It still feels so weird to say, but in a weird time in my life, during a pandemic, against the odds and all that jazz….I bought a house! I’m so proud to say that I’ve been able to get on the property ladder in my twenties, and as a solo home buyer! I was absolutely devouring blogs and forums during the house buying process, so I thought I’d put this blog out there in the hope it can help someone. As much as there’s loads of useful advice out there I just found reading about people’s progress really helpful!
Saving up for a deposit
Now I will say, I am totally aware that the combination of my living situation, lifestyle choices and money saving habits all come from a place of privilege, so please don’t think I’m ignorant to this. However, I thought I’d give a few pointers on how I saved up for a deposit.
Obviously getting your deposit together is the biggest stage of preparing to buy a house, and during the pandemic, the amount you were expected to put towards your house deposit changed. Where in previous years 95% mortgages were available, meaning you only needed to put down 5% deposit, 2020 saw most lenders expect you to put down 15% deposit.
I was saving for a house deposit seriously for around 6 years. A chunk of my deposit was saved in a Government Help To Buy ISA via my bank Nationwide. The scheme launched on 1 December 2015, and the idea was you could save up to £200 a month into the account, which the government would top up by 25%, up to a maximum of £3,000., when you were ready to buy your house. Since opening it, I managed to save over £12000, which meant the government topped that up to £15000.
The Help To Buy ISA scheme is now closed, however there is a Lifetime ISA which you can use towards your house deposit. In this account you can put in up to £4,000 each year, and then the government will add a 25% bonus to your savings, up to a maximum of £1,000 per year. It’s a good scheme and with interest rates as dire as they are at the moment, worth setting up.
The rest of my mortgage came from regular saving and savvy spending. in terms of saving, I’ve always lived with my parents, and while I pay them a Bed & Board cost, it wasn’t very much. That meant I always aimed to put around 30% of my monthly salary into savings, logic being that number amounted to what I’d in theory pay for city centre rent. My mum and I are both big Money Saving Expert fans as well, which meant over the years I used the advice from there to optimise what saving accounts and ISAs I was using.
In terms of savvy spending, I’m not massively into cars, or having the latest phones, which means I tend to save up and buy outright rather than on contract, which saves money in the long run. I’m also not hugely into designer brands and get a lot of my clothes from supermarkets and Primark, meaning my clothes budget has been fairly low. I buy online where I can to ensure I can either get cashback from tools like Quidco* (Refer a friend link) and TopCashback* (Refer a friend link), or use discount codes on things like Honey* (Refer a friend link). Check out my blog on how I earn cashback on things like holiday bookings – I also used cashback to get some good money back on things like Broadband and other house purchases!
Working out affordability
This is something your mortgage broker will go through with you, but it’s worth doing the maths yourself before you start looking seriously at houses.
Use a mortgage calculator like this one from The Money Advice Service to look at what your monthly mortgage payments are likely to look like. Then break down your monthly income and spends to see if you’d be able to afford it. Get out those credit card/debit card/PayPal statements and go through EVERYTHING you are spending. For one, it’s a really good way of identifying where you could save money – whether it’s the gym membership you’re not using or those Pret croissants you don’t really need when there’s a ham and cheese sandwich going warm in your bag.
Mortgage companies will want to look at your last 3 months of bank statements, so if you’re planning on cutting some costs it’s worth doing it a few months before. Having said that, don’t go cancelling things to make it look like you can afford more than you’ll be able to.
As well as working out what you can afford in mortgage payments, of course you’ll need to take into account all the other costs that come with having a house like
- Gas & electric
- Broadband & House phone
- Home & contents insurance
- Life Insurance
- Council Tax
- TV licence
- Plus of course any big purchases you might need to pay monthly for, like sofas or white goods
Once you’ve figured out what you can afford, you can start looking for houses in your budget.
Finding the one!
After years of scrawling through Rightmove filtering top prices first and lusting after huge manor type houses with pools and tennis courts, I started seriously looking for houses in September 2020, just after my 27th birthday. Quarter life crisis and all that!
I’d always thought my first property would be a flat. Housesitting on my own while my parents were cruising always felt a bit overwhelming, like the house was too big for just me, so I thought as I’d be living on my own a flat would be plenty. However by the time I started looking at properties, the idea of what I wanted had changed significantly, thanks to lockdown. Despite not being particularly interested in gardening, being stuck at home during lockdown 1.0 in a beautifully sunny garden made me realise I really did want a decent amount of outdoor space. Nothing fancy, but more than a small balcony. With that in mind, I started looking for 2 bed semi detacheds and end terraces. The first property I went to see was a 2 bed semi on a lovely tree filled estate on the other side of the town I’m from. It was gorgeous, almost perfect, but the kitchen size meant there really wasn’t much dining space. You could just about squeeze a two person dining table in. This ended up being a bit of a pattern – lots of houses perfect for one person, but with no space to have people round – I’m not talking house parties here, I’m talking just one or two people!
