PLIW Posted January 16, 2023 Report Share Posted January 16, 2023 Just about to sell ours but doing it our self as not a fan of the local agents. Plus wanting to save as much as we can. Was going to print a board up in work, bash a quick page up for it and QR code it and stick it out front Abuse social media, mainly Facebook with local pages and marketplace with an advert. We do get a lot of passers by that have dropped off a small note asking if we sell, we’ve got them to message still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadManMike Posted January 30, 2023 Report Share Posted January 30, 2023 I feel for anyone trying to get on the property ladder now, we did it in April 2021 and 100% wouldn't be able to now. We're renewing our mortgage this month / next and Barclays have changed their valuation from £269k (April 2021) to £335k (now). That's a 25% increase in house price, coupled with the increased mortgage rates - no chance we'd have enough deposit to buy this place. Rents at our old place went from about £925 to somewhere around £1200-1300 now, so we'd not be able to put anything away in our savings either. It looks like we're doing another 2 year fixed and the monthly payments are going up by £80, which isn't as bad as I expected (And much better than if we'd renewed in November or December) We got really lucky and bought at just the right time, surely the market will crash soon with far fewer first time buyers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeyseemonkeydo Posted January 30, 2023 Report Share Posted January 30, 2023 3 hours ago, MadManMike said: Barclays have changed their valuation from £269k (April 2021) to £335k (now). Does that change anything for the renewal? I'm sure when we moved from our 5 year fix with Virgin to a 10 year fix with Nationwide that it just came down to how much we still owed on the original mortgage and that was it- no updated valuations were mentioned. We're now tantalisingly close to paying it off- Currently owe about £2k and will have all but paid it off at the start of March with one final £150 payment in April. Not quite counting down the days but not far off! I have a spreadsheet . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadManMike Posted January 30, 2023 Report Share Posted January 30, 2023 2 minutes ago, monkeyseemonkeydo said: Does that change anything for the renewal? I'm sure when we moved from our 5 year fix with Virgin to a 10 year fix with Nationwide that it just came down to how much we still owed on the original mortgage and that was it- no updated valuations were mentioned. We're now tantalisingly close to paying it off- Currently owe about £2k and will have all but paid it off at the start of March with one final £150 payment in April. Not quite counting down the days but not far off! I have a spreadsheet . I'd be lying if I said I fully understood how it works, but our LTV is now 70%, which I gather is good... I guess if the value was the same, the monthly repayments would be higher because the rates have increased, so the jump in value has kept the repayments a bit lower - that's a guess though, someone more educated feel free to correct me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeyseemonkeydo Posted January 30, 2023 Report Share Posted January 30, 2023 Ah fair enough. Yeah I think when we were remortgaging the LTV was below 70% so we didn't have any restrictions on what 'products' were available to us. As I understand it having a better LTV opens the doors for the lower rates. The actual house value doesn't change what you pay but having a favourable LTV will help the rates which has the knockon effect of reducing your monthly repayments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadManMike Posted January 30, 2023 Report Share Posted January 30, 2023 17 minutes ago, monkeyseemonkeydo said: Ah fair enough. Yeah I think when we were remortgaging the LTV was below 70% so we didn't have any restrictions on what 'products' were available to us. As I understand it having a better LTV opens the doors for the lower rates. The actual house value doesn't change what you pay but having a favourable LTV will help the rates which has the knockon effect of reducing your monthly repayments. Yeah that's correct I think. Our mortgage advisor has done all the sums for us so it's made me a bit lazy... She offered us three different products, but a 2 year fixed is the safest option at the moment. Only about 90 years left until we finish paying for it 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeyseemonkeydo Posted January 30, 2023 Report Share Posted January 30, 2023 Overpayments are your friend!! Every little helps and does make a difference to either reduce the term you're paying for (what we've done) or reduce your monthly payment moving forwards. We'll have knocked ours on the head in 12 and a half years and I'm going to be very (very) happy to be mortgage free at 40! