make a point of saying things like, 'you don't mind if I just flush the loo, run the taps, see the heating working, do you?' We had no idea about any of this stuff when we bought our first house, but I wouldn't buy any house now without running taps to check how long it takes for hot water to come through, that water pressure is good in general, and that the heating actually works, even if it is the middle of a heat wave, as all these things can cost an arm and a leg to put right. Also, don't be afraid to look behind furniture, to see if it's been placed to hide something like damp patches, wall paper coming away from the walls can be a sign of damp, as can bubbling paint, which a surveyor should tell you about, but they may not!! I'd also recommend that you open and close all windows to make sure there are no problems there, and in general, I would strongly advise making the absolute most of that second viewing, ie, don't be afraid to open cupboard doors, I didn't do that in one property, and although we were planning on replacing the kitchen, it quickly went up the list on the day we moved in, when I opened the first cupboard and the door fell off in my hand!!

While I would also recommend getting a full survey done on the property you chose, again, be fully aware that surveyors can, and do, miss things. Unfortunately, when we moved to our current home, it was a long distance move, so having spent several hours in the 2 properties that we bought, prior to agreeing to purchase, we hoped that we had spotted the main problems and relied on the surveyor to spot anything else. However, he didn't mention that there were bats in the roof, or, more importantly that the two oak supports which held up the upstairs balcony, were rotten right through! We'd actually walked out on the balcony when we viewed, but had we known how dangerous it was, wouldn't have even considered it! So of course making that safe became our number one priority on moving in. Unfortunately we were far too busy setting up a new business, at the time, to consider taking legal action against the surveyor, but probably should have done with hindsight.

Finally, if you're in ANY doubt, about ANYTHING that the mortgage advisor, survey report, or solicitor tells you, please don't feel too silly to ask, or think it won't matter. Buying any home is a SERIOUS business, so you need to fully understand what you're letting yourself in for. Good luck, and I hope you'll be really happy in your new home!

Leftbutcameback · 15/04/2023 21:54

If you are a FTB without a chain that is valuable to a seller, so make sure you get the EA to emphasise that if you make an offer. After all it only (usually) happens once!

And the point above about not buying leasehold is a good one if you’re looking for a house (rather than a flat) except if you’re in the very small parts of the country where most houses are leasehold. So parts of Manchester and parts of Birmingham (Northfield IIRC).

Bettysmum2023 · 15/04/2023 21:57

If you’re in Scotland it’s very different. I would guess you are paying home report value or over. I can’t imagine many properties are selling for less than home report value.

You can only mortgage up to the home report value. Anything over that needs to be from other funds.

zombiecupcakes · 15/04/2023 22:06

A few random tips from my experience so far as FTB (sadly our purchase fell through so we are back at square one):

Before instructing a solicitor, check they are on your mortgage lender’s panel. Otherwise it will cost more.

Find a surveyor who will call you to talk through the results as well as sending the written report. We used a local company who rang and went through it all in lots of detail, answered questions etc which was great.

People have mentioned needing ‘the deposit’ on exchange. You usually need 10% of the total purchase price at this point (sometimes called the ‘exchange deposit’) rather than the whole amount you happen to be putting down as a deposit.

Talia99 · 15/04/2023 22:27

Lilyhatesjaz · 14/04/2023 17:16

I would advise you to go for a local solicitor not one miles away suggested by the mortgage broker, a mistake we made.

So much this. My mother went with the estate agent conveyancing factory recommended by the estate agent in selling my grandfather’s house. It was a nightmare. A competent local solicitor (which is what I have always used) is much more efficient.

SaveMeFromMyBoobs · 15/04/2023 22:58

Is there a reason why its such a good deal? E.g. does it need a lot of work? Remember you'll need the cash to fund the work. If it needs a 5K rewire you need to have the £5K in addition to the deposit, you can't add that onto the mortgage they give you (thats only towards purchase price).

Where money is from etc is sorted later with solicitors and mortgage broker. Parents will need to sign the money away as a gift. This stage is easy enough, make an offer and see if it's accepted! Check how much solicitors, brokers, surveys etc will be, those costs also need to be factored in additonally to deposit. It's good you have the broker, many places offer mortgages in principle to people they won't lend to due to circumstances so they'll have got you one where you're likely to actually be accepted!

Don't take out any big credit! No new credit cards, pay over x months agreements, car finance etc. They will adversely affect your credit score and reduce chance of mortgage acceptance. I'm sure broker will already have been through that with you.

SwishSwishBisch · 15/04/2023 23:04

If you think there might be multiple offers OP, just be aware that your mortgage lender’s survey will dictate what they will lend you based on the survey valuation. If you end up offering over and above that amount, you’ll have to find the extra £££ yourselves.

Dibbydoos · 15/04/2023 23:09

If you like it, make an offer.

The estate agent will take a MIP as evidence of it being a good faith offer. The buyer can then decide whether to accept it - if they do ask them to take the house off the market and agree a timeline for the exchange and completion of the sale. The seller may be in a chain in which case it complicates things, so proceed with anything that will cost you money with a degree of caution.

