Buying a house

First Time Buyers

In May my fiancé and I moved into our first home. It was a long journey but worth the wait. Buying a house has made such an impact on our life and marked a big milestone for us. Unpacking, decorating and making our house a home, has been a lot of work, but two months later I wanted to share with you the story of us buying our first house.

I never thought I would be in a position where I was able to buy a home in my mid-twenties. It felt like an impossible task and yet two months ago, we moved into our very own home. Truly a dream come true. After 4 months of forms and stress, we finally got the keys! Now the dust has settled a bit I wanted to share with you our experience, from my perspective and things I’ve learned along the way from buying a house.

Our Previous Living Situation

We had been living in our flat for about two year prior to this move. Although I was happy in our flat, it was in a good location, had great natural light and a modern kitchen. It did come with its down sides. We had quite a severe damp problem and a nightmare of a parking situation. Our flat was close to the city centre which meant quite a bit of noise during all hours was to be expected. Although our flat was great to begin with, we wanted to move and find our own home.

Planning and Budgeting

I truly didn’t think we would be in a position to move for years. I had a rough idea of house prices in my area and we were working to save a deposit. A few things worked in our favour at the time of buying our house and our options were better than we thought.

Help to Buy ISA

If you are planning on buying a house for the first time, I highly recommend opening a Help to Buy ISA. A help to Buy ISA is such a great way to save for your deposit and gives you a 25% bonus on your savings. You will need your solicitor to make this claim for you and it can only be redeemed once the account is closed. Although the bonus cannot be used towards the deposit or solicitors fees. It can be used for moving, decorating or any other costs once the purchase is final.

Mortgage Advisor

I’m so pleased we decided to speak to a mortgage advisor before we found our house. Although I had done plenty of research myself, it’s all very overwhelming and the information can be a clear as mud at times. Our mortgage advisor was fantastic, he helped us work through our finances and assess our lending options. You can do mortgage calculators online, (which I would advise before speaking to someone to learn your lending potential) but our advisor was able to get us a better deal with a lower interest rate and help us make assessments on what was financially feasible for us. You are not obligated to make any decisions and its okay to shop around. If you find the right advisor they should offer support, not push you into a mortgage that isn’t right for you.

Stamp Duty

Earlier in the year Stamp Duty was abolished for first time buyers if the property was under £300,000. A huge win, that couldn’t have come at a better time for us. Stamp Duty is normally around 2% of the price of your house although this increases in line with the value of the property. The average cost for stamp duty was around £2.7k for first time buyers. With this change it meant one less cost in the saving of our house, making the possibility that little bit closer.

Solicitor

Solicitor fees are unavoidable and we of course had to factor them into to our budget. How much your solicitors fees cost with depend on your situation and the property you are buying. On average in the UK, solicitors fees cost between £850 -£1,500 (not including VAT). There will also likely be additional costs for home inspections. Our solicitors were invaluable in offering support and advice as well as assisting with the mountains of paper work. They did all the negotiating for us and kept us up to speed with everything that was happening. As someone who knew so little about the process I’m so grateful to our solicitors for walking us all through it.

House Wishlist

We were looking for a starter home, a place ideally not too far from where we were, as we liked our location but with a garden and ideally off road parking. Pets weren’t allowed in our rented flat and getting a dog was high on our priority list. I didn’t mind the idea of a house that needed a bit of a makeover either.

Finding Our Home

Browsing Rightmove had become one of my weekly past times. I didn’t expect to find anything, as we weren’t that close to our deposit goal, but I still loved having a browse. We had viewed one or two places before but never really jumped on anything. It was late December when our house popped up on the website. When I saw it, I instantly fell in love. It was a fairly new build and only a 5 minute drive from our current flat. An enclosed garden, meant we could get a dog. The house also came with an allocated parking spot right outside. It meet our wishlist and was perfect for us! I honestly thought it was too good to be true.

Offer Accepted

We put an offer in on the 23^rd of December and which was accepted an hour later. It was the best Christmas present we could have asked for and although there was a long way to go, we felt that little bit closer.

Buying A House Process

After our offer was accepted, we began the process of form filling and applying for our mortgage. This meant spending quite a few evenings reading documents and filling out form after form. It was all a bit daunting but we got through it. After that first fortnight things came to a bit of a standstill. We became part of a property chain which took three months to get moving.

Property Chain

As we didn’t own a house, we were the start of our chain. If you find a house you love, being in a property chain may be unavoidable. A lot of the stress from moving came after all the forms were submitted, the mortgage was agreed and the boxes were packed. We were in a chain of 5, meaning 4 families needed to more house before we could. One of the main reasons it took four months for us to get the keys was because of the property chain we were in.

A family pulled out of the sale of their house quite early on. Which meant everyone else involved wasn’t able to do anything, until another buyer was found. We also had further delays due to a buyer awaiting planning permission before signing the contracts. These hiccups are inevitable but frustrating nonetheless. There was always the fear the back of my mind that our sellers would change their mind and we would have to start the whole process again.

 

Agreeing A Date

Communication was scares at times and we went almost three months without hearing a thing. I spent a lot of time chasing for answers but in the end it was a just a waiting game. Once all 5 families had signed their contacts, we still all had to agree on a moving date. The dates became very last minute and although we were surrounded by boxes, we had no idea when we would be actually moving. I didn’t want to risk handing in our notice until we were sure. So we ended up being in limbo mode. Luckily we got a date and then it was all systems go, we had to pack and clean our old place and get ready to move. Our moving date was given around one week prior, so it lead to a bit of a mad rush to get it all done in time.

Moving Day

Our moving day was agreed at the beginning of May and I took a few days off work to get things sorted. I’m so glad I did, as we ended up having to paint every room in the house which took almost 5 days. The walls were scuffed and marked, so painting was unavoidable. On the plus side, we were able to pick colours to suite us and put on own stamp on our house. Our garden needed quite a bit of weeding, something I’m still tackling. We also had to replace a fair bit of furniture, that couldn’t make the move.

It was a very busy week and unpacking took me well into the early hours of the morning. Once everything was unpacked and the walls were freshly painted, it really felt like home. A huge weight lifted from the past few months of uncertainty and stress. It was an incredible feeling.

What’s Next?

There is a list of things we would like to do, but creating a home is an ongoing and perhaps never ending project, but we are happy with how it’s coming along. We do need a few finishing touches like lamps, mirrors and rugs but that’s what Homesense is for! I can’t wait to decorate further and work on my garden some more. Having our home is a dream come true and we hope to get a dog very soon.

Buying a house is a major milestone and one I’ve dreamed about for a long time. I’m thrilled with our new home and excited for our future here. There is a lot of ways to go about buying a home. It can be a slow and frustrating process but getting the keys makes it all worthwhile. I am so grateful to our solicitors for all their help in understanding the process, finding a good solicitor can make the whole process easier. I highly recommend checking out the Money Saving Expert website for mortgage and home buying advice which I found to be invaluable resource. If you are in the process of buying a house, remember to ask for help and take your time. you will get there!