Worry setting in...

[Rawns]

Me and the wife are getting our first house valuated today. We bought it new just before the market crashed so I have a very unsettling feeling in my waters...

[MK-2]

having it valued because you want to sell and move or just out of curiosity?

i have no doubt our house has gone down in price since we bought it last october, but then we aren't looking to sell so for now it doesn't matter. if in 20 years time its still less than it is now i might get a bit more worried

[Admiral208]

Your house might have gone down in value but so has the one you might buy. Its a buyers market at the moment and should you make a good investment in the near future, you might end up making more money than you would have before the market went 'pete tong'.

 

Every cloud and all that...

[Rawns]

having it valued because you want to sell and move or just out of curiosity?

 

A combination of both. We would like to move, but it really depends on how much we have lost from the property. Plus getting a new mortgage without 10% equity or a 20% deposit is next to impossible.

[featured_spectre]

Be thankful you have a mortgage....I tried to get one with my partner unsucessfully, because "we didnt earn enough" (yet collectively we earnt near £4000 a month)...great stuff hey!

 

Banks are not playing ball at the minute because of the losses they suffered. Good luck!

[MK-2]

Be thankful you have a mortgage....I tried to get one with my partner unsucessfully, because "we didnt earn enough" (yet collectively we earnt near £4000 a month)...great stuff hey!

 

Banks are not playing ball at the minute because of the losses they suffered. Good luck!

 

 

always love that. we bailed them out, yet we dont earn enough for them to give us our money back.

[sted]

Be thankful you have a mortgage....I tried to get one with my partner unsucessfully, because "we didnt earn enough" (yet collectively we earnt near £4000 a month)...great stuff hey!

 

Banks are not playing ball at the minute because of the losses they suffered. Good luck!

 

yet im earning much less than that on my own and i had no problems getting a bank to lend me 90k

[Rawns]

I guess the area where you live plays an important part too.

[bodminman]

Me and the woman earn £4k pm bewteen us an were nearly refused a mortgage because she didn't send a cheque off to pay a credit card bill once. She had the swine flu, the envelope was in her bag but obviously it wasn't in the forefront of her mind. Anyway, the payment was sent and received on the account 5 days late.

 

So 2 months later when we were jumping through the hoops etc for the mortgage they turned us down. We were fuming so I made an appointment at the bank and demanded to know what the problem was as they wouldn;t tell us in the phone. We ended up having to get proof from the doctors that we'd contacted them re the swine flu, get the credit card statement to prove that it was paid and even then they said they would have to wait for our appeal to be decided by the underwriters!

 

All this because a £21 cheque that was paying the full balance off was late!!!

[Cools]

take the mortgage out with the people you with now.. it should be easyer then take a new one some where else..

[Sirbendy]

I was going to say - must be an area thing. We're in the closing stages of buying our first place - a 2 bed Wimpy "no fines" semi with big gardens. I'm on 16kish, missus is on the same (would be more if she did 5 days instead of 4, but she prefers to spend the day with Izzy). Had an IFA round as we're paying £545/m rent, 300/y water, heating bills have been over £550 a time etc. I wanted an unbiased opinion.

 

His verdict?

 

No Problem. You're looking at £130k properties? What deposit do you have, if any? You have 30k? No problem. Even without that I could get you a mortgage for £95k.

 

I was floored. In the end the place we're buying was on the market for 120k, made an offer of £115k..and it was job done.

 

25 year mortgage, over £100 cheaper than renting.

 

Not overly worried about negative equity etc..as it goes, it's definetly at the lower end of things, it's a long term home for the 3 of us, and it's not shockingly expensive compared to a lot...it'll bounce back if it does drop.

 

I've never had a credit card..I've never had a loan or anything else either. Yet we were fast-tracked though with flying colours. I still can't quite get my head round it..

