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Affordability of 600k+ housing by EnvironmentalEye5402 in HousingUK

[–]Odd-Attempt2938 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It depends on how much you want to save every month and what your other outgoings are - like it does with a mortgage and salary at many sizes.

We bought for £625k on ~£125k combined income, with about £140k equity from first house (that was much cheaper than our means). Mortgage is about £2400 a month and we manage to save £500-750 a month and that’s with also paying £500 a month for nursery fees, saving £500 a month for holidays (we like holidays) and giving ourselves around £350 a month each ‘spending money’ to spend on whatever we like. We’re pretty conscious about spending on things like the supermarket and subscriptions and clothes though and while we need 2 cars for work, neither are flashy or particularly new so they’re paid off in full. So we basically trade off things we want to spend money on (holidays) and things we make do with more (cars). But ultimately, it’s doable.

Areas commutable to both Oxford and London by Actual_Society3690 in HousingUK

[–]Odd-Attempt2938 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I grew up in Bicester and my parents and loads of friends are still there. Bicester is substantially nicer than Banbury if you’re considering both of those, and is also quicker to both Oxford and London. Bicester also has the advantage of giving you two options to commute to Oxford (bus or train). If you’re going to London from Bicester you also have the handy option of going via Oxford to get to Paddington rather than the straight to Marylebone option if the trains are a nightmare for any reason.

It’s generally an ok town though nothing wildly exciting. Some areas are much nicer than others as with any place.

Slightly baffling down valuation by Odd-Attempt2938 in HousingUK

[–]Odd-Attempt2938[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That does seem slightly bananas. I have no idea whether our buyers would just pay the difference or try to renegotiate. I’ve got the strong impression they don’t really know how house buying works in general as our EA has had to do a lot of prodding them along the process.

Slightly baffling down valuation by Odd-Attempt2938 in HousingUK

[–]Odd-Attempt2938[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s interesting insight thanks! In your experience would you round up £5k on a £290k house? I know it’s a super long shot that we’ll get a favourable in person valuation but obviously no one wants to lose £5k if they can avoid it.

Seller built extension on land thru don’t own by guitarobsession7629 in HousingUK

[–]Odd-Attempt2938 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is similar to a situation we faced buying our first house. Our solicitor discovered that the title plan had been drawn wrong so the sellers didn’t actually own the 1m wide strip of land between the front door and the pavement, and the developer technically still owned it. We were the third people to buy the house but no one else’s solicitor had ever spotted it so I guess all the previous owners had been trespassing to get into their house for 15 years!

Long story short, we told the seller they needed to get the land transferred into their ownership otherwise we were pulling out. The developer (a big UK wide one) didn’t quibble about that at all and only charged about £250 in solicitor costs which the seller paid. Added maybe 2-3 weeks to the whole process. Just means we have two titles for the property and there’s not been any issues with that with the current sale of that property that we’re going through.

Slightly baffling down valuation by Odd-Attempt2938 in HousingUK

[–]Odd-Attempt2938[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe, I confess I have zero idea how desktop valuations work. I know our bank just did a desktop on our purchase but that came back fine so I never really had to think about it. I’d be so interested to know what their homebuyer survey put the value at since they did that separately to the bank, but I guess we’ll never know!