Happy Home-iversary : How we got on the Property Ladder

· by · in Family. ·

This photo came up on my Timehop today – I can’t believe it’s been one year since we moved into our first property as homeowners! It’s quite a captured moment, when the little man moved his stuff in.
Moving in

Inspired by Mummascribbles’ fab post ‘It’s our home-iversary‘, I thought I would share our story of how we got on the property ladder. It’s quite a long story so here’s the short version if you’re in a rush:

SHORT VERSION:

1) Move back to parents’ house after university.
2) Start putting £500 of monthly wages into a savings account.
3) After 5 years, purchase a ‘Buy-to’Let’ property to rent out to students.
4) After getting married, get the London experience by renting in Brixton on a bills-inclusive deal.
5) After 4 years renting and a baby, move into in-laws while deciding where to live permanently.
6) Sell ‘Buy-to-Let’ property and put money towards a deposit.
7) Bulk up deposit with personal savings and extra funds from parents (on both sides).
8) Investigate areas and do house-viewings. Decide between do-it-up house projects or a new build.
9) Choose our area and go for a new build.
10) Move in to our first family home as home-owners!

LONG VERSION:

AFTER UNIVERSITY
I lived out when I was at uni and paid the rent myself with my wages from my weekend job at Birthdays the card shop. Being Asian, you are expected to move back home after uni, get a job and get married. Well I moved home and got a job. The married bit, I was like noooo I’m only 22! Living at home was good, I didn’t pay any rent and was able to save up. After 5 years, I was still nowhere near the ‘getting married’ stage, but had saved up enough money for a deposit to buy a property.

PURCHASE A ‘BUY-TO-LET’
Actually I lie, I was totally ready for getting married, but sadly my other half’s grandma had just passed away, and with a year of mourning, we had to put off wedding plans for a year. The thought of putting my life on hold for another year made me make my biggest impulse purchase ever, and I bought a 3-bedroom ex-council flat in Portsmouth! Why Portsmouth? Well I knew the area from growing up, as my closest cousins lived there, and you get a lot more for your money there. I rented the property out to students at nearby Portsmouth University, and although there was no profit, their rent payed the mortgage.

RENTING IN LONDON
Moving on 2 years, we did get married, and decided to rent in London. Knowing we would never be able to buy a property in London ever, we decided to rent for a few years so we had the experience of living in London. Luckily we found a bargain in Clapham/Brixton, where an elderly Jamaican man was renting out his one-bedroom basement apartment on Ferndale Road for only £825 per month including all bills! If you know London, you know this deal is rare! We loved our first married home, Tyler’s first home too, and we lived there for 4 happy years.

MOVING IN WITH IN-LAWS
When my maternity leave ended, we had to move closer to my mum as she was going to look after Tyler when I went to work. But we still had no idea of where to settle for our permanent home. So we moved into my mother-in-law’s home for a year. You would think we would have saved on money that year having no rent again, but it was so hard living in one bedroom that we went shopping all the time!

LANDLORD DISASTER!
A crazy thing happened a month in. I got a call from Portsmouth council saying they were going to do major works to the block that my student flat was in, and my share of the cost would be roughly £1800. At least I thought that’s what the woman said. The next day I got a letter saying my share of the bill was £18,000. That’s right – 18 THOUSAND POUNDS! I did not have that money. Seriously I wanted to cry. We didn’t even have our own home and suddenly I was expected to shell out £18,000 for somewhere I didn’t even live.

SELL THE BUY-TO-LET
I had to sell the flat, and luckily Christies Letting Agents who looked after my flat also had a sales department, and a they knew of a buyer who would buy it off me. My lifesavers! It wasn’t an easy sale, what with new landlord regulations coming in, I had to pay for lots of work to the flat before the sale went through. It took 6 months and I got just under what I paid, so not too much of a loss in the whole grand scheme of things.

BULK UP DEPOSIT
The money from the sale, together with help from our parents and more savings, meant we had a nice sized deposit. We still had to decide on where to live.

CHOOSING WHERE TO LIVE
One weekend we went to Windsor and LOVED it – it was like a mini-London outside of London, the tourists, shops, river, swans and most importantly polite kids with nice accents. This was where we wanted to bring up Tyler. A 20-minute drive from my parents, and 40 minutes from my in-laws – it was the perfect location. We looked at a few houses, and one that was really affordable turned out to be pre-fab – basically these houses were built quickly after the war and this one had steel foundations or something. Risky. Then the housing market went quiet, so house-hunting went on hold.

