own my own home

Turns out, I forgot to come back and keep everything updated (hence the numerous updates today).

We eventually moved into our house on January 14th 2006 and have spent the last 8 months trying to get it in some sort of order. Since moving in we have completely redone the bathroom and living room and almost finished decorating a nursery for our new arrival. The kitchen needs no work and the two other bedrooms and hallway can wait until next year.

It’s fantastic having our own place and, after living in a ground-floor flat for 4 years, running up and down the stairs in our house has certainly provided some additional exercise!

Next Monday we’re off to the solicitors to sign the contracts for our new house, which will hopefully mean we are in by Christmas. I’ve spent the last few days looking at bathroom suites and paint charts and tidying out the flat in preparation for the big move.

Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly

We finally found a house we like and after getting the mortgage details all sorted, put an offer in last week. We went £4,000 under the asking price and they accepted! They also said if we offered an extra £500, we’d get the carpets, etc, as well, so we did. Am very happy and now trying to sort everything out. I hope the next few months are smooth. It’d be lovely to move in before Christmas.

After chatting to a mortgage advisor recently, we’ve decided to start looking now, simply because it’ll probably take a while. We’ve got a preliminary mortgage offer now, which gives us a much better idea of how much we can afford and have so far looked at three houses.

The first was OK, but not a great area and I didn’t feel all that comfortable there. We need somewhere where we both feel comfortable raising a family and this wasn’t it. Aside from that, the house was nice enough but the kitchen was a little small, it needed new carpets throughout most of the house and the bedrooms weren’t a great size.

The third house was, imo, a little overpriced. Yes, they were in the process of fitting a new kitchen but the central heating was only partial, the bathroom suite would need ripping out and replacing and there was no shower. Plus, again, some of the carpets needed replacing and it was across the road from a school with no off-road parking. We don’t have a car at the moment, but will do probably in the future, so this is a consideration.

The second house was our favourite so far. It’s a little way out from the city centre and is in a very quiet area. The rooms were all big enough and there was central heating throughout. My main reason for viewing was the garden. It was beautiful and the owner had obviously spent a lot of time on it. It was also big enough to add a conservatory on the back at a later date if we wanted. The kitchen was a little smaller than I’d like but it was nice and wouldn’t need replacing any time soon.

So far, the second is our favourite. I’ll be ringing the agents later to register definite interest and gauge how much other interest there has been.

Between my DH and myself, we now have around £3,300 saved for a deposit. I’ve been looking at houses in the area and, for a 5% deposit, we will probably need an extra £1000, which is only £500 each in six months, totally doable.

We hope to start looking in October.