[maniac]

I brought my first place in October last year. £115,000 was the accepted offer, 10% deposit and 5.5% fixed rate mortgage over 35 years, which sounds expensive considering the interest rates at the moment, but I'm hoping that I'll benefit if interest rates rise (which they will do eventually) I had no problems getting the mortgage, it was a very simple process. I'm lucky because this place was virtually derelict when I brought it so I've added value to the property by renovating it - the market in this area did rise, but has fallen again now slightly lower than it was when I brought the place. At the end of the day it only becomes a problem if you're looking to sell.

 

If you do want to move and your property has lost too much value, a short term answer may be to rent it out if the rent will cover the mortgage plus 10%, and just rent a different place for yourselves. You'll still have the investement in the property you own, and you won't lose out financially if you rent somewhere that's equivalent value. 2 friends of mine have done exactly this rather than sell up at a loss.

[Butters]

Blimey, I wish some of the prices listed here were consistent with other areas.

 

I'm looking at over 200k for a flat!

[Rawns]

Blimey, I wish some of the prices listed here were consistent with other areas.

 

I'm looking at over 200k for a flat!

 

Location: London

 

Try moving to Bridgwater! Our 4 year old larg(ish) 2 bed flat which was bought new @ 96k is in "immaculate" condition so the estate agent says, and he's valued it at £77/78k.

 

He says they are struggling to move 2 bed houses for just over 90k!

[DJ-Jonesy]

I was going to say - must be an area thing. We're in the closing stages of buying our first place - a 2 bed Wimpy "no fines" semi with big gardens. I'm on 16kish, missus is on the same (would be more if she did 5 days instead of 4, but she prefers to spend the day with Izzy). Had an IFA round as we're paying £545/m rent, 300/y water, heating bills have been over £550 a time etc. I wanted an unbiased opinion.

 

His verdict?

 

No Problem. You're looking at £130k properties? What deposit do you have, if any? You have 30k? No problem. Even without that I could get you a mortgage for £95k.

 

I was floored. In the end the place we're buying was on the market for 120k, made an offer of £115k..and it was job done.

 

25 year mortgage, over £100 cheaper than renting.

 

Not overly worried about negative equity etc..as it goes, it's definetly at the lower end of things, it's a long term home for the 3 of us, and it's not shockingly expensive compared to a lot...it'll bounce back if it does drop.

 

I've never had a credit card..I've never had a loan or anything else either. Yet we were fast-tracked though with flying colours. I still can't quite get my head round it..

 

WOW, me and my misses earn close to 40k a year at 21 & 23 tried to get credit on a laptop and was refused :S not had anything on credit before so im squeaky clean same as the misses. was lookg at mortages the other month but couldnt work out how much deposit ect... all confused me and then when got knocked back for the laptop thought there deff not gonna give me a mortgage.

[Rawns]

The thing is with "credit"/loans/credit cards/contract mobile phones etc, they can be bad if you let them get out of hand or miss payments.

 

However, have only a small number of them and make regular payments etc and they can actually play in your favour, showing your reliably with your money.

[5tu]

WOW, me and my misses earn close to 40k a year at 21 & 23 tried to get credit on a laptop and was refused :S not had anything on credit before so im squeaky clean same as the misses. was lookg at mortages the other month but couldnt work out how much deposit ect... all confused me and then when got knocked back for the laptop thought there deff not gonna give me a mortgage.

 

Not having a credit history at all can be worse than having a poor one. Reason being lenders have no idea how much of a risk you are. If you're good with money I'd suggest getting a credit card with a nominal credit limit, using it for your regular shopping and then paying it off in full every month. This will start to give you a good credit history which will help when applying for credit.

[iMash]

WOW, me and my misses earn close to 40k a year at 21 & 23 tried to get credit on a laptop and was refused :S not had anything on credit before so im squeaky clean same as the misses. was lookg at mortages the other month but couldnt work out how much deposit ect... all confused me and then when got knocked back for the laptop thought there deff not gonna give me a mortgage.