SHOULD WE TAKE A GAMBLE?
We had another mini-break near Christmas time in Birmingham. This city has just had a £500 million regeneration and it is just so vibrant now! We were really inspired by this city. We stayed in a 3rd floor apartment that Tyler loved, he was running in and out of the rooms, sitting by the window people-watching, just so happy. This made us decide that a new build apartment was more suitable for us, and we thought we’d take a gamble on an area that was about to be regenerated like Birmingham.

HOUSE-HUNTING
So we chose our area, near Windsor in Berkshire, and we looked at houses and new-build apartments. The houses all needed work doing, and one smelt so bad that the estate agents wouldn’t even go inside. Then we looked at these amazing new-build apartments, shown around by the most reluctant sales agent (he really hated his job!). But they had sold all the parking spaces, so there would be nowhere to park my car. No good. Then he said the block opposite was still being built and they would have parking spaces. They were going on sale in March 2014.

PICK OUR DREAM PROPERTY
We knew this was where we wanted to live, and I was checking their website daily to see if they were released yet. The weekend they were released, we went there on a Saturday morning and picked the best corner apartment – with a view of a railway station for Tyler, floor-to-ceiling windows, 2 bedrooms, bathroom, ensuite, brand new kitchen and appliances. It was such a gamble – we could only view it from the outside as they were still building it. We had the reluctant sales guy again, and we said we want it. We put our £1000 holding deposit down and 10 minutes later it was reserved for us! Quick or what!

THE BUYING PROCESS
My husband’s best mate’s ex-brother-in-law is a mortgage broker, so he got us a good deal, and we got £500 off the house price for using their recommended solicitor. A month later we paid 10% of our deposit and then a week later the rest of it (scary!). And then we got the keys!

MOVING IN!
We were the third family to move into our block – so it was like we had it all to ourselves – pretty cool. Slowly other neighbours moved in, it was like being at university halls, waiting to see who your neighbour was!

We felt like we were dreaming those first few months – our very own home at last, and such a luxury one too! I think you can probably guess the town we moved to. But if not, I will reveal all in next week’s post! Stay tuned 🙂

Sabrina x

34 responses to “Happy Home-iversary : How we got on the Property Ladder”

    • Hello neighbour 🙂 Oh I’m so glad you liked the post, I was a bit nervous posting it, like is it too much info?! It is so hard buying a property, we were so lucky to be able to live at our parents to save a bit. And then the only way we could afford it was to move to a less popular area – I think you can guess where as you’re a local! xx

      Like

  2. It’s so difficult now getting on the property ladder isn’t it??!! We bought our first place back in 2009 and just moved from a two bedroom flat to a four bedroom house so it’s all worth it! Not sure what we’ll do when the interest rates go up but let’s worry about that when it happens!! #mycapturedmoment

    Like

    • Oh yes it is so hard! I’m so glad we finally did it, even if it took a long time! That’s brilliant you’ve moved to a 4-bed, must be a lovely family home now. Yes, no point worrying, it might not even happen 🙂 xx

      Like

  3. We’ve just had our one year home-i-versary too. It is the second place we have owned together but our first house, as we had a flat before. Our route to being homeowners wasn’t as exciting as yours though. £18,000?!?!?!?! I would have fainted. Good job you managed to get out of that one! x

    #mycapturedmoment

    Like

    • Ooh happy home-iversary! That’s great you’ve moved to a house now, must feel very grown-up! Oh gosh, I did nearly faint, the biggest shock of my life. I still can’t believe they expected ordinary home-owners to pay that. Terrible! I feel so grateful that I was able to sell it! xx

      Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you so much, I’m so glad you liked it. I was worried if I was writing too much waffle! I’m so happy a year later, it still feels like a dream! xx

      Like

  5. I love this post! We must have bith moved into our new builds at around the same time last year, ours still isn’t finished 😦 but we are in our dream location too and so feel luck to be here. Congratulations on your new home – iversary xx

    Like

    • Thank you! Oh wow, happy home-iversary to you too! Can’t believe yours still isn’t finished, hopefully will be soon, fingers crossed. It is lovely having your own home – enjoy! xx