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forteh Posted January 30, 2023 Report Share Posted January 30, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, monkeyseemonkeydo said: Overpayments are your friend!! Every little helps and does make a difference to either reduce the term you're paying for (what we've done) or reduce your monthly payment moving forwards. We'll have knocked ours on the head in 12 and a half years and I'm going to be very (very) happy to be mortgage free at 40! b*****d My mortgage payments are now up to 400 a month in total, still on 1% base rate tracker. Got to wait another year or so to finish paying off an existing debt before I can start doubling up the mortgage payments. Edited January 30, 2023 by forteh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadManMike Posted January 30, 2023 Report Share Posted January 30, 2023 2 hours ago, monkeyseemonkeydo said: Overpayments are your friend!! Every little helps and does make a difference to either reduce the term you're paying for (what we've done) or reduce your monthly payment moving forwards. We'll have knocked ours on the head in 12 and a half years and I'm going to be very (very) happy to be mortgage free at 40! I wish! Ours is nearly £1300 a month and with energy prices as they are, no chance of overpayments... at the moment anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark W Posted January 31, 2023 Report Share Posted January 31, 2023 14 hours ago, monkeyseemonkeydo said: Ah fair enough. Yeah I think when we were remortgaging the LTV was below 70% so we didn't have any restrictions on what 'products' were available to us. As I understand it having a better LTV opens the doors for the lower rates. The actual house value doesn't change what you pay but having a favourable LTV will help the rates which has the knockon effect of reducing your monthly repayments. I don't really understand this stuff particularly well, but I suppose ultimately the bank own your house until you've paid off your mortgage so the higher value just means they feel more comfortable giving you better rates for things as - in the worst case scenario of you just totally stopping paying them - they're still well covered? Using Mike's example, if he's paid off a few grand from the mortgage over the first year or two and the house price had stayed the same, if he then just ghosted his mortgage provider they're probably going to wind up either just breaking even or losing some money if they move the house on (assuming they lose some money from fees, housing market fluctuations, negotiations on the sale, etc.). As it is the house has suddenly gone up by £66k, so they're now preeeeetty well covered in any eventuality. It means they need to try and screw less money out of Mike every month as they're better covered (effectively their £269k loan is now secured against a £335k asset), plus I expect that having a more valuable asset benefits them as a mortgage provider because it gives them more heft for negotiations of their own in the financial industry as a whole? We've been in our place for just over 18 months now and holy smokes I am glad we went for a 5 year fix! Because of my change in employment (basically down to part time from full time-ish) we would have been really struggling if we'd been on either a 2 year fix that was about to expire, or on a tracker of some sort. I assume there's still going to be quite the bump in terms of what we have to pay when this runs out, but still, we're in a much better position than we would have been otherwise. Related to that we got our annual statement type thing through the other day. lol. The smallest of dents in that... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeyseemonkeydo Posted January 31, 2023 Report Share Posted January 31, 2023 Ultimately we screwed ourselves over going fixed but there you go. We bought ours in 2010 which wasn't long after the global financial meltdown and although interest rates were low we assumed that things would bounce back and having the security of a 5 year fix made sense to us. At the end of that we signed up to the 10 year deal, at a good chunk better rate, but still expected rates to rise and in fact they literally have only just started that in the past 6 months when we're about to finish paying off. If we'd just stuck with a tracker or even short term fixed we'd have paid thousands less in interest but that's now history and overall I'd probably do the same thing just for the definite stability it provided. I think the way I/we look at property is reasonably different to a lot of people though too as we went straight in and bought a 3 bed semi, have added an extra 2 bedrooms by extending and expect to be here at least until the kids (currently 8 and 10) leave home, more likely a chunk longer. I know a lot of people get into the habit of moving reasonably regularly and climbing the ladder but it just doesn't interest us. In theory we could sell this place for £450k, stick that down as a deposit and start a new 20 year mortgage to buy a £1M property but we simply don't want or need something like that. Having a home which is pretty much perfect for what we need which hopefully will just continue to slowly be worth more as time goes on but being financially very secure with far greater saving potential than ever before seems like a good place to be. