Diary of a first-time buyer: ‘Five brokers, four offers – but at last I’m a homeowner’ | First-time buyers

I started looking into buying a property in June 2022 – partly driven by my parents, who thought the £2,040 a month I was paying in rent was ridiculous. They weren’t wrong.

I knew I would love to own somewhere, but from listening to the news and what I knew of the London housing market, I thought it was out of my reach.

Despite the odd treat from me to me, the one thing I’ve always been is a good saver. I had been saving regularly via a direct debit from my current to my savings account the day after payday. Over my four or so years living in London I had saved up a modest deposit of £25,000. I knew I needed at least £5,000 more to be considered a serious first-time buyer in the capital. Four months later, I started my search. But that was just the beginning – landing a property was harder than I imagined.

October 2022

I found a flat – a one-bedroom property at under £300,000 in Acton, west London. It came with what I thought was a long lease of 150 years. Naively, I thought all the viewings were over.

Having jumped through the hoops needed to get a mortgage offer – I wouldn’t have been surprised if my broker had asked for a blood sample – I got one roughly equal to 3.5 times my salary from Co-operative Bank. Finding a good mortgage adviser or broker was key. My advice to other first-time buyers is to never feel duty-bound to one broker: if they can’t get you what you need, search for another. I asked for recommendations from friends and friends of friends. Like most people my age, I find almost everything on the internet but, in this instance, word of mouth was the way to go.

With my mortgage as locked down as it could be, I instructed a solicitor. Throughout the buying process a solicitor is necessary as they take charge of the legalities of the sale.

Telling mine to chase the seller, the seller’s solicitor or the estate agent and asking them to act quicker on getting the sale through were some of the most challenging and confronting moments for me.

Solicitors typically work on several property sales at once and, despite how important an individual sale may be to the buyer, you are one of many to a solicitor. Even if it isn’t in your nature – and it isn’t in mine – you need to be pushy.

November 2022

Six weeks in, the seller decided the sale was taking too long and he pulled out. This was upsetting, infuriating and meant I had wasted a lot of time and money. I had already paid my solicitor £1,000.

There was no recourse for me, as buyers have virtually no rights or protection until contracts are exchanged, which is near the end of the process. Until that point the seller is perfectly entitled to pull out without consequences. In the UK, it’s a given that a property sale will take up to three months to complete. Pulling out after a month, citing the sale was taking too long, was unreasonable.

Begrudgingly, I started looking again. The pickings were slim – a lot of properties required work beyond the capabilities and budgets of a first-time buyer.

January 2023

I’ve found another one-bedroom flat in Acton under £300,000. Mortgage, signed and sealed. Solicitors, instructed. A done deal? No. The tenant who was renting the flat refused to leave, which delayed the sale. Having rented for four years, I felt for him, so I accepted the delay.

However, at the beginning of April the sales progressor, who worked at the estate agency, told me I should pull out of the sale because the sellers hadn’t been honest. After several phone calls with the estate agent, on the advice of my solicitor I withdrew from the sale. The estate agency refunded the £2,000 reservation fee on the flat. I had paid my solicitors £600, which was non-refundable.

June 2023

Now in the middle of training for an Ironman triathlon, being physically exhausted was the norm, paired with the mental exhaustion from the property search. I ventured away from west London and looked around the Greenwich area, where I placed an offer on yet another flat.

The problem was that the service charge was more than 1% of the value of the property. Lenders are reluctant to grant mortgages on properties with service charges this large.

Mine was willing to grant me a mortgage as I had saved a good deposit, but my solicitor rightly advised against the purchase as it wasn’t a good resale option. I felt less emotional about dropping out this time – the preceding two unsuccessful sales had galvanised me.

October 2023

Some friends had suggested I take a break and wait for the market to get better, but I knew this was my time to buy. The only other option was to continue renting and paying about double what my mortgage repayments would be.

Chloe Lau, a legal consultant who bought her first flat in mid-2023, says: “There’s no ‘right’ time to buy. If you plan on buying, start window shopping, researching and attending viewings. Don’t wait for a lease to end, interest rates or market prices to improve.”

With one Ironman under my belt and a second booked, I looked beyond London for quieter roads to cycle and run on, but hoped for somewhere that was still on the Elizabeth line.

In Maidenhead, I found a new-build property with a 999-year lease. Given the market, and because I was chain-free – as first-time buyers usually are– I was able to negotiate £40,000 off the sale price.

I’ve opted to arrange my mortgage over a 40-year term to make the payments more affordable, but I am hoping that later I can pay off lump sums and reduce the term.

Jack Morgridge, a partner at the estate agency Knight Frank in Marylebone, says: “Sellers love chain-free buyers, so ensure you are able to capitalise on this position with your readiness to place an offer.”

Starting the mortgage application process again was frustrating. My statements were scrutinised more than my previous mortgage applications. Banks asked me if I’d be willing to cancel “non-essential” outgoings, such as my health insurance and pension contributions. Surely, cancelling these will limit my ability to pay off my mortgage down the line, so I refused.

There was no attention paid to the fact that my monthly rent was £2,040, which I always paid on time, while my mortgage repayments would be £1,040. As I refused to cancel my health insurance, my mortgage was reduced by £3,000. Thankfully rates had reduced slightly, and I was offered a mortgage with a rate of 4.54%.

During the months of the usual back and forth between my solicitor and the estate agent, it felt as if I was acting as a mediator between two fighting children. Trust your own voice with these people – speak up if you need to, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable you feel.

Compared with the rest of the process, things moved quickly during the final two weeks leading to the exchange of contracts, transfer of funds and completion of the sale.

February 2024

I’m finally moving into my new flat! Remember: the money doesn’t stop flowing out freely once the sale is completed. I’ve kept about £10,000 for furnishing the property and getting it set up to live in, from plates to bedclothes to mops. All these things add up quickly. On top of these costs, paying my solicitor fees, which were £3,400, was also a hit, as well as the £1,200 yearly service charge for the building. As exciting as all this new furniture is, my new triathlon bike will take pride of place in the flat.

Although it is my home, it’s been a team effort to get here. While estate agents, my solicitor and all the mortgage brokers I used (five in total) provided me with great practical advice, my parents and Ashleigh, the office manager at my workplace, were there from beginning to end.

Morgridge says such support is vital. “When you have a clear picture of what your requirements are, focus your attention on the professional team around you,” he says. “Ask friends, family or your estate agent for recommendations for lawyers and surveyors.”

I consider myself privileged and lucky to come out the other end of this process with a flat of my own, but I feel despair about the property market – and economy in general – for people of my generation. Huge strides need to be made to enable people who desperately want to buy a home to do so. In the meantime, I need to continue furnishing this flat.