Lifestyle: Becoming First Time Buyers!
At my age, I look around and I see people, much younger than me, setting out to become first time buyers. Couples in their twenties being able to provide a hefty down payment on a deposit on a new build home. It’s exciting for them, don’t get me wrong. And I guess what I am trying to really say is, you don’t have to be in your twenties to be a first time buyer. Sometimes, it’s just not in your stars to be in that situation, you know? Sure, your life insurance is a little pricier than what it would have been 20 yrs ago, but that’s to be expected. And without me waffling on too much, I am excited to share, that my Husband and I are “finally” first time buyers. In our mid 30s and early 40s.
We were mortgage approved in May 2022 and we had our offer accepted in August 2022. And here we are, in mid March and only now on the cusp of signing the contracts! Ours has been a very long process due to our vendor being in a chain {we are not} and things falling through for them, etc. So a lot of patience has been needed over the last lot of months. But the light of the tunnel is in sight!
They say that becoming a first time homeowner, it will be one of the most stressful experiences of your life. Right up there with the whole moving house process! Which we can all agree on is the pits, right? Right! And yes, this process has been a testing time, I cannot deny that but that’s normal as you’re not just going out to buy a can of sweetcorn here. You’re buying a whole house. A huge financial agreement. For years!
Buying our first home!
The house we have bought and soon to sign the contracts on is quirky to say the least! It is a little smaller than the house we have rented for the last 12 years, but it will be ours. So I am excited to minimise our lifestyle and utilise every storage hack pinterest has to offer! As well as being able to flip the bird to our dickhead of a landlord! He has done nothing but cause us frustration and misery from day dot and why didn’t we move sooner might you be asking? Because the choice of houses in our area, which we needed to stay in, was non-existent. So we had no choice, sadly.
Just as a side bar, if you are in the Belfast area and looking for a mortgage advisor, we recommend Northern Mortgages. Rachel in particular was incredibly helpful and put our minds at ease every step of the way. As for solicitors, we used Armstrong solicitors, in Glengormley.
Fast forward 6 months since starting this draft…
We’re in our own home!
Our experience did not come without its stresses. I mean, buying a house is never a smooth process and if it was for you? Kudos. But for 99% of the rest of us, you age 5yrs just having to sign all of the paperwork! But, we are in. Everything went as you’d expect, it was chaotic, stressful, the moving out and then in, the settling in period. The list goes on!
We’ve been in our own home now for three months and from that first night? It felt like home. Even though, the afternoon we got the keys, was an hour or two after the previous owners had just moved out. And when I tell you they left a mess! It took a team of us to deep clean the house from top to bottom, for it to be anyway habitable. You wonder how people allow homes to get that dirty, you know?
Are we still surrounded in boxes? Yes! But thankfully we have an amazing garage space to store it all until it’s needed {or chucked out!}. We are taking our time decorating our home, as we want to get it just right. I mean, after being here for three months, I am only now having the chance to put some paint on the walls in the living room! You can follow me on Instagram, for snippets of what I am doing around the home.
Previous post with similar topic: 5 things to consider when buying your first home
