I was lucky enough to purchase my first property in May 2023. It’s a really exciting time but also a whole new world to understand. At the time I made some notes of what we learned during the process, here they are:

The start of the process

• Get a good mortgage advisor – they have access to more deals, they can shop around for you and do a lot of the hard work, they’ll even submit your mortgage application. Ours was paid through the lending company so we didn’t need to pay them ourselves.
• Get a good solicitor from a personal recommendation – lots of friends we asked did not recommend their solicitor! Nothing is cheap about buying a house and it’s worthwhile not to cheap out on this. We got a good recommendation from someone who had recently bought in Bristol. Our solicitor was incredibly rapid on emails which was very helpful, and was based in the same city in which we bought which makes it easier for ID checks and such.
• Remember that you will need to save for more than just the house deposit – solicitor fees, surveyor fees, building insurance and potentially mortgage fees and stamp duty too.

Viewings

• It’s a good idea to get a ‘Mortgage Agreement in Principle’ before going to viewings to demonstrate that you’re a serious buyer.
• When booking property viewings, ask the estate agent how many viewings the property has had so far, if any offers are in, and the owner’s reason for selling. The more context you have the better and it gives you an idea of how desirable the property is.
• Remember that you can change a lot about a property but you can never change its location!
• Always do a second viewing if you are thinking of making an offer. You want to make sure you love the property as much as you did the first time, but also check out practicalities such as water pressure, radiators and take a closer look at the structure (any cracks, damp etc). Take your time.
• Consider making a decision matrix for comparing properties – this can really help  identify what is important to you, what you value most, and what areas you are happy to compromise on.

Making offers

• Before making an offer make sure you’ve got everything in order – you’ve selected a solicitor, your mortgage advisor has run the numbers for you, you’ve spoken to parents or anyone else important to you and you feel confident at this stage that the property would be a good investment. If your offer is accepted, you will need to complete ID checks from the estate agent and show proof of deposit so make sure you have paperwork at the ready such as recent bank statements, payslips, proof of address.
• If you are renting then your only proof of address may come from a council tax bill – you may need to go online and request the local council posts you one with a recent date. This can take a few days to come through.
• Being a first time buyer has a lot of advantages – you are chain free which is very attractive to sellers and might mean they’ll accept a lower offer. There are lots of different approaches to making offers, but if you make your first offer low it shows you’re interested, you can see how it sits and then increase it after that. It gets the conversation started.
• If your offer is accepted, this is definitely exciting but there’s still a long way to go – getting a mortgage offer, having a survey done, legal searches and so on. The process is not legally binding until you have exchanged contracts, so either party can pull out prior to this point.
• Get a L2 survey – this is a bit more depth than L1 and particularly important if you are buying a slightly older property. For us it highlighted a number of things we wouldn’t have otherwise known about and ultimately meant we didn’t proceed with the first property that we had an offer accepted on. The cost of a survey is small relative to how much you are paying for a house.
• The estate agents are being paid for by the sellers so they will be doing everything with the seller’s interests as the priority. They may try to downplay your survey – take everything they say with a pinch of salt. Get as much information as you can and make decisions based on what is best for you, not for anyone else. Your solicitor can also get hold of information through the seller’s solicitor.
• Surveyors get booked up in advance. While you don’t want to pay for any surveys before you’ve had a mortgage offer made, it may be worth booking in a survey in advance and then paying for it nearer the time once you’ve had the offer. You can always cancel or rearrange if needed.

Buying a flat

• Buying a flat comes with its own considerations such as ground rent and service charges, and most flats are leasehold. Ours was share of freehold with no ground rent, just a monthly service charge. All the flat owners in the building are directors of the management company. This can be preferable to an external management company.
• If you are buying leasehold, make sure you get as much information as possible from the sellers for example the most recent AGM minutes. In the case of a friend of mine, if they’d been able to see this information then they would have realised the sellers hadn’t paid for some previously completed work on the property.
• If you are buying jointly with someone else, make sure you are financially protected where appropriate. Consider whether your ownership will be as Joint Tenants or Tenants in Common, and whether it’s worth writing a Declaration of Trust.

I hope that some of this is helpful, feel free to ask me any questions but please bear in mind that I’m not a professional! I found Phil Spencer’s MoveiQ website a really useful impartial source of information. These notes are based on buying in Bristol and things will be different in other market locations. Remember that buying a property is a big responsibility and commitment, and it needs to make sense for your own personal circumstances.

Good luck!

Alexa

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this, you may like to read Houseplants for Beginners and Vintage Furniture Finds.

Photos throughout of Bristol: Kingsdown, Cotham, Clifton