Ie once they have foubd sonewhere to move to and have an idea of when they will complete theur purchase, instruct a solicitor. Searches take the longest time.

Be clear with the solicitor the timeline you've agreed to exchange contracts and complete the sale. (I used an online solicitor and they were brill and less costly). Share your solicitors details with the estate agent. Put your mortgage application in and if you're permitted to arrange the valuation do that otherwise the mortgage provider will sort this out on yoyr behalf.

Regularly touch base with the estate agent to make sure you know what's happening on the sale side as well as share what's happening on your side.

Go back and see the house again - ask if you can measure up etc.

Hand your notice in on your rental, but only when you are clear the timeliness is working.

Talk to removal companies get quotes and once a completion date is agreed, book that.

It typically takes 3 months, but it can be done in 6-8 weeks if you can get a survey and search completed in that time. Purchase/Sales in chains can take longer, so be patient.

Hope this helps x

Imisssleep2 · 16/04/2023 13:02

Where your money is at present does not matter. If it is as good a deal as you say, and you really want it, make your offer as soon as poss before someone else gets in there. Different estage agents have different requirements to view houses but as your first time buyers with a mortgage in principle you will be fine. You can sort a solicitor once offer accepted, agent may be able yo recommend someonr if needed. You will need to prove where the deposit has come from when having some gifted but only towards the end with your solicitor.

Mitchlou84 · 16/04/2023 15:18

Ask around your friends/family who have bought recently and get a solicitor recommendation.
can give them a ring and make sure they are taking on new clients and understand their fees.
otherwise just offer away
good luck

Echobelly · 16/04/2023 15:28

I think main things for 1st time buyers to know (I have bought 3 places, sold 2):

  • Get a solicitor through personal recommendation if possible (as others have mentioned)
  • During the process, bear in mind agents will do and say anything to get the sale through and will pressurise you, say the other side is threatening to pull out/furious that you have asked for money off because of an issue etc - so to get the real picture, always ask your solicitor, not the agents. Eg, agent will say 'Look, I'm really sorry but the vendor (seller) is getting really impatient, they want to exchange tomorrow or they're going to pull out'... call your solicitor, I can pretty much guarantee they'll say 'Nope, haven't heard anything to that effect'. So, trust your solicitor, don't trust the agents, basically.
  • In England, until you have actually exchanged and sent the deposit, the buyer or seller can pull out for any reason and they don't have to disclose why. You will have to pay for all services so far from solicitor regardless, you cannot get any form of compensation from the people who have pulled out - just preparing you if that does happen as I quite often see people who (understandably) assume they must be some sort of penalty for people pulling out but, no there isn't.
  • Don't panic when the survey seems to bring up a lot of issues (and do get a survey!). Most places have a good few problems, but most of these aren't deal breakers, though you may need to renegotiate if they are expensive to repair. If you're not sure how bad a problem is, or what it might cost to fix, call the surveyor and talk through the report with them, this can be very helpful and reassuring.
Leftbutcameback · 16/04/2023 15:36

Echobelly · 16/04/2023 15:28

I think main things for 1st time buyers to know (I have bought 3 places, sold 2):

  • Get a solicitor through personal recommendation if possible (as others have mentioned)
  • During the process, bear in mind agents will do and say anything to get the sale through and will pressurise you, say the other side is threatening to pull out/furious that you have asked for money off because of an issue etc - so to get the real picture, always ask your solicitor, not the agents. Eg, agent will say 'Look, I'm really sorry but the vendor (seller) is getting really impatient, they want to exchange tomorrow or they're going to pull out'... call your solicitor, I can pretty much guarantee they'll say 'Nope, haven't heard anything to that effect'. So, trust your solicitor, don't trust the agents, basically.
  • In England, until you have actually exchanged and sent the deposit, the buyer or seller can pull out for any reason and they don't have to disclose why. You will have to pay for all services so far from solicitor regardless, you cannot get any form of compensation from the people who have pulled out - just preparing you if that does happen as I quite often see people who (understandably) assume they must be some sort of penalty for people pulling out but, no there isn't.
  • Don't panic when the survey seems to bring up a lot of issues (and do get a survey!). Most places have a good few problems, but most of these aren't deal breakers, though you may need to renegotiate if they are expensive to repair. If you're not sure how bad a problem is, or what it might cost to fix, call the surveyor and talk through the report with them, this can be very helpful and reassuring.

The point about the survey is a really good one. Ours looked horrendous, but most of the issues are what you’d expect from an older house.

