markiam

I rent a 3 bed ex local flat in South West which we have been sharing with friends while we save a deposit to buy with. The landlord has offered to sell it to us (apparently wants the money for another investment). My wife and I have been looking for ages and can't really find anything we can afford anything that is quite right for us. The price I have negotiated with the landlord means that the mortgage will be about the same as the rent we are paying. The flat isn't quite what we want (mostly because it doesn't have a garden) but it is very big, close to tube, restuarants, bars, park etc. My wife is Australian so one day we want to be able to rent out the flat and move back to Aus. One of the advantages of this flat is that we can (hopefully) rent it to cover the mortgage if and when we do this. Also since we are living there with our friends we already have lodgers and their rent will cover 2\3 mortgage. I can't really see the downside. Obviously if prices drop a lot then that would be bad for us but we can afford the mortgage on just one of our salaries (well it would be tough if it was just my wife's but we still could) and we're not stretching ourselves too much if interest rates go up. I know there are lots of bears on this forum so I'm interested to hear your opinions.

I viewed a property the other day with an agent who has shown me lots of places already. He told me it was already under offer but the current buyer was really dragging their feet and the vendor wanted a quicker sale so had commenced viewings again. I quite liked the property but the agent told me that they were looking for an offer HIGHER than the existing offer. Very nice. The vendor wanted a buyer who could move quicker and offer more money. Fantastic. I'm sure everyone would like that. Needless to say I politely declined.