      Liked by 1 person

  6. You went on such an interesting journey!! We really want to buy a house but we don’t think we will ever be able to if prices stay the way they are!! xx

    Like

    • Yes it really does feel like a journey! I know prices are ridiculous, we have had to move to a less popular area to afford to. Hopefully one day you can! xx

      Like

  7. Owning your own home is one of the best feelings in the world! I know it comes with a massive debt and responsibility but I remember feeling so proud when I opened the door and stepped into my first house. Great post and fab captured moment!! Thanks for linking up to #MyCapturedMoment xxx

    Like

  8. Aww love this – it’s so challenging these days to own properties so I completely understand how exciting it must have been and great to do so much research too! Your home sounds lovely 🙂 I’ve been renting in London since 2002 and my husband finally bought our home here last year, it took so long because I had my heart set on buying a big old house here. Now all the work to repair it lies ahead of us … 😦 X #TheList

    Like

    • Thank you. Oh yes it is so hard, I’ve so relieved we’ve finally done it. Wow you’ve been in London a long time! You must be so happy to have bought your home – sounds exciting that you have to do it up. You have to do some before and after photos! xx

      Like

  10. Pingback: Me and Mine – May 2015 |·

  11. Wow, what a journey you’ve been on. My husband had issues when he went through his divorce before he met me so it will still be a few years before we can get on the property ladder, but this is an exciting read. It’s so worth the journey. Happy Home -iversary xxx #sharewithme

    Like

  12. Great post! I am a little confused about why you didn’t buy a house to live in yourself instead of the buy to rent. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business, I’m just curious :). Congratulations on your one year homiversary! #MMWBH

    Like

    • Thank you 🙂 Ahh, I would have loved to have bought my own place, but it’s an Asian psycho parents thing – you are not allowed to move out until you are married -ugh! Hence the reason I really wanted to get married! And then the second reason is that I could not afford to buy in my area on my own – London prices! – so that’s why I thought I’d invest while I was waiting around, and I could only afford around the coast or up North. In hindsight, I am grateful they made me live at home, at least I could save for the bigger deposit, so it all worked out 🙂 xx

      Like

  14. Happy home anniversary :). It’s such an awesome feeling when you own your own home. I remember moving into our first house (which we are still in), and feeling a bit weird that it was actually ours!! But after awhile you settle in and it’s all good 🙂
    #TwinklyTuesday

    Like

  15. Happy home-iversary! Thanks again for the mention lovely! Isn’t it a wonderful feeling, finally getting your hands on the keys to your very own house. I hated moving from place to place and wanted to be settled somewhere in time for Zach starting school. So happy where we are and I love our little house, even though I want to decorate and can’t afford it hehe! Thanks so much for linking up with #TwinklyTuesday

    Like

    • Thank you! And thank you for the inspiration. I think you’ve invented a new word now, everyone’s saying ‘Home-iversary’ now! It is so nice to be settled down, and I’m the same, wanted to be settled before starting schoolrun and all that grown-up stuff – ugh. Ahh, do the decorating bit by bit, I know what you mean, it all costs money! xx

      Like

  16. Pingback: Why we moved to Slough |·

  17. Pingback: Our First Year as Homeowners #HistoryOfMyHome | The Mummy Stylist·

  18. Hi Sabrina
    Thanks for sharing this, it’s always interesting learning about other people’s buying process, particularly with kids!
    We’ve now decided to buy in slough and leave the rented house in Windsor.
    There’s so much regeneration and the cross rail, looks like the Shopping centre is being put in later this year for approval, as you say it’s competing with Westfield!
    So I want your thoughts please!
    We’re seeing flats in beechwood gardens and a house in balsham court, park st this weekend. Then Windsor Rd and dove house crescent next.
    Any thoughts?
    Thanks so much!!!

    Like

    • Hi Erin, that’s great you’ve decided to buy. Yes it’s all regeneration here, but the shopping centre plans are back to the drawing board so be prepared to wait on that. Park Street is full of beautiful character houses, you’ll get a feel once you visit. Obviously if you do get a house, make sure you invest in security – that’s the same in any area though. There’s some lovely new build flats on Windsor Road and it’s very easy to get into town from there. Good luck with your search! Sabrina x

      Like

Leave a comment