A few viewings later, I realised that the two bed houses in the area just weren’t quite big enough in the kitchen area, so I started looking at some 3 bed houses. Although I had a look at some new builds, I was generally looking at estates built in the last 10 years, mainly so I didn’t have to deal with snagging, but also because there’s plenty of these estates nearby.
Fast forward to February 2021 after looking at properties on and off, I’d spotted one on a nearby estate that was a newish build over three stories. I hadn’t looked at any townhouses so thought it was worth a look. My mum has spotted another three bed semi in the paper that looked really nice on the online 3D viewing, so we booked to see them one after the other. So, off we went to see the two. The first wasn’t hitting the spot but second was…well, a bit love at first site. People say you just know, and I think I did.
After looking round, mum and I walked back to the car and got in in silence. There was a bit of a pause.
Mum: “Well…that was beautiful wasn’t it?”
Me: “….I think that’s my house”
So it was that. Twenty minutes later, in the Free From aisle of Morrisons, I rang and placed an offer.
I went in at £5k below the asking price, but as the price had recently dropped I think I knew they probably wouldn’t take it. Sure enough about an hour later, I had confirmation via email that the offer had been rejected. I rang the estate agent back immediately and offered the asking price, and around half an hour later, had the call to say it had been accepted. All systems go!
Finding a mortgage broker & solicitors
I’d spoken to a few mortgage brokers prior to making an offer in order to get a Mortage in Principle – this is basically a certificate to say that in theory you’ll be able to get a mortgage for a certain amount. Some estate agents want you to have a MIP in place before they’ll let you book viewings, basically to rule out time wasters. Lots of estate agents will point you to mortage brokers and financial advisors that they “recommend”, but these brokers often charge hefty fees. I’d got my MIP from London & Country, who are a free mortgage broker with a mainly online service.
Check out your options for mortgages with L&C here
Once I’d had the offer accepted, I contacted L&C to start the process of applying for the mortgage. I was assigned a mortgage advisor and had to provide lots of information about my finances to work out exactly what I could get.
I also had to arrange solicitors. Now, I think usually it’s the done thing to use a local solicitors, however during lockdown with everything done over phone and email, it didn’t matter as much – if you are buying during lockdown, look at conveyancing solicitors further afield. I ended up paying £826.80 in conveyancing fees, which included legal fees, Land Registry Fees, searches, HTB ISA fees and other nominal fees for admin costs. This was already a lot cheaper than other quotes I’d got – I also got £500 cashback on my mortgage which went towards solicitors fees, so that was great.
Now, after much excitement, and me letting the cat out of the bag about it to a few friends, the mortgage broker explained that they couldn’t quite offer the full amount on my Mortgage in Principle document. This is because the MIP tends to be a simple calculation without taking your full financial situation into account. Because of the cost of the house I was buying combined with what I could get on a mortgage, I knew early on in the process that I’d need to put down a 22% deposit. Thankfully, I had enough saved to do this, although it wiped out more of my savings than planned.
The Timeline
With mortgage applications submitted and solicitors instructed, it was all systems go. I was in a lot of first time buyers Facebook groups sharing some absolute horror stories, but my timeline was really straight forward at 11 weeks.
This was possibly helped by being in a fairly short chain. I as a first time buyer was moving into House A, the sellers of House A were moving into House B, and the sellers of House B were moving to House C which was a new build.
I know a lot of people like to see timelines, so here’s what mine looked like:
- 13th February – First viewing, made two offers, had second offer accepted.
- 19th February – Mortage application with L&C broker & instructed solicitors
- 7th March – Second viewing
- 19th March – Received mortgage offer and sent off for searches
- 6th April – Searches back and enquiries sent
- 13th April – Enquiries back
- 14th April – Received completion date
- 23rd April – Contract signed, scanned to solictors and sent off in post
- 26th April – Formally exchanged and deposit sent to solicitors – AARGH!
- 29th April – Completion!
And that brings us to now! I have bricks and tiles and a garden and a little shed all of my own! There’s a bit of work to do to make it my own, and god knows when I’ll finish collecting together all the furniture I need, but it’s mine, and I can’t wait to make some memories!
