How do I buy a house?

So, Ms. Evans, I am desperate to buy a house. I have bought a few before, but to be honest, I don't really understand the process. Would I be right in thinking off we go for viewings?

No, unfortunately not. So first thing you need to do is you need to go and see a mortgage advisor. And I would recommend an independent mortgage advisor because that way they're not tied to any one lender and it's like a comparison. So, so you're comparing your mortgage products now, that way you can work out what deposit you have to put down. So what money have you saved? Generally, at the moment, you'll need at least a 10% deposit when buying a property. At the moment, you can borrow about four to five times your income, depending on your situation, whether you're self employed, employed, et cetera. So most importantly, go and speak to an independent mortgage advisor. But you can generally on average borrow between four and five times your income.

Right. I've got my mortgage. There's so many houses out there. I've got millions of rooms. Where do I start?

So you start with the area you want to be in. That really helps. And then what you can afford. Okay. And the most important thing about viewings as well is you take someone with you that knows what they're looking at, really. So for example, I'd take you with me, but take a builder or someone that knows about property to help you when looking round and we will cover what to look out for on a property viewing later on.

Right. Jumping the gun. Bang. Found my house. Love it. I want to know these top tips. I'm going to put an offer in, but where do I aim it? Do I go in ridiculously low? Do I go in near asking price? If it's popular, help.

Okay, so there are two schools of thought on this. It all depends whether you live in London or whether you live outside of London. In London, when the property market's really, really hot, you generally need to sometimes be offering asking price or over. Out of London. Yes. You can afford to go under and make an offer under asking price. Even if it does say offers over, I would still recommend going slightly under because you can always go up, you can't go down.

Okay, final quick question on that. If we've said mortgage in place, I've got nothing to sell. I'm in a good position compared with someone in a chain of six houses. Does that mean I can go in lower? I'm trying to save a few pounds so my mate the builder can come in.

Absolutely. When offering, it's not just the price. If you are a first time buyer with no chain, with a mortgage in place and you can exchange within 8 to 12 weeks, you need to tell that to the estate agent. So when you're putting your offer forwards, you're also selling yourself as well.

It's almost my house now. There's these quite expensive solicitors. When do you instruct them? And more importantly, if I'm paying them all this hard earned cash, what should they be doing for me?

So you instruct the solicitor soon after you've had your offer accepted. Okay, as quickly as possible, do your research and get some comparison quotes. So get three quotes off solicitors. Now there are a lot of solicitors as well, that will do. No sale, no fee. Okay, so look for one of those solicitors. So if the sale did fall through for even maybe no fault of your own, maybe the seller pulls out, you don't have to pay that solicitor, do you?

Go local or she online, as everyone knows, generally is cheaper if people are looking to save money. Do you think I'm going to go online, do a search, find someone or actually there's a guy in the local town that's a solicitor and he's really good, but a little bit more.

I always prefer to stay local and the reason for that is yes, you might be paying a little bit more money, but everything can be done really quickly. You can go in to see your solicitor. If there's any problems, they can explain it to you face to face. You need to have all your identification checked. So rather than sending your passport in the post, you then take it into your solicitor. So always stay local and you now are at the point of deciding on what to do survey wise. And surveys are very, very complex because there are different types of surveys you can get.

Now this bit is a big minefield to me. The few houses I've bought, we have surveys done. You have different levels of surveys which are, I'd like you to explain, but personally I don't think they're worth a lot. We've heard of people that have got these surveys, got them back, panicked because the pointing needs replacing. I've looked at it as a builder and said, well, it's been there 120 years, it's probably going to last another 50. What would you say about surveys?

So surveys isn't really explained properly to you. So again, speak to your mortgage advisor and get them to indicate which survey is which. Because a lot of mortgage companies and mortgage lenders will only need a valuation and you pay money for that valuation. But actually it's just someone going into the property going, yes, it is worth the money you're paying for it and they're not actually looking at the structure. So that can be called a valuation or a home buyer's valuation. A full survey costs a lot more money and generally I would never recommend someone not to get a full survey if they're very lucky to know and trust a builder like you. Absolutely. Get your builder in to have a look, but I would recommend to get a full survey.

