Our journey begins on Monday, the 17th of February 2014. We came home to a letter that had been posted through our door, giving us notice on the rental property we have been living in for the last couple of years. The notice gave us until July 31st, 2014 to vacate the property, or we could give a months notice if we wanted to leave earlier.
This kind of forced our hand a bit. You see, Miss Gorgeous has recently agreed to become Mrs Awesome and we are busy planning our wedding for August 2015. Our plan was to look at buying a house after the wedding so that we don't have to deal with too many stresses at the same time. At the same time, now that we have been given notice, if we did wait until after our wedding, we would end up having to uproot ourselves twice in just over a year. Not ideal, and not great for credit scoring or mortgage approvals!
So the decision was made, lets buy a house! I started out by looking at property websites (like http://www.rightmove.co.uk/ and http://www.zoopla.co.uk/) for what we could expect to get for our budget. We decided early on that we wanted a new build. There is something about owning a property that has no history of anyone else living in it, being able to make it our own. Also we are too busy to deal with refurbishments etc. There were a few homes in the areas we were interested in so we sent a "request for more info" on these places. Bear in mind that doing this automatically puts you on a list that means constant barrages of marketing emails, and phone calls from pushy sales people. All I wanted was to get some further information, maybe details on the interiors or a brochure of some sort. I ended up making multiple appointments in two weekends time to view some new developments.
Be prepared, once you have made an appointment, to get a call from an independant financial advisor for whichever developer you have viewings with. They will want some basic details from you to assess your affordability levels. I guess this is to ensure you are serious about buying.
Saturday 1st March finally came around, and it was a busy day! We had three estate agents coming over to assess the value of our rental for our landlord, and we had set up three appointments to view some New Builds. Two estate agents from competing firms came over at 9:30 am...arriving at the same time. I thought it was about to be pistols at dawn, but they were in and out in about 15 minutes without a single shot fired. It was then time for us to head out to our first appointment, with Bloor Homes.
Our sales guy sat us down for a few minutes to get to know us and what our situation was and find out what it is we were looking for. We had a good idea of the particular house we were interested in so we set out to go have a look. First things first....hard hats and high vis jackets! Very fetching.
Walking down the main street of the development, we got a lovely feel for the place. There were a few houses at the top end of the street already occupied and a couple that people were busy moving into. It was quite fascinating to think of this new development starting its life with these small families and young couples coming together to form a new village.
We arrived at the plot where the house we were interested in was situated. Loads of mud and rubble everywhere, but the house itself was built. The garage was built, albeit without a garage door yet. Loads of building material was stored inside the garage (I think it was mostly insulation for the walls). We took a walk round to the back of the property. The garden was bigger than we expected from what little we could glean from the advert online. I fell in love with the place pretty quickly. Miss Gorgeous loved the place too, but had just one reservation: The garden was north facing.
We spend a good amount of our time outdoors, and try and enjoy what little sunshine we get in the UK. We really enjoy our BBQ's with friends and family. We also both really enjoy our gardening. So a north facing garden looked like a potential deal breaker. The comment was that it felt gloomy and depressing. I can see why, there were clouds overhead at the time and the yard was just a big pile of mud and rubble. Not a good combination.
We left the plot to head off to the show house in a nearby village. The show house was the same type of build and the same layout, only a bit smaller than the one we were interested in. But this was just to get a feel for the finish of of a Bloor home. We were very impressed.
It was around 12pm at this point and we had another developer appointment to get to, this one with Carey Homes. Took us a little while to find them but eventually we got there. We were shown straight to the show home. Instantly both of us were struck with the contrast in quality of the finish from this show home to the one we had just left by Bloor. The Carey finish felt cheap in comparison. Toilets, sinks, taps...even doors, all seemed like they bought the cheapest possible products, on sale. We probably spent about 15 minutes there before heading back to the car, and back to Bloor Homes. On the drive back, we discussed the North facing garden. We also cancelled our appointment with Taylor Wimpy, we just wouldn't have the time.
Arriving back at Bloor, we had a stroke of luck...the sun appeared and we decided to go back to the plot we were interested in to see how much of the back yard was lit up by the winter sun. Thankfully about three quarters of the garden had sunlight bathing it. Decision was made on the spot, we wanted to buy it!
Back at the marketing office we started to do some negotiations with the sales chap. Long story short, we managed to get the 3% stamp duty paid for, carpets etc. thrown in gratis, and £500 towards our legal fees. We were both happy with the deal. I am sure if it was just 6 months ago we could probably even have got the price down by 10% or so, but times have changed and the market is on the way up again. At this point, my other half needed to leave me so she could tend to another estate agent doing a valuation of our rental property. About an hour later she returned, and we had another two and a half hours to go before we would be leaving, with the property reserved for us!
So what can you expect at this moment, the moment where you have decided on the new build you want to buy? First things first, as I mentioned above, you do your negotiating. Don't be afraid to ask for extras to be thrown in, or possibly upgrades to appliances. You won't get what you don't ask for! Next you will go through a ton of paperwork, you have your typical information gathering (name, address etc.). Then you go through a few "legal" requirements...i.e. signing to confirm you understand what you are agreeing to; signing on the various specification sheets and layouts to confirm you understand what you are getting from the company. Make sure you ask loads of questions. Get clarification on anything you don't understand. This is a lot of money you are about to spend, so make sure that you leave no stone unturned! Lastly you will need to pay a reservation fee. Generally speaking this is £500. This makes sure the property is no longer available to other potential buyers. The £500 is refundable under most reasonable circumstances (mortgage is not approved, or change in personal circumstance that you can prove). If you just decide you don't want to go ahead with the purchase, then odds are you have lost your £500. Clarify this with your sales agent before paying!