The only thing I would do differently now is (if buying an older house) get an electrical survey done. We were lucky nothing went wrong for the few years before we got the electrics redone as they were not good at all!

saffy2 · 16/04/2023 16:03

agree with everything said.
we went 20k under asking price for our recently purchased house. We had to enter a bidding war, and so went back and forth a little and I upped in line with the other person. Then the EA asked for our final and best. I offered 7 under the asking price at that stage and it was accepted. It’s a project and so basically if we’d gone much higher we wouldn’t have been able to afford the renovations we want. So I knew our limit before starting.
look at what others in the street have recently sold for, and use that to guide you. But I’d say it’s perfectly acceptable to go 5-10k under asking. The person buying ours offered 10k under our minimum asking, and we bartered him up a bit and we ended up with 2k below our minimum asking price (we had a guide of x-y).

and second, agree with a local solicitors. And for information, our monies on account was £750 which is quite a lot higher than the £250 someone else said it would be so I just want to prepare you in case that’s a big deal. Ours was actually £1500 as we needed
monies on account for sale and purchase 😂🙈

gogohmm · 16/04/2023 16:06

At this stage firstly stop panicking. You will need proof of funds to submit the offer so in your case a copy of each of the bank statements plus a letter from you parents of intent to gift the money. Do start researching solicitors, sometimes the estate agent recommends one but don't feel obliged to use them

saffy2 · 16/04/2023 16:09

SaveMeFromMyBoobs · 15/04/2023 22:58

Is there a reason why its such a good deal? E.g. does it need a lot of work? Remember you'll need the cash to fund the work. If it needs a 5K rewire you need to have the £5K in addition to the deposit, you can't add that onto the mortgage they give you (thats only towards purchase price).

Where money is from etc is sorted later with solicitors and mortgage broker. Parents will need to sign the money away as a gift. This stage is easy enough, make an offer and see if it's accepted! Check how much solicitors, brokers, surveys etc will be, those costs also need to be factored in additonally to deposit. It's good you have the broker, many places offer mortgages in principle to people they won't lend to due to circumstances so they'll have got you one where you're likely to actually be accepted!

Don't take out any big credit! No new credit cards, pay over x months agreements, car finance etc. They will adversely affect your credit score and reduce chance of mortgage acceptance. I'm sure broker will already have been through that with you.

That’s not really true though is it about the mortgage only allowed to be for the purchase? We sold for x amount, bought for y amount. Used extra from x after paying mortgage back to pay deposit for y and took out a mortgage for z. Once y had been paid for, the rest of z was transferred into our account. By the time we had the keys actually! And we are using that money to renovate. That’s how people do it?!
Nobody has 100k to renovate a property just lying around do they?! You take it out on the mortgage…like we just did. Two weeks ago!! And we closed a mortgage and took out a new one with the same mortgage company, so they were aware that we would end up with more money than necessary to buy the house. Because they ask for the house price, and they value it themselves also as part of the mortgage application. And we used a mortgage broker, who asked us how much mortgage we wanted!

saffy2 · 16/04/2023 16:17

Also our proof of funds wasn’t checked until a form with our solicitor, soy experience wasn’t the same as others on here at all. Our offer was accepted and we had the sales memorandum before anyone (my own solicitor) checked that we had the funds available. As long as you know what you can afford.
also not true that you need solicitor fees etc outside of the mortgage, solicitors take the fees from what they have if there is enough before transferring the funds to the seller for your new purchase, so you are able to take a larger mortgage to cover those fees and pay them out of your deposit and mortgage. But you do need to budget for them.
you will also possibly need some liability insurances, and solicitors charge for that too. So their original quote may not be the full amount by the time they’ve finished.
but yeah, I received a statement the day before completion detailing money I’d already paid, proceeds from my house sale, what was left after the mortgage was paid off, adding in the new mortgage and then deducting my estate agents fees and deducting the solicitor fees and stamp duty (you won’t have EA fees or SD.) and then the funds necessary for our purchase was sent onto the sellers solicitor and the rest that was leftover (a significant amount as we have bought a project house) was transferred to us on completion. It was in our account within an hour!

Leftbutcameback · 16/04/2023 16:39

Also don’t forget SDLT - there is a calculator on HMRC gov.uk as you will need this money separately (you cannot borrow it as part of the mortgage).

Doone21 · 16/04/2023 19:16

Put your offer in there and then. Then ask estate agent to guide you through the process, get your solicitor next (quickly) then arrange survey if you're doing that.

JudgeJ · 16/04/2023 19:21

SweetSakura · 14/04/2023 17:45

Agree with all of this

8a, be aware that a very few people have been scammed into sending money into false accounts when they thought it was their Solicitor's account, get their bank details directly from them rather than from an email. Alternatively if it's come via email send £1 and call to see if it's arrived before sending the rest.

saffy2 · 17/04/2023 20:09

Leftbutcameback · 16/04/2023 16:39

Also don’t forget SDLT - there is a calculator on HMRC gov.uk as you will need this money separately (you cannot borrow it as part of the mortgage).

We just borrowed this as part of our mortgage. I don’t know why people are saying you can’t do this? I’ve detailed above how we did ours literally two weeks ago. We borrowed well above (almost 100k) above what we needed to
borrow the guy the house. The fees all came out of what money the solicitors had, we didn’t have to pay it in advance and we didn’t have to pay it from ‘separate money’ 🤷🏽‍♀️

anyway how did the viewing go op?

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