I had a phone call this morning from E.Surv informing me that they had been instructed by Santander (the lender that I've decided to go with) to do the valuation on my chosen property... except they didn't know where it is! After I gave them the details, they said they'd head down there tomorrow to do the valuation. Things are moving a bit faster than I was initially led to believe, but that's a good thing!
Today was spent driving to my solicitor to prove my identity and to instruct them to proceed with all of the legal work required when purchasing the coach house. This was about 1.5 hours of driving each way with only about 25 minutes of contact with the solicitor. I got some questions answered, which was very helpful. Fortunately, I won't have to make this trip again as everything else can be handled remotely. I also had to put down a chunk of money to go towards the costs involved in searches.
When I got home, I found that my 250 GBP cheque had been returned from the other coach house that I had cancelled my reservation for. Also, my mortgage application paperwork had arrived. I filled out the form and attached the required paperwork (again, proof of ID) then went off to the post office to post it. On the way back, I deposited the cheque.
My solicitor estimates that the contracts should arrive within the next couple of days and will send me all of the details as soon as possible.
Finding a solicitor wasn't such a problem. The housing developer recommended two firms, stating that they both have good knowledge of the contracts that they use and the development itself.
I gave a phone call to both firms and one of them didn't bother to get back to me, so that made the decision even easier. Both offered the same service at a similar price, however, the one that did respond seemed a bit more professional (certainly from its website).
I have an initial meeting scheduled with the firm tomorrow to prove my identity and hand over signed paperwork. Along with this, I'll need to drop off a lump of money up-front for the fees involved with the work that they perform.
In other news - my mortgage is definitely agreed in principle. I just need to sign the paperwork and provide any documentation (proof of ID, earnings, savings...) that may be required.
Getting a mortgage was fun and games for the coach house...
Before searching for a house, I decided to get an agreement in principle for a home costing 140,000 GBP with a 25% deposit. My rationale was that this would be the upper price limit of a home for me and I could use it to show the seller that I was serious. With my savings and credit history, I sailed through the application. However, upon finding the coach house, I needed to revise my application as the value of the property was higher...
The problem arose when I discovered it would actually be quite hard to get a mortgage for the coach house. The lender I chose initially (The One Account) declined my revision as they did not want to issue a mortgage this type of property. The reason being that I own the land (freehold), but two of the three garages are leased out to other people living on the site for a "peppercorn" per year. I still don't know the value of the peppercorn (it could actually, legally, be a peppercorn for all I know, but usually it'll be a fair amount to go towards the building insurance). For whatever reason, this was a situation that the lender was not comfortable with.
I made several more phone calls, but most lenders I spoke with said they would not be able to lend for such a property. I decided to withdraw my offer for the coach house as it seemed the only lenders that would lend against the coach house didn't have favourable rates. No later than 30 minutes after doing so, I received a call from the development manager saying he would put me in touch with the mortgage broker that usually deals with properties on the site to see if something could be arranged. An hour later I received a phone call from the broker and was informed that my wording is what was causing me issues. I was telling lenders that it was a "freehold apartment over garages", something that they apparently don't like to hear. It's hard to get a mortgage on a freehold apartment. Instead, he agreed to submit my application for me to Santander (he gets his commission that way) and called it a "Coach House". My application went through successfully and now I'm waiting for the paperwork.
Initially, the broker suggested I ask for the 5% discount to be discounted from the price of the property, however, by getting it as a "gifted deposit", I was able to get my Loan To Value (LTV) ratio down to 70%. This means that for the 3 year tracker mortgage that I've applied for, I'll pay 2.17% over Bank of England rates. Had I gone for the discount and a 75% LTV, I'd be paying 2.69% over Bank of England rates! Something to take into consideration if anyone reading this is in a similar position.
I'm now waiting for the paperwork to come through...
After 2.5 years of saving every penny, I've built up enough of a deposit to comfortably buy a house. After months of casual searching for properties (well before I committed to looking seriously), I realised that I'd need to look at about 150,000 GBP for my first home. Anything below this was either in a bad area, needed a lot of work doing or was mid-terrace - none of these appealed.
The area I decided upon was anywhere along the A1 north of Stevenage. As my job is based in Stevenage, this provides me with the best access to work (either by road or train). I looked around Sandy and found that most affordable houses were backed on to the A1, which was very noisy indeed. Other houses were in undesirable areas (such as right next to convenience stores).