I'm going to interrupt here because the last two houses I've bought, this full home buyer survey said, can't look at the roof, cardboard box in the way. Consult a roofing expert, is it? Would you rely on those or would you say, well, then you can start a roofing expert in. Yeah, but shouldn't they move the box and go up in the loft?

They should do, but at the end of the day, you know, it completely depends on what lender you've chosen and depend and which lender and what lender has which surveyor on their panel. So I would always recommend to get a survey because they're covered and you're covered by a paperwork trail then. And then if there are any recommendations on the survey saying, get someone in to have a look at the roof, then get someone in to have a look at it. But again, don't panic with any of this. It doesn't mean if something bad comes back on the survey, it doesn't mean that your house is falling down, it basically means just get it checked.

I would say get it checked. The ones I've looked at for customers has had the red, the orange and the green, and the red comes up, there's massive panic, but they're not that bad of things. So get a builder in to double check. I would say it does save a lot of stress.

And generally, a builder like yourself, if you're going to get the work afterwards, you would go around and look for free and do a quote, wouldn't you?

Yeah, you would. I think it's more. It's not just about getting the price and the quote, it's putting that buyer at ease. You know, 120-year-old pointing is not going to fall out overnight because there's a frost, it could last another 50 years. Whereas these days, central London, 120 pounds a meter to repoint. If you've got a big house, it's.

Going to be pointing is the cracks between the brickwork.

Boring building stuff, but yeah. So we think surveyor or take a.

Build around like yourself that knows what they're talking about and knows what they're looking at at. I would always recommend doing more than just that valuation.

So found the solicitor, local lad down the road. Money. Agreed. But really, how much should I be paying and more importantly, how long does this take? Because I've been told it takes quite a long time so they can justify these huge fees.

True. So basically it should. If you've got no chain and the other party has no chain, it should take between eight to 12 weeks to get the property purchase through. Okay. Give and take. It might be different because things might come up in searches. And with regards to cost, a solicitor will charge a headline fee that might be about 499 pounds. But remember, you've got to plus onto that disbursements. So solicitor costs can be anywhere, depending on where you live in the country, between £800 to about £2,000. And again, it depends on the price of the property you're purchasing as well. But within the region of that, I.

Would say great, so we must be near exchange.

Yes, we are.

What happens and when?

So your solicitor and your mortgage advisor will help you out with all the paperwork. They are the professionals, let them deal with it. They will then send everything through to you where you need to sign. So read all the paperwork and they will indicate where you need to sign. So don't worry about that. Then you get through to exchange and completion. Now, if the property that you're purchasing has no one living in it, you can actually simultaneously exchange and complete on the same day, which is fantastic. If not, you exchange, which is where you transfer 10% of your monies across to the solicitor on exchange of contracts. That is when you are legally obligated to buy that property. So make sure you have all the information and, and you are completely 100% happy with purchasing it. You then exchange and then generally within about two to three weeks, you then complete and you get your keys.

Final question.

Yeah.

Being a builder, I'm asked sometimes to go in on exchange day, start ripping out and basically doing the work on the house, is that right? Because I don't want to go in and pull a house to pieces if it's not the right time of doing it. Would you wait for completion?

Some people do, but I would always recommend to wait for completion because at the end of the day, even though you've exchanged, the seller can still pull out. So if you've done all this work to the property, the seller might think, oh, I've just had my house renovated for free and then pull out. Yes, you get money for that, but you might have spent £50,000 renovating the house. So don't do. My recommendation would be don't do any work on the property until you've completed and those keys are in your hand and that house is yours. So, quick recap, quick recap. Speak to your mortgage advisor. First of all, go out and view some properties, make your offer, go back to your mortgage advisor and speak to your solicitor and instruct your solicitor.