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We brought a house! Our experience as first time buyers.

Homeowners. It still sounds crazy to say that we are homeowners. I never really believed everyone when they said buying is house if the hardest thing you'll ever do - but now I understand why. But hard work pays off and now as I write this I'm sitting in our sunny garden almost a year since we moved in and yes theres alot of work to do in the house but we have all the time in world.


When we were starting to look at buying a house we didnt know where to start so we watched youtube videos and read blog posts. So I thought I'd make my own, considering I'm self employed there wasn't much information out there on buying a house being self employed.


The first thing to do I would say is before you start signing yourself up to Rightmove, Zoopla and registered with all the local estate agents is get your self an amazing Mortgage Advisor. I personally used Pete at My Mortgage Planner. Having a Mortgage Advisor is vital in my eyes as they will find the best offers for you and your circumstance.


If you're self employed you're going to need to provide 3 years of accounts to show your income. If you employed its 3 months of payslips. You'll then go through all of your deposit, outgoings etc, to find out how much you can borrow. You'll then get a (AIP) Agreement In Principle.



Now you have your AIP & you know what you can borrow the fun begins. We sat down and made a list of things we were non-negotiables and things that we were to bothered about. It was then a choice of new builds and non new builds, we went and looked at all the new build developments in the area - fun fact we actually put an offer on a new build but got turned down but that story is for another time. But ultimately we decided that new builds weren't for us.


Then we went on to look at non new builds, we ended up having a day off work to view about 6 houses. At the time when we were viewing houses (Feb/March 2023) houses were going on the market and being sold within days so we had to be quick about where we were going to look. The day came that we were going to look at all of these houses 4 out of the 6 houses had sold that day before or our veiwing got cancelled becasue there were too many people going to view them. So we were left with 2 houses to go see. The first house we went to view was lovely but I couldn't see us being there for very long and considering I had a business to think about I couldnt move it twice within a few years. So on to the second house, and when we arrived we parked further up the road as we walked to the door we thought from the outside it might be abit too small. But as we were walking around the house I secretly fell in love, it was like id walked in to a tardis! I knew as we left that, that house was the one, and I was hoping that Josh would feel the same. So we went to our local pub and went through both houses looking at our checklist and the photos and we both said we loved the second house. Funnily enought the estate agent then rung to say that an offer had been put on the second house, I was heartbroken as I knew that that was our house. So we told the estate agent that we did want to put an offer in however prior to doing that we wanted to come but for a second veiwng with my mum for a secodn opinion - the estate agent booked us in. After taking mum around the house we went home and I spoke to Pete our mortgage advisor and we decided on the first offer and a second offer I could go back with if our first offer was declined.


I never felt so sick waiting to hear back to see if our offer had been accepted. We heard back not long after saying that if we go could slightly higher we would be in a better chance of our offer being accepted as we were first time buyers. So I went back with our second offer and they told us we would hear within 24 hours. It was the longest 24 hours of my life!

So the next morning rolled round, I didnt get much sleep that night and Josh had just come home from a night shift and head gone to bed. I was due to start work at 9.30 and my phone rung at 9.15 to say our offer had been accepted and the house was now under offer with us and I woke Josh up with the squealing haha! Our offer got accepted on March 21st 2023.


So now our offer was accepted it was time to appoint a solicitor. Do your research and get quotes. I remember getting about 10/12 quotes and they all varied to 1k up to around 6k, dont forget to also read reviews and ask around your friend and family. Word of mouth is the best form of recommendations in my opinion. Your mortage advisor and estate agent will also recommend solicitors too but dont feel forced into going with them. We used Haywood Moon as they were well priced and I had heard and read great reviews.


Once we had appointed the solictior the clock started ticking. Within 24 hours the first stuffed envlope arrived with tons and I mean tons of paperwork. This is mainly contract between you and your solicitor and paperwork/evidence they require to start the legal side of the buying process on your behalf, to make sure there were no delayed I alwasy made sure to fill them in instantly (also the take copies - just in case) and rather than putting them in the post either myself, Josh or mum would hand deliver them to the solicitor office.


