We had a little break – did you miss us? Welcome back to What I Own.
This week we are talking to property developer and builder Mark, who moved into his new home last August.
Mark’s new property is in Devon and he doesn’t have monthly mortgage repayments – instead he has a 12-month bridging loan.
Here’s everything Mark had to say about buying his home…
Tell us about yourself, Mark.
I will be 60 years old next birthday and my wife, and I run a holiday lodge park at present together, until it’s sold.
Over the years, we have built four large holiday lodges at our property paddock lodge in Shropshire. We have to travel back from Devon (where we live) most weekends to look after the running of them, although these are now on the market as we’re looking to sell.
Once these have sold, we are hoping to get a couple of projects going in Devon next year so we can work closer to where we live.
Where is your property? What do you think of the area?
Our new home is in Devon in between Bideford and Barnstaple; we moved in part time at the end of August last year and we very much like the area.
We bought our property with a 12-month bridging loan from Together, meaning we could purchase our home without having to wait for the sale of our previous property.
In fact, we had our loan approved by Together just 23 days after having first viewing the property. Our deposit was made up of all of our equity from our property in Shropshire.
How much did your property cost?
The property was on the market for £1.2million. We offered and paid £1.15million and moved in August 2022.
How much was your deposit?
We weren’t required to pay a deposit as our offer was accepted and we paid the whole amount upfront.
How much (roughly) are your monthly mortgage repayment costs?
Currently we don’t have monthly mortgage repayments as we have a 12-month bridging loan. We won’t need to pay this until we have sold our other properties, as the loan is secured by equity on our other properties.
And how many properties have you bought over your lifetime?
We’ve owned and subsequently rented out a total of 18 properties in our lifetime so far, all of which we’ve spent time living in for some of that time.
What is the monthly cost of living here now?
At the moment running two properties, the mortgage at paddock lodge and the lodge park is very expensive but the bridging loan is fixed for the year.
We have more houses and flats which we are selling all off, so at the moment money is a little tight.
How did you find this property? What made you choose it?
We wanted to move down to Devon so were looking for over a year when we found this property.
Where were you living before?
Before we moved into our home in Devon, we lived in a property called Paddock Lodge in Shropshire – this was our home while we ran our four holiday lodges on the same site.
How have you made the property feel like home? Do you have plans to change the property? Are there any problems with the property that you have to deal with?
My wife and I have been builders/ developers all our lives so making the property feel like home was easy as we knew how we wanted the interior and decoration to look from the start.
While there are a few minor issues we want to alter, these are only minor and will be things we sort ourselves over the coming months.
What are your plans for the future, in terms of housing? Do you plan to stay here long term?
Now that we’ve made the move to Devon, and once we’ve sold off the remaining properties, we own back in Shropshire we plan to slow down a little and will remain in Devon for the foreseeable.
Do you want to feature in What I Own?
What I Own is a Metro.co.uk series that takes you inside people’s properties, to take an honest look at what it’s like to buy a home in the UK. If you own your home and would be up for sharing your story, please email [email protected].
You’ll also need to be okay with sharing how much you’ve paid to live there and how you afforded the deposit, as that’s pretty important.
If you’re renting, you can take part too! What I Own runs alongside What I Rent, which is the same series but all about renting. Again, if you’d like to get involved just email [email protected].
Shall we take a look around?
Do you have a story to share?
Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
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