Having thought I'd cracked the MTU/MSS issues in my previous post, it turns out that I've been missing a lot of emails. I've now implemented the following IPTABLES rule and I have received an influx of emails from sites from which I haven't received emails in a good number of months:
This clamps the maximum segment size to the MTU of the connection. Perhaps the cause of the previous command not working properly was invalid values. However, I'm not particularly interested in modifying the old command when this one seems to work perfectly.
I finally got around to setting my broadband up in my new house. I've come from having cable internet to now being forced to have ADSL as Virgin Media will not supply services to my street.
I was able to lift-and-shift my homebrew Linux router into my new setup with minimal changes required (I just had to add a PPPoE "dialler" and change the interfaces being referenced in the script). However, one thing had me stuck for a good few hours: some webpages simply didn't load through clients behind the router (though all websites loaded fine directly on the router itself).
I spent a lot of time playing around with my network configuration to see if any of my hardware was causing the issue. I removed my wireless bridge and connected directly to the router to no avail. I tried different computers, no luck.
Eventually, I broke out Wireshark and saw that a lot of my TCP packets were reported as being lost (missing segments). This triggered a memory of something I had read about blackhole routers (routers which will refuse to fragment a packet but instead of reporting back to the originator, they will silently discard the packet causing the connection to hang and then maybe timeout).
Ethernet (and cable) uses an MTU of 1500 while PPPoE has an MTU of 1492. All of my client machines were set to an MTU of 1500. After changing the MTU to match that of the PPPoE link, everything started working. Not a great solution, as I don't want to have to manually set the MTU on each of my clients. I did some research and found that DHCP can specify the MTU that all clients should use. However, it was clear that this wasn't a viable solution upon witnessing Apple equipment completely ignore the advice provided by the DHCP daemon.
Finally, I came across an IPTables rule that forces the MSS (maximum segment size) to a particular value for a given link: `iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ${EXTIF} -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN -m tcpmss --mss 1453: -j TCPMSS --set-mss 1452'
This must be added before the masquerade line (`iptables t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 192.168.0.0/16 -o ${EXTIF} -j MASQUERADE'). Implementing this goes against everything that has been put in place on the internet to prevent this problem (MTU path discovery should allow participants in a conversation to determine the maximum segment size dynamically). However, while there are still blackhole routers in the world, hacky work-arounds like this will be required. For now, I'm just glad that my internet connection is working properly. DNS updates are pending, but I can see them propagating throughout the internet as I write this!
Finally, after nearly two months of looking for a house, phone calls, emails, letters, long drives, I've exchanged contracts for my house as of today! To make things even more stressful, I'm in India on business whilst doing all of this house-buying coordination!
I received the mortgage offer 4 days ago and the signature documents (contracts, mortgage deed, etc...) 2 days ago. I spent some time over the weekend doing final checks over the documents and signed and returned them this morning.
Hopefully, that's most of the work out of the way now.
Today, I received the legal documentation for the property that I'm purchasing. I envisaged there being a fair amount of paperwork, but the thick envelope waiting for me was larger than expected. Upon opening it, I also found that most pages are double sided and there's even an enclosed CD containing yet more legal documentation.
Looks like I have a fun weekend ahead of me deciphering the legalese contained within these documents...
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!