In a three hour gap between viewings in Sandy, I decided to head to Biggleswade and enter a random estate agent. At the time, I hadn't considered "New Build" homes as friends had warned me of horror stories involving such houses (mostly concerning shoddy workmanship, but also smaller rooms than older houses). However, the estate agent informed me of a new development nearby that had a "Coach House" for sale. He gave me the directions to the site and off I went.
Upon arriving, I learned that the last plot had been sold, but a plot reserved for "affordable housing" would probably be converted into another of these plots. It sounded great, until they told me that construction wouldn't be complete until Spring 2011! Not only this, but they couldn't guarantee that the plot would be used for a coach house. I still put down a reservation as I was quite taken by the property design.
The next day I started searching specifically for new build properties and found that just 5 minutes down the road was another development site with the same style of property... only this one was still available and actually built! The drawback is that this one doesn't have a garden, however it's still a fully detached Flat Over Garage (FOG). The completion date is scheduled for December 2010 and the price is the same. Better still, the developer has agreed to give me 5% of the value of the home to add to my deposit so that I can get a Loan To Value (LTV) rate of 70%, giving me access to much more favourable interest rates.
So, without further ado, here are some videos of my chosen house!
Yesterday, my MacBook Air's left hinge sheared off. This was not a happy event. It turns out that this has been happening for a while to many people. While it's disappointing that there is an apparent design flaw relating to the hinges, it's encouraging that Apple has acknowledged the problem and offers free repairs (subject to an Apple "Genius'" inspection) even if the laptop is out of warranty!
I took mine in today, which is 4 months out of warranty. After a quick check with a manager, the Genius informed me that the repair would be carried out free of charge. The entire lid needs to be changed (aluminium casing, screen, hinges, backlight, clutch - the lot!) I only hope that there is a new hinge design or I'll be back in another 16 months with the same problem (the same thing began to happen on my previous MacBook air). It's a bit annoying that Apple wouldn't do anything until it finally broke - I had been in before complaining that the lid was gradually getting slacker with a huge amount of backlash, but I had been told to come back if it got worse.
I was quite happy today to find out that the project that I'm working on with IBM (M-PESA) has won the GSMA "Best Mobile Money Service" award for its third consecutive year. What makes it extra special for me this year is that out of the two new features that earned it this prestigious award, one of them was developed by me (bulk payments)! This new feature was used to pay the Safaricom shareholders their dividends through the M-PESA service.
I'll be flying out to India tomorrow on business. This'll be my first time venturing east (unless you count Belgium as "east" ;)). IBM has a funny way of putting your mind at ease when travelling - ever since being booked to go out to India, they've been sending me daily terror alert emails. Apparently going out on the 14th of February and celebrating is an invitation to being attacked due to St. Valentines Day's association with western culture. It sucks that my birthday happens to fall on the same day, so it might be a low key celebration in the hotel bar. That aside, I'm very excited!
It's been a hectic preparation - only having had a week's notice that I was being sent out has meant that only a week has passed since my immunisations and my VISA has arrived a whole 24 hours before my departure!
I've been working on a new project! A Second Life chat client called SlXSLChat. If you use Second Life, do you ever get fed up of having to log in to the really heavy-weight and resource intensive client just to be able to talk with friends? Well, I do, so I wrote my own. More details Here.
After quite a long journey with my employer, I'm now officially an IBM employee! I was transferred under the TUPE regulations, which state that if a client changes a contract so that a service transitions to a new provider then the new provider must take on the staff from the original provider. Simply put, Vodafone decided to change suppliers from Sagentia (my ex-employer) to IBM (my new employer)... and all the staff on the project moved over to IBM! For now we're all still working on the same project (M-PESA) - it's very nice moving to a new company and not being surrounded by complete strangers and having to start on an entirely new project right away.
It's quite a change going from a company with about 150 people (30 in my office) to a company with about 400,000 employees globally! Also, I'm in a company that supports open source and UNIX systems more than Microsoft systems, which is a refreshing change.
Is there anyone else from IBM that reads this? If so, look me up on BluePages! ;)
If you know me in person you are probably already aware that I'm headed off to Vegas on September 3rd for 5 days of gamblin' fun. Well, this morning I received my currency from the Post-Office (hooray for Saturday home deliveries!). Do you think that I have enough?
Seriously, I don't plan on spending much more than $50 or so per day on things like slot machines and maybe some blackjack. I'm not a gambler at all and don't have an addictive personality, so I'm hoping I have some money leftover in the end.
