This is a collaborative post: Buying your first home after renting can be very exciting. With so many properties on the market and prices still rising for 2022, it can also be a tough market, especially for first-time buyers who don’t have much experience with how the property market works. This post has some simple tips for first-time buyers to get their foot on the property ladder in 2022.
Secure Funding First
You might be tempting to get straight out to meet with estate agents to to start browsing through property listings online, like BuyAssociation, but there’s no point in starting to do this if you haven’t got the funds for your mortgage secured. The property that you want is likely to have been snapped up before you can get your funds in place.
Can You Afford The Fees?
There are a lot of costs that come with buying a house, that aren’t all covered by your mortgage and will need to be paid upfront out of your savings or deposits. Make sure you allow for these. These costs could include:
- Deposit
- Conveyancing fees
- Survey costs
- Mortgage broker fees
- Estate agent fees
What Is Your Budget?
It can be very easy to get excited and get carried away when you buy your first home, but buying a house can have massive implications for your finances if you don’t have a clear limit on what you can and can’t afford. Know your budget and do your figures. Know what you can afford to put down as a deposit, what price point you can go to when you look at houses, and what you have for other expenses. This isn’t a good time to run up costs that you can’t afford.
Know What You Don’t Want
Everyone wants to find a property that they love, but this can’t be quantified. You can have a wishlist with the ideal things you want in a home, but knowing what you don’t want as well can also help you to narrow down your search. This could be knowing you don’t want to live in a certain area or that you don’t want an open-plan living space.
Know Your Costs
When you move into a new house, it can be a good idea to ask the current owners about the cost of living there. Knowing this can help you to budget for your daily expenses and work out if you can comfortably afford your mortgage, and your other costs, like council tax and energy bills, and any maintenance fees or service charges.
Be Open
When you look for a home, be open to the possibilities of how a house might look with your own decor and furniture. People often struggle to see past the current style of a property and are put off by the current owner’s stuff. Once all this stuff has been moved out, you can make any structural or decor changes that you want to make it your dream home and somewhere you will love living.