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House buying is the worst

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That is a good rate! We have an LTV of 85% still so sadly can't find great deals yet. Found a 5 year fixed rate at First Direct for 2.19% (£490 fee) though, which I might try and apply for.

We haven't overpaid on our mortgage yet (well, I paid in £50 extra once haha) as we simply haven't saved enough yet. Though if I can get this mortgage, our monthly payments would be about £30 lower per month, so that would help!

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Our annoying neighbours moved out today. Me and Maddie are getting takeout to celebrate.

In one last act of annoyance, they've left an incredibly overflowing skip on their front lawn, so I can't wait to pick it all up off our front lawn.

I hope their new neighbour is a drummer.

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Got someone in to do our dining room floor, and were pretty pleased with the result. They managed to level it as best they could despite one side of the room being a few cm higher than the other.

 

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Unfortunately, in the process of digging up the concrete hearth (which they then boarded over), the fireplace fell off the wall. It was apparently just balanced on some bricks. So now we'll have to redo the fireplace as well.

 

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On the plus side, I get these cool snazzy booties to wear while the floor cures.

 

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So....moved into a 2 bed flat with my partner before the August bank holiday weekend.  From the initial look of the place, it looked great.  Couldn't see any issues, all the documents were available.  Signed and got the keys, and the fun began.  Didn't need decorating as it looked like it was done recently, so for budget reasons we'll be holding off for a bit.

In the last month, trying to deal with British Gas and Utility Warehouse (pain in the backside trying to find out who supplied the property last, had to wait a week to find out, luckily Welsh Water were kind enough to supply us a letter before we moved in so we knew they did the water).  With Utility Warehouse, there is one of them token meters installed, which i wasn't keen on.  So part of the set-up with them, i asked about swapping it out for a standard one.  They would do it for a cost as the last people in the place got into debt, and they said it's because of that.  Said i'm not paying for someone elses debt, but after pursueing it, they've changed their stance and said it's in their Terms to charge £100.  Tried a few suppliers, who said they won't change it as it's the property of Utility Warehouse and they need to change it.  We'd get the money back after a year, but quite frankly i don't want to be tied to a company i can't choose.

British Gas have tried to offload a massive debt of the last people onto us, with massive fail.  But then, all utility companies try it once.

However, the joy came from deep cleaning the property.  Quite literally had to pull out the oven, fridge and washing machine to clean them all properly (the gunk in the washing machine was something similar to gunge).  Had to get the toilet in the ensuite replaced as the mechanism to refil the tank was bust, and replace the shower door as the sliding part fell out as i was using the shower.  Place looks tidy now, just fitting the curtains this week as the blinds are useless.

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(the gunk in the washing machine was something similar to gunge). 


Maybe it wasn't gunk in the first place, and was in fact gunge all along?
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Assuming gunge is the fluorescent, synthetic stuff that was present in most 90s kids gameshows, I'm hoping for your sake it was that rather than gunk.

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Are you suggesting that the previous tenant was Dave Benson Phillips?

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21 hours ago, Jimbob said:

So....moved into a 2 bed flat with my partner before the August bank holiday weekend.  From the initial look of the place, it looked great.  Couldn't see any issues, all the documents were available.  Signed and got the keys, and the fun began.  Didn't need decorating as it looked like it was done recently, so for budget reasons we'll be holding off for a bit.

In the last month, trying to deal with British Gas and Utility Warehouse (pain in the backside trying to find out who supplied the property last, had to wait a week to find out, luckily Welsh Water were kind enough to supply us a letter before we moved in so we knew they did the water).  With Utility Warehouse, there is one of them token meters installed, which i wasn't keen on.  So part of the set-up with them, i asked about swapping it out for a standard one.  They would do it for a cost as the last people in the place got into debt, and they said it's because of that.  Said i'm not paying for someone elses debt, but after pursueing it, they've changed their stance and said it's in their Terms to charge £100.  Tried a few suppliers, who said they won't change it as it's the property of Utility Warehouse and they need to change it.  We'd get the money back after a year, but quite frankly i don't want to be tied to a company i can't choose.

British Gas have tried to offload a massive debt of the last people onto us, with massive fail.  But then, all utility companies try it once.

