Please come and tell me about the FIRST HOUSE/ PROPERTY you purchased?

[yellowpolkadots101]

Myself and my dp have been saving very hard and spent the last couple of years being very frugal to save money for our first house. (We are both late 20s). We are going to have to compromise on the size of our first house in order to be near our preference location which is near our family and also a great location to commute to work and is up and coming so hopefully the value of the new house will hold.

Our initial thoughts are to stay in the first house for approx 5 years and up size when we have more equity in the property and possibly a higher earning. (Although maybe less if dc come along).

I know I am being completely ridiculous I cant help but feel a little green eyed seeing the nice sized family homes with gardens that are being sold for 30k over our budget.

It just got me thinking what was your first purchased house like? Are you still living there and how long did you live in it before moving to the next property? Did you also compromise on things that wernt ideal?

I moved into my house 8 years ago. It's a small 3 bed (though 2 are box rooms) with a postage stamp sized garden. I now have 2 DC and cannot afford to move to a larger house. I hate having such little room.

I purchased a 2 up 2 down in a not great area. I loved it though and it was all mine and DS's. It had a park opposite and was close to the bus route and DD's nursery. I purchased it for £35000 with a 3k deposit. I sold it for double that about three years later to buy a house with now DH.

Life was much simpler then.

We bought a newbuild 3 bed terrace for our first house. Great location for train links to London and relatively close to family. Small but nice garden. Great sized bedrooms but living space not huge- that was our main compromise.

We have 2 young DC now and it's fine but space is tight. I'm glad we went for something smaller/not at the top end of our budget and have lived in a non-perfect, not-a-forever home for the past few years because it's not only given us time to appreciate what we will/won't compromise on for our next home, but also means we'll appreciate the next one more! Hoping to move in the next 18 months to a forever home, it wouldn't have been possible on our salaries 5 years ago. Also having the children now means we know exactly what we want for a long term family home.

Given you're young I think try to focus on the longer term and compromises now often mean you'll get more of what you want in 5 years...which seems so far away but will pass so quickly, especially if you do add kids to the mix!

2 bed semi, lived there for 7 years before moving to a 3 bed detached house about 5 mins round the corner. Both had large gardens, first house had a very small kitchen which was a compromise.

OP, be careful with that biscuit emoji, it's not a flower, it's used as an insult on here

Our first house was a two up, two down terrace in a not particularly nice area of a not particularly pleasant town. It was all we could afford at the time. We stayed five years then were able to trade up to a four bed detatched in a much nicer place. Stayed there for another five years then moved on again to a house I don't think we'll ever leave. We will finally be mortgage free next year & can't wait.

A teeny tiny one bedroomed flat (the 'kitchen' was so small that if you stretched you could touch both walls). Shared hall, no parking (we couldn't afford a car anyway). No garden, no real storage.....Good area though

Mine was an Edwardian terraced town house in London.

Bought for £81,000 26 years ago. My boyfriend had about £10,000 worth of negative equity which we added onto the mortgage so mortgage was more than the house!

Sold for 18 months later after doing quite a bit of work and spending about £25,000 (work at cost because his family owned a building firm) for £200,000.

Now selling for £850,000. I would never have managed to buy in today’s market.

Bought a small 2 bed in an inconvenient location when I was 32. It was what I could afford. I was really pleased to have my own home even though I moved from an idyllicly located rented mobile home to do it. I was pleased to have bricks and mortar round me though. Stayed 11 years before moving on to next home.

Early 20s we bought a 2 bed flat in a convenient town centre location.
Moved about 6 years later to a 4 bed semi in a nice enough suburb and had DC 2 years later.
Wanting to move soon to another 4 bed in a better area for schools since having DC.

We bought a flat in London in an area we knew was going to become popular. We lived there for 4 years whilst we did all the relationshippy stuff - engagement, wedding, pregnancy. When I got pregnant we had a dilemma - we couldn’t afford a house in the area we lived in, so we were faced with the choice of moving to a grotty part of London or choosing a lovely house further away and commuting more. We moved to somewhere with an hour and a half commute each way to afford a 3 bed character property and have not regretted it for a minute! It’s lovely for DS to grow up outside London, nice to have room for guests to come and stay etc.

Our first home which we bought when we got married, was a 1 bedroom flat and we were thrilled with it. We lived there for 2 years.

My first house was a tiny terraced house in Cardiff, which was £40,000 in 1995. One room downstairs with a teeny galley kitchen, two bedrooms and bathroom upstairs (second bedroom above the kitchen in the half width extension), and a very small concrete yard. It had a lot of problems, and so much had been totally bodged

First house 20 years ago was a 3 bed semi in a nice village for £85k. Sold it a couple of years later for £120k and bought a large 4 bed detached in a not-so-nice area for £229k but which had lots of shops etc so it was really convenient.

Then moved up north and bought somewhere with outbuildings for work, which was £365k. Stayed there a few years and then sold for not much more than the mortgage - almost had to declare bankruptcy and hand over the keys but a buyer saved us at the last minute!

