One Day This Will be You
(Image Source: Authors Own)
Yes, I am officially a homeowner, mortgage slave, whatever you want to call it. Two weeks ago I was given the keys to my new house and I absolutely love it. If you are thinking about buying a house now or it is in your long-term plans. Today's post will be useful to you as I talk about my experience in buying a house. In the most simplest way, I possibly can.
A little disclaimer before I start- this is just my experience if you are not sure about anything it is best to refer to someone who is qualified in mortgage advice.
To start, we had to save for a deposit. We attacked this by saving as much as we could for three years When it came close to thinking about buying (about six months ago) we worked out what house we could afford on the deposit we had. If we hadn't got enough deposit for what we wanted, we would have to have saved for longer. My partner used the internet as a rough guide to see how much banks would give to us and how much the monthly payment would be on the mortgage as well as our other expenses. When we realised that we could buy a house, we went to the mortgage advisor to get confirmation that we could get a mortgage and get a clear indication of what we could afford.
We decided to get a mortgage advisor as we were first-time buyers and wanted the reassurance of a professional.
To see if you are able to buy a house the mortgage advisor checked for:
Proof of Income
Proof of Deposit
Spending habits (including drinking and smoking)
Credit Check
A key fact is to not borrow the maximum you can be given but to borrow the amount you can afford on the monthly repayments.
The advisor showed us all the different companies we could go with to get a mortgage and calculated the cheapest mortgage for our needs. It is still worth shopping around because the advisor cannot offer all mortgages available.
We started looking for a house at this time ( A post is coming soon on what to look out for when buying a house). Once we found a house we put an offer in. To put an offer in we phoned up the Estate Agent told them we wanted to buy the house. We started off bidding low (never start with the asking price) and then once we agreed on the price, we had to get a solicitor involved ( you get a solicitor involved to show you are serious in buying and to get the process started. You have to get one). It's worth shopping around because solicitors prices we found do vary. We had to go back to the mortgage advisor to hand in any missing documents and get them to get the mortgage sorted.
At this time, we started looking at life insurance. Life insurance isn't compulsory although is a good idea for obvious reasons. Currently, we are also obtaining critical illness. Again like mortgages, it is worth shopping around for insurance. Additionally, my partner researched building and contents insurance. For this, he just looked at one of the price comparison sites.
Our solicitor sent over documents regarding the house, we had to read through and check everything was okay. We looked out for:
Flooding
Mine shafts (our house is near a place where mining used to occur)
Enviornmental hazards
Church Chancel Policy
Anything that we didn't understand we just emailed the solicitor (they are paid a lot so don't be afraid to use them).
You will find you will have to keep emailing and ringing the socilitors bugging them until you are given a move in date. This will vary depending how far long your chain is (explained below).
House Buying Chain
When you buy a house you are often in what is called a 'chain' this is where the people you are buying a house from are also buying a house and they are buying a house of someone and so forth. A chain will break when someone pulls out of buying a house. Therefore the longer the chain is- the increased chance this can happen.
Soon we got the keys and we had to shop around for quotes for removal companies and now we are happy in our new home.
0 comments:
Post a Comment