 

Your problem might be precisely the fact that you have no "Credit History", And check you are on the electoral role. I had problems with credit for ages because the electoral role had a misspelling of my address. Now all is fine from what I can tell. I got a mortgage at the end of last year without too much hassle.

[TechMonkey]

Apparently I can get a mortgage of £108k (made up to £113k with my deposit) & was told I could get a flat for that in my area. I'd love to know where as I haven't seen anything under £120k. No idea about that offer though, it was just to get a rough idea of what I was able to get.

[glennda]

Not having a credit history at all can be worse than having a poor one. Reason being lenders have no idea how much of a risk you are. If you're good with money I'd suggest getting a credit card with a nominal credit limit, using it for your regular shopping and then paying it off in full every month. This will start to give you a good credit history which will help when applying for credit.

 

This is actually what i have done - also its then easier to break down what i have spent where there has only been one month when i paid of 90% of it as i need a little extra cash the following month for bills then i paid it off the next month. But it just gets it in there saying you have a credit history.

[pcstru]

Apparently I can get a mortgage of £108k (made up to £113k with my deposit) & was told I could get a flat for that in my area. I'd love to know where as I haven't seen anything under £120k. No idea about that offer though, it was just to get a rough idea of what I was able to get.

 

Bear in mind that for any house advertised at X, in the current market the sellers are likely to accept an offer of substantially less. For a£120K advertised price I'd plan two or three offers with an opening of maybe £90-95K and a final around £105-110K.

 

That might sounds a bit depressing for Rawns. Sorry about that :-(.

[featured_spectre]

I have £25k in savings with the Mrs (mainly through inheritance) so would love to know why banks won't touch us for a £135k mortgage.

[MK-2]

Bear in mind that for any house advertised at X, in the current market the sellers are likely to accept an offer of substantially less. For a£120K advertised price I'd plan two or three offers with an opening of maybe £90-95K and a final around £105-110K.

 

 

just because the current market is like that, doesn't mean offering less will be a magic cure. person X selling at £120k may need to sell at 120k to cover their current mortgage so will be very doubtful to accept anything sub 100.

our last place was on at 114, then dropped to 109, then 106. our eventual buyer tried offering 96 and was told not to be stupid (in so many words) and then upped his offer to 101.

had we got an existing mortgage over 101 we wouldn't have accepted as it would have put us at a loss, so just offering less doesn't mean the buyer will snap your hand off

[Sirbendy]

I was always told about the credit card, little purchase, pay off thing....I mentioned that to the IFA too, and said that the natural cynic in me said we'd never be able to get a mortgage etc, so I'd never bothered. I also said I was raised with the attitude of "If you can't afford it, go without", by a trained accountant. He grinned and said "good rule to live by".

 

He was recommended to us by the missus' boss, and fair play, he was excellent. 2 evenings of sitting in the living room going over income/expenditure, tracker vs fixed, option after option on his laptop with the software playing with the figures/length of terms, discussing possibilities, worries and all the stuff that occurs at these times.

 

Cost to us? Zero. He gets paid by whichever provider we finally go with.

 

Before him we went to HSBC and had a meeting with the adviser there (I've been with the Highly Silly Banking Company since it was Midland)..she was willing to offer us a slightly bigger mortgage. However, I'm a cynical sod and insisted on a non-prejudiced, impartial advisor. As it turned out, HSBC has the second best deal anyway!

 

And agreed with above - our property was on at £119950, I was advised to offer £110k. Estate agent (lovely guy, ace service, can't recommend Harwoods enough) said "not a hope, they need at least £115k to release themselves from the mortgage they're in."

 

SO, Offered £115k, hands shaken, job done. Notice put in on current place last night, contracts in theory aiming to be completed by month end (say solicitors)..and yet it still feels unreal.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Sirbendy

[AyatollahPies]

I have £25k in savings with the Mrs (mainly through inheritance) so would love to know why banks won't touch us for a £135k mortgage.

 

Wait a year or two and you will be over the moon that the bank wouldn't give you that mortgage.