Started again from scratch about 10 years ago when my mum sadly died and left me a £100k inheritance, which we used towards a 4 bed detached back in the midlands, very nice area (one of the smaller houses in a very nice street).

It was on for £349k the previous year so a bit out of reach, but it was reduced to £325k and we made a cheeky offer - got it for £295k with a £225k mortgage, then spent the rest of the inheritance money on renovating it.

Had it valued last year at £550k!!! Pretty sure I wouldn’t get that for it, but if I could walk out with nearly £300k equity, after paying off the £225k mortgage it would be great.

Not sure how helpful any of that is, as the market is constantly changing and it could end up worth less at any time. However( the best thing about property is that if the market dips, the one you’re buying is less too!

1996, DP and I were living in a small council flat we had got as students. We were newly qualified (nurses) and finally earning a wage, I was pregnant unexpectedly and we managed to save a 5% deposit (the grand sum of £2400) in the space of 4 months.

We bought a 3-bed ex-council semi for £43,500 which we sold 5 years later for £73.5k. We moved in 3 weeks before DS was born.

In hindsight, it was the bargain of the century. It was a decent area and had a big garden which would have allowed for extending.

We bought when I was 30 and DH was 31. We saved hard but had to compromise. We had the choice of a two bed flat in a mediocre area of the city we loved, or, a two-up-two down type of house in less pleasant town, but with parking and a garden. We opted for the latter, which actually cut DHs commute to work down, but did mean living beside a main road and buying a house that was okay, but not amazing.

For us, the compromises paid off. The town we opted for became more of a commuter hub and prices rose quickly. Our house was near a station, so doubly benefitted from the rise. We also realised that we could be happy living somewhere other than the city we had believed we desperately wanted to be in. We also learned that compromises are not always bad.

We initially planned to stay in the house for seven years, but DH got some good promotions, and we moved on after just four years. this time, we looked at houses knowing we would need to compromise. We had learned that we like unique, period properties and that shortening DHs commute again would really improve our quality of life. We absolutely love of current home, but we are still envious of what we could buy with another 50k, 100k etc.

1990, married & aged 25 & 22, paid £44,950 for an average 3 bed semi in urban Yorkshire, joint salaries of about £18k. Lived there for 5 years & made a whole £50 profit when we sold it!
Now selling for £150k, it would be a real struggle for DD & her partner to fund it even if they could raise the deposit whilst renting.
We were so lucky, back in the day.

Im being bought out of my my forever house following breaking up with my DP.

Ive just purchased a 2 up 2 down on the rough/nice border of the part of town that DS needs to be for school, his dad etc...

Its tiny, but it will be mine and im making it a home for me and DS. It doesnt have the south facing garden, a dining room or a 3rd bedroom, but its relatively cheap and all we need for now - im going to make it bloody amazing!

Our first house was a new built 3 bed house. It was fine but once DS came along the lack of living space became a problem. We lived there for 4 years in total before moving. Perhaps we should have been more forward thinking at the time but we couldn't have afforded anything bigger in that area which, at the time, we needed to live in for DH's work. Him changing job and effectively becoming 'office-less' helped in our decision to eventually move.

Little 2 up 2 down end terrace. Purchased just to get on the property market and will move in a few years when we'll have a big enough deposit for a large 3 bed. Bit of a nightmare for space but ok for now as DS is still small

Bought a small 3 bed semi in Greater London for 115k about 17 years ago, deposit 5K which i borrowed.
Moved abroad for work a couple of years later so let it out. Came back so moved back in. Since did an extension so the living space has doubled - small bedrooms though. It’s still not huge but it’s mine so I’m grateful for that.

I've never bought one. Some people never do.

Bought my first house by myself in 1998. I was terrified but the mortgage broker reassured me as it was a 2 bed house i could happily live in it by myself or with my future husband and two kids - everyone else was saying to buy somewhere before prices went mad. It had no garden and was a tiny 2 up 2 down, I had to sell my car and I couldn't afford new furniture with my 105% mortgage. Oh those were the times. Luckily the gamble paid off and I made 30K on it when I moved in with DH.

Bought my first place on my own in my twenties (early 80s). It was a one bed flat above a flower shop and I was very happy there. Cost me 24k sold after 3 years and bought a 3 bed maisonette.
Have moved a few times since.

I flat shared to save money then bought my first flat at 27. It was a two bed and I had a lodger in the second room for a while, then lived there by myself.

Then me and my now husband decided to move in together. We planned to sell both flats and but jointly but the credit crunch hit and his didn't sell, so I bought our house - a quirky new build three bed semi. He rented his flat for a couple of years and then managed to sell it.

Then we bought a family home out in the burbs when we had a baby. We're still there now but looking to move. If we stayed here we could be mortgage free in a year or so, which is tempting, but I just don't like the house. I'm 43 so I reckon I have one more big jump up the ladder in me. After that I want to focus on paying off the mortgage and building up my pension.

My first house was a 3 bed terrace, bought in1998 for 19k. Sold it 8 years later for 76k.
Lived in rented for a few years because circumstances meant I couldn't buy another then.
Bought my current house 2 years ago for 113k.