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.

What's that coming over the hill?

After over a year of umming and arhhging over whether we could in fact buy a house for our little family, we decided that it was far from any idea of realistic. Over the past few months we began to reluctantly look at rental properties, most of which were far from perfect.

I could be compared to Goldilocks at times with the reasons I gave for not liking homes, too small, too claustrophobic, dirty, smelly, but I am so glad I did not compromise. I am glad I stood my ground and waited...and waited some more.

Then out of nowhere we found the perfect house. 2 bedrooms with plenty of room to actually live, and the fact we can actually have sit down place to eat is all I have ever really wanted. I had resigned myself to the fact that I was asking for to much, and would have to accept life in a home the size of a postage stamp, but somehow we have landed on our feet.

We have got the house, and the keys will be firmly in our hand as of November 1st!

We even have a small garden that Leo can play in, nothing compared to the garden he is used to but I figure he will still be spending lots of time at my family home. All we need is somewhere he can burn off all that steam that he generates throughout the day, and of course somewhere we can call our own.

What I have found throughout this whole process is that everything seems to be happening so fast, there was no time to sit around and think for too long because everything get’s snapped up so quickly. We had to decide what we wanted as quickly as we could and get our applications in, of course we had no idea we would actually be moving out before Christmas so we have not really budgeted for the occasion.

On top of the deposit and first months rent, we still need to find money to furnish the house. Luke’s Mum has been completely amazing and far too generous; she has bought us a brand new Washing Machine and Tumble Dryer and also let us have the brand new fridge freezer that she had bought for their kitchen (that does not fit in their house). There are still a number of other things on our list such as a sofa and chairs for the dining table but we are getting there.

Although we are slowly getting everything together, it still does not feel real. With all of the disappointment we have had in the past on the housing front, I keep thinking our dream of a family home will get ripped away at any moment. But the applications have been accepted, the references our in place and we are all set to move into our new home, minus a couple of essentials….But we are really doing it.

This is it!