However, the joy came from deep cleaning the property.  Quite literally had to pull out the oven, fridge and washing machine to clean them all properly (the gunk in the washing machine was something similar to gunge).  Had to get the toilet in the ensuite replaced as the mechanism to refil the tank was bust, and replace the shower door as the sliding part fell out as i was using the shower.  Place looks tidy now, just fitting the curtains this week as the blinds are useless.

When we moved into our flat in July we noticed it was a top-up meter rather than standard credit meter. We phoned up NPower and they sorted it within a few weeks, free of charge. However we need to stay with them for 1 year or we'll get charged for it. We decided it's worth it and we'll change in a year.

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The fence issues continue...

During the aftermath of that windy Ali thing, it blew hard on my trees and the other stone portion of our wall facing the neighbours driveway fell off a bit. Luckily not damaging their automobile, action must be taken swiftly. This was after I replaced one portion of the wall with a wooden panel and pinned the wall to their garage, that connector had been shaked out.

Managed to get a tree surgeon over the weekend to trim the shit out of them, I'm going to have a look over the sides to see if there are any potential leaners which have the potential to fuck me over in the future and saw them off at the trunk. That cost £250, was the best quote I could find on short notice, a little more than I would've liked but not bad considering the work. Someone quoted 800 quid. 

As for the wall, the neighbour is a builder as his neighbour on the other side and said he/they would replace the wall with some other stuff with a concrete bottom or something for cost, which he said would be about £180, did a sneaky call to Mummy's partner who is also a builder to ask if that was a good price and said it was. So we said to neighbour if he did the work and sent us the invoice we'd pay for it. Plus he's got more of an incentive to get this done as he isn't going to want anything falling on his driveway.

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Our hallway has that horrible, dreaded artex on the walls and on the ceiling. We have a small area at the bottom of the stairs where our front door is (like a mini-hallway) that has it, and the entire walls and ceiling above the stairs has it. It's grim, disgusting stuff. We painted over it to begin with, which made it look mildly better, but we have finally decided that enough is enough and have hired someone to sort it out.

We have two guys who are plastering the walls and ceiling right now. It's going to take around 3 days, apparently. Whoever thought artex was a good idea needs shooting in the face! 

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On 4/15/2016 at 10:30 AM, Shorty said:

Man, the house I could get around here for 250k.... Dunno why anyone would live in London, honestly.

 

My long term dream now is basically to live in an average corner of my city for a few years, saving up money, paying off my mortgage, and then putting that down on a house back in the area I live in now.

Just put an offer on a house back in the area I used to live :D

Probably won't get it, but pretty sweet that I'm able to take a shot at it. Aww yea long term goals.

Also: back on the topic of house buying being the worst, blimey the anxiety of waiting to hear back about this house is killing me.

Edit: Didn't get it, but at least now I can go back to breathing normally.

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4 hours ago, Shorty said:

Edit: Didn't get it, but at least now I can go back to breathing normally.

Feelz dude, did they give a reason? (or just they being greedy)

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Think they just went with a slightly better offer, or maybe someone in a slightly better position. Fair enough if it's the latter really, I would take a FTB over me.

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I was so naive when this thread was created. House buying is nothing compared to the combination of house buying and selling at the same time. :blank:

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81477997_10163010671320341_2280891087469

Well that's fucked it.

Fortunately it's all planned and will be much nicer in about 2 weeks. We're knocking through so the toilet and bathroom are one room and we're having a nice new suite put in. 

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Did you actually have a black and red toilet before? I've never seen that before.

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2 hours ago, bob said:

Did you actually have a black and red toilet before? I've never seen that before.

Nah, we were like "Yo, could you put a new red toilet seat in, but then trample all over it and make it look nice and dusty?"

Actual answer: The photo makes it look redder than it actually is. The black cistern is original to the house. Our bathroom and toilet were basically like a saw movie before we started. Barely any better than it is currently to be honest.

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My wife and I just bid on a house today. A nice house, relatively new (from 2006) with no known problems. We hope to get it - we have been saving for a while to be able to throw in some money when we finally found a house (we live in a rented apartment). The real estate guy said that another couple also had their eyes on it but they had to sell their current home before they could sign the contract so we have an advantage there. Fingers crossed, we should hear more some time next week.

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I have everything crossed for you MindFreak! 

On that note, I contacted a mortgage broker this evening, I was fully prepared to go into this house business without one. But my health has taken a turn and its not fair to leave all of this to my partner, so a broker it is! 

