If you are a first time home buyer, how do you determine what price range of house you can afford?
Are you looking into buying a house for the first time, but are not sure how much you can afford? Here are some tips for figuring it out:
Do You Have Enough For A Down Payment?
When buying a home, you should be able to pay at least 10-20% of the value of the home up front. For example, if you have £30,000 saved up you will be able to use it as a 20% down payment on a house which is worth £150,000. It is not recommended to spend less than 10-20% on a down payment, for a few reasons. One is that making a down payment will reduce the amount of your mortgage significantly, which will save you a lot of money in interest payments over the years. The other reason is that if you do not have the assets or financial means to save up 20% of the house value, it’s a good idea to ask yourself whether the house in question is too expensive for you.
Figure Out Your Ratios
While every mortgage is different, usually mortgage lenders will use two ratios to determine how much you can afford:
- Your monthly mortgage payment should not cost more than 28% of your income before taxes. This includes interest, real estate taxes and insurance.
- The total debt that you pay each month should not be more than 36% of your income before taxes. This includes other debt such as car loans, credit card bills, student loans, and more.
Calculate these ratios for yourself to determine what your monthly payment budget would be. For example, if your annual income is £20,000, 28% of this is £467 which would be the maximum monthly payment you can afford on a mortgage. 36% of this is £600, which is the total that all of your debts including your mortgage and all other payments should not exceed.
Don’t Forget Housing Expenses
When making calculations to determine how much you can afford to spend on a house, don’t forget to consider the other expenses of owning a property. You will need to pay annual real estate taxes, insurance costs, heating and other utilities, and much more.
Consider Buying a Cheaper Home than You Can Afford
Sometimes “how much can I afford?” is not the right question. You might want to ask yourself, “how much should I spend?” instead, because even though your mortgage lender will tell you that you can afford a £250,000 home it doesn’t mean that you should buy a property at the very top of your price range. Buying a home for a bit lower will mean that your mortgage payments will be more reasonable, you will be able to pay it off sooner. If you buy a house that you can barely afford and something breaks, you will not be able to fix it as well as make your mortgage payments. There are specialist first time buyer mortgages that are tailored to the needs of the first time buyer – these can sometimes be a good choice to help get you onto the ladder. If you choose a cheaper home and something unexpected happens that causes your income to temporarily decrease, you will still be able to manage your house payments. Don’t ever make the mistake of taking out a huge mortgage that will be a struggle for you to maintain.
Determining the price range that is right for you is the first step in looking for your perfect home!
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Every year over 3 million people suffer from some type of illness or injury that can be directly related to their work environment. Tragically, a further 200 people are killed in preventable accidents while carrying out their day to day jobs – possibly in breach of their human rights. Health and safety training is obviously an important issue and yet many businesses continue to falter in their duty to adequately protect their staff. If you believe your company may be lacking in this area and you need some further convincing about the benefits of what proper training can do for you, keep on reading to find out more.
Why proper health and safety training is so important
As an employer you have a legal duty to protect the health and safety of your work force. Quite simply, if you wish to follow the letter of law you have no choice but to educate your staff through appropriate training methods. That being said, health and safety training should never be considered as just another law which you are legally obliged to adhere to. There are many good reasons why proper training can benefit both you and your staff.
The most obvious reason to train your employees properly is to ensure they do not get injured or become ill through the work they do. Importantly, keeping people safe and healthy will improve productivity and efficiency as fewer people will be forced to take sick days and paid leave. Additionally, if you have not fully trained your employees in the correct health and safety procedures you can leave yourself open to costly compensation claims. While your insurers may cover some costs, they do not cover everything and you could ultimately be left to pay out significant sums should you be at fault.
While many people will already be aware of the dangers of their workplace, effective training will always help reinforce a positive health and safety culture. Without refreshing people’s memories on the correct safety protocols there is a significant chance that people will slowly become lax in their attitudes towards such matters. Complacency is one of the biggest factors that leads to accidents, so it’s vital to always try and keep health and safety at the forefront of your employees minds. It does not even necessarily mean a lot of travel with even London health and safety training available.
Who needs training and what can it cover?
No matter what sector you are employed in everybody should be given some form health and safety training that can be directly linked to your work environment and your daily duties. This relates to managers, supervisors and employees alike. Obviously, some jobs will require much more specialised training then others, in particular, those who work in the construction and manufacturing industries will most likely be at a greater risk of injury and will therefore need more attention. In general, things like first aid and fire safety training are perhaps the most common types of courses that should be taught to all of your employees at some stage.
