Fielding advice from well meaning friends and family

“I understand why you’re doing it but have you truly considered the costs?” a well meaning family member messages me.

Although I know that their concern is coming from a good place, I can’t help but feel a tiny bit resentful at their question, as if they have assumed that we haven’t spent months crunching the numbers to make sure we can afford this life-changing decision.

Mortgage broker or go it alone?

Last post I told you all the very exciting news about getting our offer accepted on a property we had viewed.  Almost immediately, the ball started rolling and we were asked to fill in forms telling the estate agent who our solicitor was and where we were getting our mortgage.

One of the reasons I started to blog about our home buying journey was to try and get my head around the process and all of a sudden we found ourselves having to make very big decisions in a very short space of time, including how we apply for the mortgage.

I hope this post will give you a brief introduction into what mortgage brokers are, how they can help you, where to find one and whether you should instead apply for a mortgage on your own.

Like A Rolling Stone

So much has happened in the past month that I didn’t really know where to begin! I was going to break it all down into smaller posts but that has just led me to procrastinate typing it all up so I’m going to just write it all in this post!

3 Reasons Your House Offer Could Be Rejected

Last blog I shared our adventures in house hunting.  We saw three properties and liked one of them enough to make an offer.  Unfortunately, after a few days deliberation we received news from the estate agent that the vendors had moved forward with somebody else’s offer.

Having reflected on it, I’m not too surprised at this outcome and there are definitely a few things we’re going to do differently next time.

House hunting, part 1: A tale of three houses

As I mentioned last week, we lined up a few viewings last Friday.  We were looking within a town about half an hour drive from my husband’s family.  We quite like this town as it has all the amenities that you need but the town centre still looks delightfully traditional and isn’t too busy to walk around (as much as I love London, the sheer amount of people can occasionally be overwhelming).  My father-in-law came along too for moral and practical support.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, perfect for a day out. We viewed three properties that all cost the same, but were vastly different from each other.

Are we ready to buy a house?

I was exploring Pinterest the other evening and found a thoughtful article by Kristina a few years ago at Cents + Order about the questions you should ask yourself before buying your first home.  I took some time to ponder them and my answers are below.

Reflecting on our experience of Shared Parental Leave

On Friday my husband spent his last day at home caring for our son.  This week our little boy started with his childminder and my husband returned to work.  He’d met up with his colleagues for after work drinks on the Thursday and had a chat with his managers about his role returning to the company.

I’ve taken some time to reflect over the past 10 months of our shared parental journey and share my thoughts with you.

Building up momentum – house viewings and free money!

Before I continue, I should probably explain the ‘free money’ part of my post before people begin to think I’m running some kind of give away!

You may recall in a previous post how we had filled our Lifetime ISA.  This is a special account that you can use for the purchase of your first home or retirement.  You can save up to £4000 in it each financial year and the government will top up the balance by 25%.  Well, we just received the bonus today, it was a good feeling! Even better was that for this first year you could transfer your Help to Buy ISA and receive the bonus on that amount too.  It has given our house deposit fund a good boost.

What is an Agreement in Principle (AIP) and why do I need one when buying a property?

The more I learn about the home buying process, the more I think it’s all about the acronyms.  In most of the research I’ve done, the first step of the home buying process, before you even begin to view properties, is proving that your lender MIGHT lend you the money to buy a house.  This is called an Agreement in Principle (AIP), but also can be called a Decision in Principle (DIP), Mortgage Promise or Lending Certificate.

Things I learnt when my brother-in-law moved to Denmark

Two weeks ago we said farewell to my brother in law who has finally made the move to be with his long-term girlfriend in Denmark.  They have been long distance for almost the entirety of their relationship so it’s great to finally see them living together.  Now that he has somewhat settled into his new home, I had a chance to reflect on what his life changing move has had on us.