So thats it, the start of this whole process to buy our new home! Next time...the dreaded mortgage process.
This kind of forced our hand a bit. You see, Miss Gorgeous has recently agreed to become Mrs Awesome and we are busy planning our wedding for August 2015. Our plan was to look at buying a house after the wedding so that we don't have to deal with too many stresses at the same time. At the same time, now that we have been given notice, if we did wait until after our wedding, we would end up having to uproot ourselves twice in just over a year. Not ideal, and not great for credit scoring or mortgage approvals!
So the decision was made, lets buy a house! I started out by looking at property websites (like http://www.rightmove.co.uk/ and http://www.zoopla.co.uk/) for what we could expect to get for our budget. We decided early on that we wanted a new build. There is something about owning a property that has no history of anyone else living in it, being able to make it our own. Also we are too busy to deal with refurbishments etc. There were a few homes in the areas we were interested in so we sent a "request for more info" on these places. Bear in mind that doing this automatically puts you on a list that means constant barrages of marketing emails, and phone calls from pushy sales people. All I wanted was to get some further information, maybe details on the interiors or a brochure of some sort. I ended up making multiple appointments in two weekends time to view some new developments.
Be prepared, once you have made an appointment, to get a call from an independant financial advisor for whichever developer you have viewings with. They will want some basic details from you to assess your affordability levels. I guess this is to ensure you are serious about buying.
Saturday 1st March finally came around, and it was a busy day! We had three estate agents coming over to assess the value of our rental for our landlord, and we had set up three appointments to view some New Builds. Two estate agents from competing firms came over at 9:30 am...arriving at the same time. I thought it was about to be pistols at dawn, but they were in and out in about 15 minutes without a single shot fired. It was then time for us to head out to our first appointment, with Bloor Homes.
Our sales guy sat us down for a few minutes to get to know us and what our situation was and find out what it is we were looking for. We had a good idea of the particular house we were interested in so we set out to go have a look. First things first....hard hats and high vis jackets! Very fetching.
Walking down the main street of the development, we got a lovely feel for the place. There were a few houses at the top end of the street already occupied and a couple that people were busy moving into. It was quite fascinating to think of this new development starting its life with these small families and young couples coming together to form a new village.
We arrived at the plot where the house we were interested in was situated. Loads of mud and rubble everywhere, but the house itself was built. The garage was built, albeit without a garage door yet. Loads of building material was stored inside the garage (I think it was mostly insulation for the walls). We took a walk round to the back of the property. The garden was bigger than we expected from what little we could glean from the advert online. I fell in love with the place pretty quickly. Miss Gorgeous loved the place too, but had just one reservation: The garden was north facing.
We spend a good amount of our time outdoors, and try and enjoy what little sunshine we get in the UK. We really enjoy our BBQ's with friends and family. We also both really enjoy our gardening. So a north facing garden looked like a potential deal breaker. The comment was that it felt gloomy and depressing. I can see why, there were clouds overhead at the time and the yard was just a big pile of mud and rubble. Not a good combination.
We left the plot to head off to the show house in a nearby village. The show house was the same type of build and the same layout, only a bit smaller than the one we were interested in. But this was just to get a feel for the finish of of a Bloor home. We were very impressed.
It was around 12pm at this point and we had another developer appointment to get to, this one with Carey Homes. Took us a little while to find them but eventually we got there. We were shown straight to the show home. Instantly both of us were struck with the contrast in quality of the finish from this show home to the one we had just left by Bloor. The Carey finish felt cheap in comparison. Toilets, sinks, taps...even doors, all seemed like they bought the cheapest possible products, on sale. We probably spent about 15 minutes there before heading back to the car, and back to Bloor Homes. On the drive back, we discussed the North facing garden. We also cancelled our appointment with Taylor Wimpy, we just wouldn't have the time.
Arriving back at Bloor, we had a stroke of luck...the sun appeared and we decided to go back to the plot we were interested in to see how much of the back yard was lit up by the winter sun. Thankfully about three quarters of the garden had sunlight bathing it. Decision was made on the spot, we wanted to buy it!
Back at the marketing office we started to do some negotiations with the sales chap. Long story short, we managed to get the 3% stamp duty paid for, carpets etc. thrown in gratis, and £500 towards our legal fees. We were both happy with the deal. I am sure if it was just 6 months ago we could probably even have got the price down by 10% or so, but times have changed and the market is on the way up again. At this point, my other half needed to leave me so she could tend to another estate agent doing a valuation of our rental property. About an hour later she returned, and we had another two and a half hours to go before we would be leaving, with the property reserved for us!
So what can you expect at this moment, the moment where you have decided on the new build you want to buy? First things first, as I mentioned above, you do your negotiating. Don't be afraid to ask for extras to be thrown in, or possibly upgrades to appliances. You won't get what you don't ask for! Next you will go through a ton of paperwork, you have your typical information gathering (name, address etc.). Then you go through a few "legal" requirements...i.e. signing to confirm you understand what you are agreeing to; signing on the various specification sheets and layouts to confirm you understand what you are getting from the company. Make sure you ask loads of questions. Get clarification on anything you don't understand. This is a lot of money you are about to spend, so make sure that you leave no stone unturned! Lastly you will need to pay a reservation fee. Generally speaking this is £500. This makes sure the property is no longer available to other potential buyers. The £500 is refundable under most reasonable circumstances (mortgage is not approved, or change in personal circumstance that you can prove). If you just decide you don't want to go ahead with the purchase, then odds are you have lost your £500. Clarify this with your sales agent before paying!
So thats it, the start of this whole process to buy our new home! Next time...the dreaded mortgage process.
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