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Rainbird Posted January 31, 2023 Report Share Posted January 31, 2023 Better rates for lower LTV is largely just a risk thing. If you're "only" borrowing 50% of the property value then should the worst happen and the bank reposses it, they're not particularly likely to lose out even if they flog it at auction for less than it's worth to get a quick sale. If you've borrowed 95% then there's a much greater risk to them, so you pay for the privilege. Cool to hear you're almost clear and still planning to stay put, Dave. Rate fixes aside, your plans have worked out as intended from what I can remember We've been in our current place for 7.5 years now, and in a similar ilk stretched a bit to "skip a few rungs" with a 4 bed place as our first house. It's gone up in value in that time by a fair amount, which is reassuring, and we have an LTV comfortably under 50% with a 1.35% fix for a few more years so we could stay here as long as we need really. Naturally, then, we're in the process of buying somewhere else 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark W Posted January 31, 2023 Report Share Posted January 31, 2023 1 hour ago, Luke Rainbird said: Better rates for lower LTV is largely just a risk thing. If you're "only" borrowing 50% of the property value then should the worst happen and the bank reposses it, they're not particularly likely to lose out even if they flog it at auction for less than it's worth to get a quick sale. If you've borrowed 95% then there's a much greater risk to them, so you pay for the privilege. Cool to hear you're almost clear and still planning to stay put, Dave. Rate fixes aside, your plans have worked out as intended from what I can remember Sweet, that's pretty much how I thought it would be, just worded much more succinctly. What Dave's doing is basically what my wife's parents did. They bought their current house 35~ years ago knowing they'd be there for a long time, and paid it off a while back now. They already had one kid and were expecting another so just bought a house 'with potential', then did it up, extended, changed the layout and so on and have added a shitload of value to it. Naturally the fact they bought it in the early 80's and it is now 2023 has also added a fair chunk of value in itself... They both worked for Natwest so had access to the best financial products/vehicles available so that also got them in a great position, and the teachings from that are also why we were able to put such a big chunk down for our house (courtesy of Nic's lifetime of savings guided by her parents). Cross-threading, but I posted a bit ago about our chimney situation in the angry thread. Safe to say that's £700 we are never getting back from the c**ts who 'fixed' our chimney. We've had another roofer out and it's £1200 to get the chimney removed. They should be coming in early-to-mid Feb to get that done. We've been mega lucky with not having had any meaningful rain for a couple of weeks so our bedroom/loft has had a bit of a chance to dry out, although it does suck seeing how much we're going to have to repaint courtesy of their f**k-up. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Rainbird Posted February 28, 2023 Report Share Posted February 28, 2023 On 1/30/2023 at 7:22 PM, monkeyseemonkeydo said: We're now tantalisingly close to paying it off- Currently owe about £2k and will have all but paid it off at the start of March with one final £150 payment in April. Not quite counting down the days but not far off! I have a spreadsheet . Not long now, Dave! On 1/31/2023 at 1:57 PM, Luke Rainbird said: We've been in our current place for 7.5 years now, and in a similar ilk stretched a bit to "skip a few rungs" with a 4 bed place as our first house. It's gone up in value in that time by a fair amount, which is reassuring, and we have an LTV comfortably under 50% with a 1.35% fix for a few more years so we could stay here as long as we need really. Naturally, then, we're in the process of buying somewhere else Offer to completion in 31 days, now the hard work starts. I've spent the last couple of days doing the structural calcs to remove a wall and fit a steel, then we need to fit some form of central heating and replace a kitchen. Once that lot's done we can think about moving in and selling our current place. Neighbours seem nice. Chap next to our garage (~70) has an old Sprite as a project, a nice BMW on the drive and 3 motorbikes in the garage. Guy over the road (~75) has an old classic MG T series and a TVR Chimaera. With that in mind, they're unliklely to take issue to me tinkering - although my ratty old Golf brings down the average somewhat... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeyseemonkeydo Posted March 1, 2023 Report Share Posted March 1, 2023 20 hours ago, Luke Rainbird said: Not long now, Dave! So close! Interest is now just over 1p per day! The flip side of this of couse is the slightly eye watering: which is from the past 7.5 years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadManMike Posted March 1, 2023 Report Share Posted March 1, 2023 Our latest mortgage offer is good, we'll be paying just £30 extra a month. The initial scare was £500-600 a month, then the offer came in at £80, now it's £30. Lucky, as Sheryl is on maternity still and I'm covering all the bills - £500-600 would have been impossible. And yeah, eye-watering - for every £1 we borrow, we pay back £2.09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeyseemonkeydo Posted March 1, 2023 Report Share Posted March 1, 2023 I hadn't really thought about overpayments much until I did a quick calculator thing online (Halifax have a nice simple one: https://www.halifax.co.uk/mortgages/mortgage-calculator/overpayment-calculator.html) and we came to the decision that it really made sense to pay what we could (within the limits so you don't get stung by fees/charges) to save literally thousands in interest and also knock it on the head early. We've been in the very fortunate position that by doing this it hasn't hugely impacted the rest of our finances or stopped us doing anything we would've otherwise but it's definitely worth looking at if you haven't already. To start with we would only chuck in an extra £50 a month but as things changed and we settled into it we started doing £250 then £500 while we could. The added benefit is that with the overpayments 'banked' you have the option in many cases to take payment breaks or reduce your monthly repayment (rather than reduce the term) so it does give flexibility. More recently we've been in the position to max out our overpayments at the beginning of each mortgage year so that we've been chucking £13k on in one go which then helps the interest for the rest of the term. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadManMike Posted March 1, 2023 Report Share Posted March 1, 2023 We're not in a position to do that at the moment, but it's definitely something I'd like to do in the future. If by some miracle energy prices dip a bit, I'd probably look to stick more in. I also need to look at upping my pension contributions. Adult life eh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Rainbird Posted March 1, 2023 Report Share Posted March 1, 2023 3 hours ago, monkeyseemonkeydo said: So close! Interest is now just over 1p per day! The flip side of this of couse is the slightly eye watering: which is from the past 7.5 years. The timing has worked out well in terms of last year's (and still ongoing) rate rises too, presumably? Not sure if you've been on a fixed rate recently or moved onto the SVR at the end, but regardless, overpaying early not only saves interest along the way but also protects against the worst impact of the current scenario We don't overpay by as much as we probably should, in fact I've just stopped the overpayments at 1.35% to help fund the work on the new place, though we'll recommence once that's done. I hedge our bets by investing elsewhere which has worked in our favour so far, but whether it's overpaying, investing, hell even saving cash (moreso recently!) - doing something is nearly always better than doing nothing, if you are in a position to do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeyseemonkeydo Posted March 1, 2023 Report Share Posted March 1, 2023 We're actually on a 10 year fixed rate that isn't due to finish until October 2025, based on a 15 year term I think (so weren't due to finish paying off until ~2030 or so (20 years after buying)) so we've just sacked it off proper early. That was at 3.24% though so worth it in the long run. I'm not brave enough to invest money so the higher savings rates on normal saving accounts has come at a reasonable time. The plan is to look at putting additional contributions into my defined contributions pension now, which can be taken once I'm 55 and is invested in various places to earn better returns long term (in theory!). Because the contributions come off pre tax and NI it seems more efficient to stick money in that for the long term and save elsewhere to have access for toys/holidays/uni for kids etc... I'm such an old man 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamR28 Posted March 24, 2023 Report Share Posted March 24, 2023 We got keys to a new place yesterday. The easiest property transfer ever, but somehow the sellers solicitors managed to make it take 9 weeks. An old lady had lived here for about 40 years before going into a home, and the house hasn't been lived in for about 2 years. All her belongings are still in here, including stuff like tins of food, clothes, etc. Its pretty wild Great view from the bog though And the front garden is adjacent to a graveyard, so its dead quiet (ba dum tish). Time to slow life down a bit... 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted March 25, 2023 Report Share Posted March 25, 2023 On 1/30/2023 at 10:10 AM, MadManMike said: I feel for anyone trying to get on the property ladder now, we did it in April 2021 and 100% wouldn't be able to now. Yep that's where we're at. Homes still sitting at inflated prices with interest rates being the highest they've been since before the 2008 crash. We could have afforded a $150k home a year and a half ago, now we'd struggle with a $120k. Fortunately our savings are sat earning significant money now. So our plan is to hope for a housing crash and maybe get something for a reasonable price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Rainbird Posted March 26, 2023 Report Share Posted March 26, 2023 Sounds great Ads, nice one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeyseemonkeydo Posted April 11, 2023 Report Share Posted April 11, 2023 Woo! Sorted! Came home to a nice letter from Nationwide saying the mortgage account is clear and now closed. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Rainbird Posted April 11, 2023 Report Share Posted April 11, 2023 Great stuff mate, stoked for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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