Best advice for first house purchase.

[hellkat]

I chose to overlook that as being a typo rather than a display of general ignorance
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[Tracey Suntan-King]

[chickenstrip]

[biker7]

Buy the worst house in the best street. Location is everything. If you buy a mansion in a crap place, it will always be in a crap place. Apart from that, stretch yourself - in a year you will earn more and need not have worried but it's not so easy to sell/buy second time round. I have owned many properties but if I had spent more on the first few, the one I have now would be worth much, much more. Finally don't buy bikes, you will live in lesser houses ( mind you, you will die happier) !
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Swansea area
Fat Bob (2019)

[Motorhate]

[Suntan Sid]

[dodsi]

After the obvious location thing which of course is really important, you also want to consider the cost of commuting a large distance when thinking about purchase price as paying an extra 20k on purchase to live nearer to where you want to be might save you more than that over the years when paying to travel to that place. If the money is in the house price then it's not 'lost' where that money in fuel/trains/planes/automobiles is effectively gone.

Also floor plan, it's incredibly easy and relatively cheap to change kitchens, bathrooms, heating systems and decor etc* but changing floor plans is incredibly disruptive, expensive and complex.

*providing the purchase price is cheap enough to leave money in the budget or you will add at least that value back onto the property.

[skatefreak]

[angryjonny]

[Evil Hans]

[GSTEEL32]

[GSTEEL32]

[M.C]

[DrSnoosnoo]

We bought at the top of our budget. For an old lady's house.

In a very good area though. We could have saved 60 k and got a fully done house with a conservatory, garage etc etc but it was around the corner from a giant council estate. I'd rather be the roughest on the street than the best.
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[GSTEEL32]

[DrSnoosnoo]

[skatefreak]

[chris-red]

Check everything, while we got a total bargain on our place we did get shafted slightly in a few ways.

All the plumbing leaked. Both sinks the bath, the toilet, the taps in the sink didn't work either and the flush leaked. I sorted it all myself for ~£60, however I imagine it would have cost a fair bit to get a plumber in.

A couple of the radiators were leaking too.

Also the Boiler wasn't working, cost me £330 in the end.

A roof window was in pretty poor shape and needed replacing this cost £1050.

Same with a set of external doors that were lashed in. Another £900.

The loft was FULL of shit took a day to clear and would have taken a skip/van hire to shift had a neighbour not offered to shift some stuff.

We had a few aerial sockets in the house, none were connected and there were 2 aerials in the loft that looked like they had been kicked about for a laugh. I replaced the lot myself

Ours had a brand new kitchen It looked great however living in it was a different story it's cheap AF (obviously) The units aren't too bad just put in roughly the sink bends when you so much as look at the tap. We had to replace the lino after a couple of months because the pattern was peeling off

One of the joists in our living room has been half drilled through all the way along it to fit spotlights

There was an a silverfish infestation, I think we have sorted that now however the odd one still crops up.

Half the fence blew out after the first storm, fencing is expensive if you get someone in so I replaced the broken bits to get something solid. However the whole thing is just waiting to go. I'll replace it myself when I have the time. I should have realised that it was knackered and would need sorting.

We 'had' to spend our lots on things that I feel we shouldn't have. According to our paperwork the PO should have been responsible for clearing the loft and the boiler should have worked. I asked about claiming back some money and both the estate agent and our solicitor said it wasn't worth the hassle.

It's small potatoes when spending 6 figures, but should definitely be considered we were fortunate in the sense we had about £20k to fix stuff up and build a garage. Most of the money has been spent the house the great now, it's decorated well and has had decent money spent on it, however no garage...

Had our eyes been open a bit more it wouldn't have been a surprise. We have done plenty more to the place however this was just the stuff we didn't expect to do.

Most of it was our naivety, My missus had lived in her parents house all her life, as such everything worked and rarely did things need fixing/replacing. I had lived in the house I move from since I was 10 and it was a new build. I can't remember anything not working as it was maintained. We didn't expect the amount of work to 'do it up'. I reckon we easily spent £5k+ we hadn't planned/realised we needed too.

Find out if it was owned or rented, I'd certainly take a owned place over a rented. The people living in it don't give a shit and the owner will do things as cheaply as possible and bodge where possible.

One benefit of a place like this however is the neighbours will be glad of you. Our neighbours seem to love us because the place looks tidy now, according to them the renters living there before were really scummy there was rubbish everywhere and the place was a dump. To put it in perspective, I litter picked the garden and got 2.5 black sacks full of rubbish. I reckon our garden is 2/3rd the size of yours Pete.
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[stinkwheel]

If it's a house for living in, don't be lulled into paying more for "potential".

They want to walk in and live there. From your post, both are on full time employment so have little time for fucking around doing up a project. Equally the ability to convert a big room into two smaller ones, add an en-suite or cram on an extension is of no help to them, they aren't property developers and they don't have time for pissing about with such things. As such, ban them from watching any form of property hunting daytime TV until it's bought.

Estate agents are used to dealing with people wanting to make money on their house. Even apparently perfectly normal people have some funny ideas. I've removed the bath from our bathroom and converted one of the bedrooms into a study/workroom. Peoples comments are usually along the lines of "People don't like to buy houses with no bath." or "You're knocking five grand off the value of the house without that bedroom.". My reply is that it's not for sale and it's me who is living there.

So if it needs re-decorating, a new boiler or new windows, budget for that and get someone in. If it needs the roof pulling down, jog on.

More advice. Land registry extracts on any you're seriously interested in. Cost £6 last time I did it. Check what is registered matches what you're getting (like my front drive/parking and road access is not on there so the estate agent was taking the piss avertising the house as having off street parking. It does but the council could put a stop to it at any time). Look for any oddities in the deeds. It can also give you some background on the property and an idea of how much the previous owner still owes on it.

If it's a house in a scheme. Look at the other houses in the street/scheme. Do they all still have the same door/roof/windows? Does yours? Are any of them still council owned? Have the council been fixing stuff?

Ex council houses can make superb first homes depending on when they were built and what proportion of them are now privately owned (look at the standard of the gardens). Many of the early 50's houses are really solid houses with big rooms.

Also have a look at the planning department. See what similar properties have been getting building warrants for. See what's planned for round about. See if neighbouring properties have been allowed conservatories/porches/sheds. Check there isn't going to be a wind farm in your back yard.

Also local crime maps are now available in many areas.

They planning on having kids? What school are they near?
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[angryjonny]

[Robby]

Are they going for a house or a flat?

If it's a flat, I'd recommend going for one in a local authority block - assuming the local authority is any good. Generally a good idea in places that have Labour run councils, seeing as they put money into the council housing stock and keep it maintained.

I've been in my ex-council flat for 7 years now. It's well maintained, the service charge is £100/month, and the major works charges have averaged out to about £50/month over that time - including a fairly big tart-up of the estate.

If the place needs a new kitchen or bathroom putting in, it's fairly easy to DIY for about a grand from B&Q - probably with your help. That will do them for 5 years until they can afford to buy the kitchen/bathroom they really want.

[M.C]

[owl10]

[stevo as b4]

Another tip is buy something anything, as it's going to get harder for 20's- 30's couples and impossible for self funded singles very soon. If you don't like it you can always rent it out. You might get lucky and buy in an up and coming area with good transport links, and watch your investment grow above the average rate.

Im sure all us jokers offering advice though, if we ain't in London town, alot of it is non applicable as London has its own unique market conditions and isn't comparible to where the rest of us live.

[Motorhate]