Plan your finances
Before starting your home buying search, it’s important to understand your price range. This means speaking with a mortgage advisor to calculate what you can afford to borrow and how much your monthly costs will be.
Don’t forget to include your monthly living costs, such as energy bills, council tax, food and fuel costs. There will also be additional costs associated with the purchase of your new home, including your deposit, stamp duty land tax and legal fees.
Love, list, location
You might have a dream location or the perfect property in mind, but this is likely to be your biggest financial purchase, so it’s important to keep a cool head. Start by making a ‘wish list’, do you need to have easy access to the train station? How many bedrooms do you need? Are you keen on gardening or is outside space not important? Are you looking for a project or something you can move into straight away?
Once you’ve exhausted your list of ‘wants’, go back through and identify which ones are essential and which are just desirable. Be prepared to compromise and try to stay a little open minded.
We’ve been living in Taunton and the surrounding areas for over 20 years, so ask us anything you like, as locals, we’ll give you a first hand account of why we love living here. We’ve prepared property guides too, to tell you about the best areas to live in and sharing some of Taunton’s best kept secrets with you too.
Searching for your perfect home
Next it’s time to take a look at some of the homes that meet your criteria. This can be done online or in person, our properties all have online video tours so you can take your time to view each one, when and where is convenient to you.
We still recommend that you carry out an in person viewing, it’s also a good opportunity to ask any questions about the property.
Making an offer
When you find the home that’s the perfect for you, you should make an offer. We’ll pass your offer on to the seller and will facilitate the negotiations. Once a final price has been agreed, it’s time to submit your mortgage application, arrange a valuation of the property with your lender and instruct your solicitors.
Do I need a survey?
Your mortgage lender will require the property be surveyed, to identify if there are any problems structurally or otherwise with the property. There are three levels of survey:
Valuation
A valuation report is the most basic level of survey and the cheapest to instruct, it will identify any significant problems with the property.
A home buyers survey will provide a more detailed report on anything that will have an impact upon the value of the property such as damp.
The final and most thorough report is a structural survey, commonly used where a property is in need of renovation or is subject to restrictions for example if it’s a listed building.
Moving day
Preparation is critical on moving day, so take time to put a plan together in advance, to help reduce the stress, here a few ideas to include:
- Booking a removal firm
- Getting a supply of boxes
- Redirecting your post
- Changing your address with your bank and the DVLA
- Take meter readings and inform the utility companies of your old and new address
- Gather a box with ‘essentials’ (kettle, cups, cleaning products, first aid box, bank cards, bedding), ready for moving day.