Mortgage affordability, is it something young parents should think about?

I know this is a subject that have I have given a lot of thought even before becoming a parent, being able to put a roof over my families head and provide that same kind of financial stability that I have always had. 

Lets face it, in this economic climate many of us don't have the odd £20,000 hidden down the sides of the sofa (unless they will accept payment in cheerios, we have lots of those down there thanks to the toddler) which of course immediately puts a big hurdle in your path on the deposit front. 

We have sought out advice from every corner, we have learnt so much about the different mortgages available to us and explored every avenue in our quest to get on the property ladder. I have to say that the advice we have been given has explained exactly what is involved with a mortgage, which for me was in-valuable as before I didn't have a clue between fixed rate and variable.

Luke and I spent a lot of time gathering mortgage quotes and in order to get the ball rolling we needed to find £20,000 to put down on the table. To us this is a lot of money, money that we quite simply don't have. I am sure I am one of many people in this day and age who can quite simply say they cannot afford to buy, and realistically renting is our only option right now. 

The mortgage we qualified for back when we were enquiring was in the region of £130,000, which in our area wouldn't actually buy us much. We would be looking at a 2 bedroom house with not a whole lot of room in any which way about it. 

It is really easy to get an idea of a ball park figure you may be looking at on a mortgage. I have found the Halifax mortgage calculator is really useful to get an idea into how much you may be looking in terms of repayments each month. You can input certain details that will tell you how much they may be able to lend you.

There is so much information available to call upon and guide you through the process of being first time buyers, but until you have the deposit money firmly in your pocket actually getting a mortgage behind you can seem like a million miles away.

I think this is a subject that all first time buyers do give a lot of thought, and I certainly think it is something that we should all be thinking about to some extent. Dreams for the future and making dreams a reality, carving the way for our little ones and making a family home that is ours are all things that I want for my family.

So for now we are renting, but one day we will have our very own home.

Flying The Nest

Since Leo was born, we have been living in my family’s home, a home I have been known to refer to as the ‘Mad House’, and for very good reason.

This mad house has been a real support to all of us and above all else it has been Leo’s home from the very start; it has been my home too. Now is the time though for us to spread our wings and find our own home, just for Luke, Leo and I.

It is hard not having any space for just the Three of us, and we long for our own living area. Heck even our own kitchen!

Luke and I have looked at more houses than I can care to remember. We have seen less than perfect houses and we have seen houses that we would love to live in – but those houses were always just out of our reach. We have had to pass on buying for many reasons, and after continued disappointment we turned our attention to the possibility of renting.

The thing about renting that has always scared me, is that it could be sold from beneath us at any point and we could be asked to leave. I don’t want to keep moving Leo around and I want him to feel safe and secure in the fact that where we live is our home.

Finding any kind of house that you can see yourself living in is hard, you have to be able to in-vision yourself living in a house that you can make into a home. Last night we viewed a house that I had really wanted to like, it’s in the ideal location and is walking distance to my family home and Luke’s – In fact this house is two doors down from Luke’s Dad and Leo’s Granddad.

We walked into this house and into the entrance hallway and instantly loved it. The hall way led into the living room and another entrance to the dining area. Most houses we have looked at have no room to even shake a stick in, but we could fit a family dining table in this room that was exclusively there for the purpose of sitting down as a family, and we could even have friends over for a sit down meal!

There was a modern kitchen, and a decent size too that followed through into the dining area. The stairs are in the hallway and lead up onto the landing with the entrances to the Two bedrooms, which are both very generous in size.

I could see Luke mentally un-packing his bags and putting all his bits and pieces away as we were walking around. It was exactly what we needed for our family of Three.

So today is a real mile stone for my little family. Luke is in the process of applying for this house, we know there is other interest so I am just keeping everything crossed that our little family shine through and they can see we would be the perfect tenants.

Now we are faced with another challenge, aside from a cutlery and the dining set that we already have in our possession, we need to set ourselves up with everything else we need for a first time home – once we get the green light of course!

Paid My Dues

I am a firm believer in karma, what comes around goes around. I am one of those people who never seems to catch a break and is always a by-stander...watching everyone else's dreams come true. When out driving in the car I seem to come across every Red traffic light. In fact they seem to purposely change upon my approach, like their main aim is to catch me out.

I have had some rather BIG exciting news and it seems that those traffic lights have been put in their place and will only be turning green from now on. I cannot go into detail but it seems that my dues have been paid. My big break has arrived and we are in good stead for our house hunting. The aim is to save hard and in the next couple of years, break out on our own.

I am still waiting for this news to sink in, and I am pinching myself hard to see if I wake up. My little family are on cloud 9 and when I return to work later this year we will be pushing forward with our future.

It is safe to say that we are all very happy, and our family unit will one day in the next few years, be HOME OWNERS!!!

We now just have to save very hard, find our perfect property and make it our own! Tonight we are having a celebratory Thai takeaway, so I am off to pour myself a very large glass of Pino Grigio...hehe..

Wish us luck!

Laura xx