Big News: We Bought a House!
This post is something I never thought I'd be lucky enough to write, but we have some huge news to share. We have secretly been on the longest, most stressful journey of our lives trying to buy our first family home… and we've finally made it!
Trying to buy a house has not been without its issues - from having one lender pull out of providing our mortgage to the purchase of the first house we fell in love with falling through… but here we are. Finally. We picked up the keys, John carried me over the threshold and we officially became homeowners.
About the house
The house is in a bit of a state. The previous owner rented it out, and the tenants had no respect for the property - in fact they were evicted in the end. However, not before they ripped out carpet, stole doors, broke the bathroom sink and more.
It requires a fair amount of renovation to get it to a place where we can live in it, but we managed to get it £40k under the budget we set (based on the 15% deposit and mortgage in principle we asked for and received).
Looking on the bright side: we can put our own stamp on it.
Getting ready
Once we knew we had everything in place and we were waiting for our exchange and completion dates; we began getting stuff together. The house we are renting turned into a jumble sale as we continued to live around the bags and boxes I was packing ready to take the day we picked up the keys. I included things like homemade cleaners and tools we knew we'd need to get started on the renovations. Then it was just about waiting for the paperwork, dates and keys!
Offer to completion
We put in our offer on August 5th, and it was accepted on August 11th. A few weeks of surveys, paperwork and stress and everything seemed to be going fine - then we just hit a wall. We went weeks without hearing anything. Chasing the solicitor for news. Hoping and praying things would go ahead in time for us to get some work done on the house before John's holiday in October was over. Just when we thought it wouldn’t happen, we got the phone call we were waiting for… and from then on it all happened so quickly. We got the go ahead on October 20th, exchanged on October 22nd and then on October 28th we finally picked the keys up from the estate agent - giving us four days of John's holiday to get the renovations under way.
Safety first
There were a few things we did to make sure it was safe for us to get started. First, we changed the locks (talk about mucking in and getting your hands dirty, haha!) We also brought in an electrician and gas engineer to ensure the property is safe to use and be in. We also had smart meters installed, so hopefully we could keep bills down while we are renting one house and renovating another. Mostly, it was just all systems go from the start; spending every free moment getting the house cleaned, painted and ready for us to move in.
So, there you go. There will be a whole series of posts coming your way as we renovate and turn the shell of a house into our first family home… but for now let's enjoy the moment. We own a house!
For more blog posts on buying and renovating our Cumbrian home, check out my house renovations category here. Have you got ideas of house and home content you'd like to see? Feel free to share your ideas in the comments below.
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Check out the house we've bought, the day we picked up the keys and started our renovation journey!