Any tips for first time buyers?

[kveta]

DH and I have viewed 1 property, and we want to put in an offer on it, but we're not sure if this is sensible. It's the 1st we've seen in our price range, right number of rooms, walking distance to station, parking, nice garden, and we've been scanning right move for MONTHS. Since none of our close family or friends have bought recently or bought at all (most recent purchase was by my parents in 1981!) we haven't got a scooby what we should be wary of, so any hints and tips would be very welcome!

for example, which is best - tracker or fixed rate mortgage? what insurances are actually worth it (mortgage bloke today mentioned about 4 zillion insurances we should take)? what do you look for in a 2nd viewing?

thanks in advance oh wise mumsnetters :)

I've been buying and selling houses and landlording for twenty years Elderberry so naive is far from what I am.

You?

The housepricecrash website was gleefully predicting a full scale crash when we were buying this house, three years ago. Prices have dropped since then but not crashed, and if I'd have waited, we'd still be in our tiny terrace instead of our nice spacious family home. Our ex-next door neighours put their house on the market shortly after we moved, and it's still on.

But my best advice to would-be FTBs is to have a LOT more money available (as in having it in an easily-accessed account, not theoretically available) than you think. Buying is expensive in a thousand ways you never even knew about.

And do you still have a large property portfolio then Slacking? You sound like you are desperate for prices to stay high.
I'm sure plenty of the estate agents who are going out of business at the moment have been buying and selling property for 20 years, too.

Elderberry most people talking up a crash are in rented having missed out.
I have three properties at the moment, all in very healthy equity.

'Elderberry most people talking up a crash are in rented having missed out.'

Not true. (And not true of me either.)
It might have been the case a few years ago (and yes, HousePriceCrash has been around for an awfully long time and since well before the market peaked) but in the last year it has become much clearer which way things are going.

Yes, in most areas prices are gradually dropping - no one is denying that. But they aren't crashing and actually, the market is very active in deed at the moment.
Long term, the only way is up for a myriad of reasons, mainly we are a small island with an increasing population still.

Are you in Bury? I honestly don't know how someone can describe the market as 'very active indeed' at the moment, unless things have picked up in the last few weeks.

Yes, historically, housing has gone up and up (with a few slumps), as historically we have got richer, and in the last few years there has been this explosion of credit. As long as we have plenty of money which we can afford to spend on houses we will do so; houses are not tulip bulbs or shares in the South Sea Company and people will always want them. But prices can only go up while people have increasing money to spend on them, and in the coming few years we are looking at our wealth declining rather than increasing.

Have been following this debate with some interest. Slacking, your argument that prices will rise again seems to be predicated on the following:

A crash hasn't happened yet and therefore won't happen - the-powers-that-be had to throw everything at the 'problem' of falling property prices since when banks reduced their insane lending practices, prices went into freefall (e.g. historically low interest rates, stamp duty incentives, £200 billion QE, encouraging forebearance etc. etc.) The key thing is, these are all unsustainable props which at some point will be removed. Also, on a logical basis, this makes no sense - just because something hasn't happened yet does not mean it won't happen. A lot of investors buying shares in the late nineties did so because of exactly that logic...

"a four bed family house costs £250 K in many parts of the Uk still" - I would say this strengthens the argument that prices are unsustainably high, rather than anything else.

We live on a small island - see Elderberry's example of Japan, where prices are still half what they were in the early nineties. Or even look closer to home at Ireland.

The population is increasing - this means nothing when not compared to the increase in housing stock. Housing stock has increased over and above the rise in population over the last decade (the figures for population growth, houshold size and housing stock are all freely available over the internet).

"most people talking up a crash are in rented having missed out" - that sounds quite a desperate argument tbh and one I would have thought beneath you. I'm certainly not 'in rented' and like yourself have been involved in property for a few decades. What I do want though is for my kids to one day be able to buy their own home. I also understand that when prices fall, it means that there will be less of a differential between my current home and the one I trade up to, should I ever wish to do so.

It's difficult isn't it op. We're thinking of buying soon, but I am hesitating, because as far as I can see, there is no money for house prices to continue rising - current prices were pushed up by mortgages with high salary multiples/low deposits etc, and banks aren't giving these out any more. Coupled with rising unemployment and living costs, I don't see how house prices can go anywhere but down. And we are at a stage in our lives where we cannot afford to get stuck with a house in neg equity.

Those who think they will continue to rise - where do you think the money is going to come from? (genuine question, I'm not being sarcastic)

My tip for 1st time buyers?

BUY MY FLAT!!

(seriously, its been on the market for ages)

This is a recession. During a recession real wages drop. Then we come out of a recession and they go up again. We've been following this pattern in western capitalist society for a good 100 years now. I see no reason to believe it will change. Previous recessions have been far worse than this one.

My post was intended to inject some optimism into the thread. Poor kveta asked about tips for FTBs and got told the sky was falling! She's going to end up destitute with the house falling down around her ears!

Only, since none of us can see the future, she might not?

alabama it is always advantagous to buy up in a low market.

We just bought at £120 k plus less than it was on three years ago.

We dithered about whether to buy now or wait, but house prices in our area came down enough that it ended up being significantly cheaper than renting.
As we were spending 7k a year on renting even if the price of our property falls by 30% in 5 years we won't be worse off than if we'd stayed in rented.

We've had nearly endless delays with our purchase because the title deed didn't include the garden (which was exclusively for the use of the property, but we wanted the actual title). I posted on it ages ago and MN agreed with me that it's important to have the actual title deed. It has almost been fixed and we might exchange next week - MONTHS later, but we had to move for our jobs, so meanwhile we've ended up stuck with 4 of us in a 1 bed 'serviced' apartment not knowing when we'll get the house... But we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we'd known that we could just pay 4£ to see the title deed from the land registry! We wouldn't have found out about this title deed thing so late in the process and could have simply reduced our offer rather than waiting ages for it to get fixed. so, my tip: if you're seriously interested, take a look on the land registry to make sure all the land is in fact attached to the property. And in general don't trust the EA too much. Look at recent sales figures in the very local neighbourhood, not asking prices as these are inflated, as well as thinking of the overall market...

hi all, just noticed this thread is active again - I posted it last year!! we ended up getting a hosue in a probate sale - it's bigger than we expected to get, and needs lots of work, but we got it very cheap for the area, and all the other houses being sold on our street now are at least 50K more than ours!! so as this is a hopefully forever home, we're not too fussed, and quite happy :) especially now we've worked out how to get the heating on! Brr!

@ not noticing.
Glad it all worked out for you!