After returning this first lot of paper work you will be required to make your first payment to the solictor then second & final payment comes and the end when you exchange/complete. You wont hear from your solicitor for a little while as both side will be starting to work together.


In the meantime your Mortgage Advisor will prepare and send your mortgage application in. Be prepared this can take a while for your mortgage offer to come through as they can come back and ask for more paperwork and evidence. This is why I made sure to give my Mortgage Advisor all of my bank statements so there was never a delay on my end. What I didnt know at the time is when the mortgage company ask for more paperwork you then go to the bottom of the pile. Most lenders websites will have a page where they state what applications they are working on. Your Mortgage Advisor will be chasing the lender daily and will update you. The Mortgage Application was sent in on 17th April 2023.


As soon as the Mortgage application was sent I started getting quotes for surveys. Again get more than one quote and do your reasearch. We chose to go with Vikings Surveyors - we went for a RICS Homebuyer Report and this cost around £425.00. Our Survey was completed on 12th May 2023. You will also receive the search results from your solicitor these will be about local authority searches as well as drainage and water searches.


Every now and then you will hear from your solictior with where they are at, alot of paperwork my solicitor sent me was via email but paperwork I needed to fill in came via post. One thing I got excited about was recieving the Contents & Fitting form, this is where your seller goes through everything in the house that they are taking, leaving or offering to leave for extra cost. You can go back and forward with the extra costs if you wanted your seller to leave anything. After you solictior has got to a certain point in the transaction they will then send Enquires to your sellers solictior. Our Enquiries were sent on 5th May 2023 and they were answered on 15th June 2023.


Finally after what felt like forever we recieved our mortgage offer and of course we accepted it! Mortgage Offer was received on 12th May 2023.


After the enquiries are answered and your mortgage offer has come through it will most likely go quite for a while. Now is the time to start looking at Life Insurance, Critical Illness Cover & Income Protection - I would say this is essential for everyone especially those of you like me who are self-employed. You also should start getting Home Insurance quotes too.


We signed our Contracts on 22nd June 2023 - exciting we knew it was getting closer now and my poor mums house was starting to fill up with boxes and boxes of stuff we were ordering! By now you've usually started going back and forwards about the all important moving dates. I would also recommend starting to get moving van quotes at this point or quote from van hire. We rented an enterpise van for the weekend I think it was around £150.


We exchanged contracts on 9th August 2023 - when you exchange you must start your house insurance. On this day we then booked to have our wifi & tv fitted. We also ordered our fridge frezzer & dishwasher to come the day after completion just incase we didnt get in until late on the 11th.


Completion Day was 11th August 2023 - its a very exciting day but can be nerve racking as normally you dont get the keys until early afternoon so you can find yourself sitting around waiting for the phone call. We were super lucky though, Our solictior had emailed at 9am to say the funds has been send and they would call when we could collect the keys. Not long after at 9.30am we got the phone call that the house was now ours and we could collect the keys!


After all of this I would agree with saying its one of the hardest things we've done and we were only buying not selling and buying! Here are a few more tips


  • Stick to your guns and keep on at your solicitor in a nice way. Also if you find that the sellers solicitor is being slow go through the estate agent as they will want the sale to go through quickly so they can get paid!

  • As soon as you enter the house after getting the keys taking meter readings.

  • Have a box or bag full of things you may need as soon as you get in such as a kettle, mugs, tea, coffee, suagr, bin bags, sisscors, cleaning products, loo roll!

  • Be prepared for the first mortgage payment to be more money than you thought also due to the interest that is unpaid in the first few weeks of moving in.

  • Get lots of photos when you move in of all the empty rooms so you have memories to look back on.


I will do another blog post on hint and tips for house hunting soon as thats another thing that I could find much about online when we were looking.


I hope this helps guys!


xo


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