Starting Out
Rainbows - and pots of gold - visit council and ex-council homes as well as posh private properties. Photo: Robert Liebman
Get Going 1: RESEARCH. Start investigating properties and locations.
Get Going 2: MONEY. Accurately and thoroughly determine your financial position.
These two steps go hand in hand: you need to look for properties you can afford. But affordability is trickier than many people realise, and PWP gives this topic its own page or three.
Get Going 3: MORTGAGE. "Obtain a mortgage offer before you start viewing," advises Joanna Haydon-Knowell, owner of J H-K estate agents in Muswell Hill, north London. "Do it before you enter the estate agency. Until you do see a mortgage advisor, you don't know how much you can really spend. Buyers tell me they can 'probably' spend such and such. But buyers must know the most that they can borrow exactly, to the penny."
The Mortgages page provides loan information in detail. Mortgage Basics and Mortgages for Beginners provide basic information for this preliminary stage of property hunting.
Research. Mastering, or at least exploiting, the Internet is essential. Newspapers and magazines are very helpful, and public libraries make a huge array of helpful information freely available. Internet has more details.
The Internet
Find a property - and find out about its area, local estate agents and much more.
Learn about mortgages, and compare different loans to ensure you get good value.
Find a conveyancer, surveyor, removal company and much more. The Internet is essential.
Despite its goofy name, the vast Cuckoo Estate in west London has handsome houses on pleasant tree-lined streets. Charlie Chaplin was a pupil in the local school that is now the community centre (below).
Property-Hunting Toolkit
Casual versus Systematic Viewing: If you have a phenomenal memory and an uncanny eye for detail, you can view properties without making notes and systematically inspecting critical areas of the property. Most of us find that, after a few viewings, we struggle to recall which property had the great kitchen but lousy bathroom, and vice versa.
A viewer's toolkit helps you to see better and remember more.
Money. At this early just-looking stage, you don't need to fully immerse yourself in the complex world of property financing, but you should do your sums (calculate your affordability) sufficiently to seek and obtain a 'mortgage agreement in principle' (MAP) from a lender.
Location, location, location
Property experts extol the importance of location but don't tell you what makes a good location good. PWP's specially-written article on location takes a stab at it.
With the Greatest Will in the World...
...You will definitely pass on your assets to whom you want when you pass on.
But if you have no will at all or if your will needs updating or, worse, is defective, you assets may end up other than where you intended.
If you do not have a will and are buying a property, consider drawing up a will at the same time.
PWP's companion site, willswithoutpain.com may also be useful.
Speed Kills: Case Study
Attitude and temperament are important. The more rushed or pressured you feel especially when buying a property, the more likely you will make mistakes.
Teresa's experience (true story) could easily be yours: she was flat-hunting during a sellers' market, several flats slipped through her fingers and she became increasingly desperate.
Then she found a handsome and well-located Edwardian terrace being converted into three flats. She pounced.
Her solicitor urged caution. The developer had worded the lease so that he would not be responsible for defective workmanship. Says Teresa: "My solicitor advised me not to sign. He said, 'No one puts this in a lease.'" But this developer did, and she signed, ignoring her solicitor's advice.
Flashing (the grey horizontal strip) should be smooth, solid, and flush with the wall - and preferably made of lead, not plastic.
The developer may have known a thing or three about defective workmanship.
The first time it rained, the conservatory in her new flat leaked water from some two dozen holes in the roof. The flashing was plastic, not lead, and it was riddled with holes.
Teresa discovered another defect almost by accident. After she moved in, she hired a heating engineer to relocate the radiators. But when the engineer lifted the floorboards, he saw a growing pool of water. The source was a leak in the new pipework that was installed to send water to the upstairs flats.
Actually, Teresa was fortunate to find this fault when she did. If she had been happy with the original placement of the radiators, the developer would have laid carpet, and Teresa would have furnished the living room.
The leak would have continued undetected, but eventually it would have to be repaired. Teresa would have had to raise her carpet as well as the floorboards. The inconvenience to her in that scenario would have been worse than at that initial stage, when the leak was discovered. And if the leak had gone undetected for a long period of time, it could have caused the foundations to weaken. All three flat-owners should be grateful that the leak was discovered as early as it was.
Teresa and the two other leaseholders had a narrow escape, thanks to her fussiness over radiators.