Thankfully its one my parents used and found them really really good. So hopefully that makes things a bit easier! 

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17 hours ago, nightwolf said:

I have everything crossed for you MindFreak! 

On that note, I contacted a mortgage broker this evening, I was fully prepared to go into this house business without one. But my health has taken a turn and its not fair to leave all of this to my partner, so a broker it is! 

Thankfully its one my parents used and found them really really good. So hopefully that makes things a bit easier! 

I think using a broker is a good idea, especially for your first mortgage. We used one as we had no clue where to even begin with everything. We probably didn't get the cheapest deal, but that wasn't down to our broker (it was due to the fact that some lenders' online systems couldn't deal with @Fierce_LiNk long name at the time :laughing: ). It takes a lot of hassle away going with a broker though.

When we remortgaged two years later I just did it myself, but I felt like I knew what I was doing at the time and had more free time to look into it.

Good luck with the house buying everyone! It's a stressful time but worth it when you finally get your own place. :) 

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30 minutes ago, Eenuh said:

I think using a broker is a good idea, especially for your first mortgage. We used one as we had no clue where to even begin with everything. We probably didn't get the cheapest deal, but that wasn't down to our broker (it was due to the fact that some lenders' online systems couldn't deal with @Fierce_LiNk long name at the time :laughing: ). It takes a lot of hassle away going with a broker though.

When we remortgaged two years later I just did it myself, but I felt like I knew what I was doing at the time and had more free time to look into it.

Good luck with the house buying everyone! It's a stressful time but worth it when you finally get your own place. :) 

That's really reassuring! We're speaking with her on Wednesday and so far she's been incredibly responsive. It'll certainly take the worries out of it. Now I just have everything crossed we can afford the houses we've been after. Eeek! 

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A mortgage broker, so someone who sells loans for houses? 

In Denmark, that goes through our banks. I don't even know if you can get a loan that big outside of the banks here. 

We just asked our bank if we could afford a loan that big (4.8 million Danish kroner!), they asked us to fill out some papers with our current budget and such and then they out those things into their computer, and said yeah, sure. Go buy that house! 

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I'll reply another thing after this - @MindFreak i think we have a different market nuance here; see follpwing;

 

but I want to make this point - definitrly see brokers(yes plural see at least three and NOT just one) who give no obligation. Most estate agents have them but ensure it's maybe a bit of an IFA leased rather than in house(ofc its a money business so...y'know) - mortgage brokering is a weird middle market but it exists and there are many ways you can explain why - it is weirdly mostly of benefit to everyone tho. Having said that my broker couldn't beat my own efforts and I did my own mortage but he was a decent enough guy and I let him run my life insurances/assurances for his kickback - also cos the mortage and the way i did my shiz wasnt fair for what he'd usually charge he waived and altered and said I could walk away and do everything myself - never pressured me so I let him have the insurance kickbacks. He was an IFA but was in house for my local Robinson Jacksons. It's a middle market but its a market nonetheless - access and use it for free if you can. Mortgages incur big costs on tiny percentages long term - it can matter a lot.

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I legit just went to my building society and was like mortgage plz..! i had a save to buy account with them that gave me great interest at the time, and allowed me to contribute 5% deposit

it's very weird this thread coming up, when it started i was mid SCREAM panicking about my legal shit not going through (offer accepted just after december, mortgage arranged new years eve) and it didn't come through til june 14th.  I also can NOT believe its been 5 years

I am *not* keen to move at all the idea of selling makes my skin crawl :D

 

also this thread reminded me to go online and look at renewing my term hahah so thanks whoever bumped it kekeke

Edited by Raining_again

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1 hour ago, Raining_again said:

I legit just went to my building society and was like mortgage plz..! i had a save to buy account with them that gave me great interest at the time, and allowed me to contribute 5% deposit

it's very weird this thread coming up, when it started i was mid SCREAM panicking about my legal shit not going through (offer accepted just after december, mortgage arranged new years eve) and it didn't come through til june 14th.  I also can NOT believe its been 5 years

I am *not* keen to move at all the idea of selling makes my skin crawl :D

 

also this thread reminded me to go online and look at renewing my term hahah so thanks whoever bumped it kekeke

The difference is perhaps that we've had covid and the market has been...weird at best. 

We also can't do 5%, at least nothing that I can find that would be worthwhile. 

We are looking at all routes obviously. But with my health, help is needed. 

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