First time buyer here - how many did you see before you found The One?

[DraenorQueen]

My lovely mum has offered to lend me deposit money for a house. I've been offered a mortgage in principle of up to 140k but there so many properties round here (North East) for around the 90k-100k range I'm going to look for a cheaper house and spend the money modernising it.
Was just wondering, how many houses did you see before you knew you'd found the one? Did you jump in with an offer, worried someone else might nab it or did you hold your nerve and haggle? I've seen an absolute beauty and am going to try and see it this week...

Any tips for a first time buyer would be so much appreciated!

[DraenorQueen]

Thanks guys, enjoying reading everyone's experiences.
Today I saw three and visited the mortgage adviser at a large estate agent.
House one was...meh but the view and garden outstanding.
House two had potential but needed entirely modernising. And out back was a bit of a mess - litter, rusting caravans, etc....so no.
House three was stunning. Just....gorgeous. I want to go back and see it again. It was loads under my top budget and really well added to. The owner showed me round and he;s a builder so obviously has done a great job with extension/maintenance. Also - IT'S GOT A BAR!!! :D

[Scattymere]

3rd house we saw with our current house and again 3rd with our about to move into house!
Good luck & have fun OP.

[heron98]

We saw loads and loads (can't remember how many but we were looking for over a year).

We had quite a low budget for the area we wanted to buy in and lots of the houses we could afford had been student lets and needed too much work.

We finally found a family house (rare where we live) that was in good nick. But it took a while.

[steppingout]

I only saw 6 I think before making an offer. I had spent quite a bit of time on Rightmove though, and we had a pretty good idea of the kind of things that we wanted. It was the first one that I'd felt excited about. I viewed it on a Monday, took DP for a second look on Thursday, then made an offer contingent on them cancelling the open house that was going to be held two days later. I guess the lesson that I took from that was just be ready to make a decision and move quickly once you find something that you like. Less of an issue if the area is a bit less competitive though - things were selling really quickly round here. This house never even made it on to Rightmove. Good luck and congratulations!

[shortaris1]

I was going to say that too OP about the deposit. Get the money in your account soon if you want to say it was a gift.

I bought for the first time last year, saw 4 and offered on one that had been on less than a week. No faffing, offered home report price and went from 'We can give you a deposit this year' to living in it within 6 weeks.

[SoakedinBleach]

We were gifted part of our deposit 2 years ago, but have made payments back as and when since buying. Wej weren't asked where it had come from. It had been in our bank for 6m and banks only asked for 3m statements .

[DraenorQueen]

Thanks again for all the replies. Interesting to read about seeing the same buyers on all the viewings!
Again, interesting about the borrowed deposit situation. I will certainly get more information on that.

[EssentialHummus]

3 years ago when we applied for a mortgage, banks werent lending to people who had 'borrowed' their deposit. So you would need to check with your bank first. If the deposit is gifted then you will need to have the paperwork/letter from your mum confirming that she would not have a claim/charge on the house.

I thought this too.

[EssentialHummus]

2 . But I had spent two years (!) on Rightmove at that point while saving up, and I was very limited in budget, type of flat and location.

For my BTL I viewed about twenty before realising that every terraced house I saw was identical.

[Notyetthere]

3 years ago when we applied for a mortgage, banks werent lending to people who had 'borrowed' their deposit. So you would need to check with your bank first. If the deposit is gifted then you will need to have the paperwork/letter from your mum confirming that she would not have a claim/charge on the house.

[GiddyOnZackHunt]

As a ftb many years ago I offered on the only house I viewed. I had a long list of things I wanted and was ruthless about viewing.
I was there 10 years

[Salmiak]

About 8. Initially I was planning on getting a cheaper house and doing some work. Offered on the third house, got a full survey done and realised I couldn't face that much work. Ended up getting a 7 year old new build and its fantastic - it was right at the top of my budget but so far nothing has broken, and its lovely to live in. Very hassle free.

[Notyetthere]

We viewed about 8-10 altogether. I can't actually remember all of them. The 7th house was the one we thought we could offer and buy. It needed lots of cosmetic work (vendors were smokers for over 25yrs in the house) so we made a ridiculously low offer which was obviously rejected. We then decided to leave it for another 2 weeks before increasing our offer. In the meantime, another one 8th came on the market nearby, same as the 7th but bigger SW garden, beautiful patio, 2 sheds (I dont know why but this made me very happy) and a separate dining area. The interior was perfectly done so we didnt have to do anything. It came on rightmove friday night and we viewed it on Saturday afternoon.

Like you, we were concerned that once other people viewed it, it would sell immediately. We kept on seeing the same buyers viewing the same houses as us in the past weeks so we knew we all were looking for the same thing. They had planned an open house 1 week after we viewed so we made an offer that was good enough to cancel all the open viewings. We ended up paying £12k over our max budget but 3 yrs later we are pleased with this house. We had a to ask the bank to lend us more which they were ok with.

We had prepared ourselves for when we found the right house, to not be too enthusiastic, make only sensible offers and not go over budget but we once we found the dream house, head was out the window and only heart led. We made an offer to the vendor during the viewing. I felt that I had to have this house or else my heart would forever be broken.

[DraenorQueen]

wowfudge that's interesting to know, thanks. On a 90k property my mortgage would be under 400 a month. If I factored in repaying my mum @ 250/month that's still well within my budget, so hopefully that wouldn't go against me.

[DraenorQueen]

Sorry I didn't mean to suggest I'd be loaned £140 but only spend 100k o the house!! I meant I'd buy a house for 100k and as the mortgage would be very low I'd have more money month to month to do the house up gradually!

[SoakedinBleach]

We live in a cheap part of the country and were offered around 60k more in principle than we ended up borrowing. We started off looking at the cheapest 3 bed in a live in condition and worked our way up to find the best house for the least money! We put all our deposit into the house then have been saving and doing it up as we go along. Luckily the big things were recently done-roof, boiler, Windows, kitchen, bathroom.
I still look on zoopla at our top end budget and for the majority we would still have had to spend some money to get them how we wanted.

[wowfudge]

Another thing to note is that a loaned deposit affects your affordability rating - if a mortgage lender believes you are paying the deposit back as well as the purchase costs, they may not lend you as much.

[pearlylum]

I agree with PP you won't get £140K for a house that costs £100K. I doesn't work like that.

As to how many properties- I think that depends. I have bought 5 houses, I have bought brand new, off plan before it was even built, I have bought one house that took a year to find, I must have looked at 50 properties, and even in the end it was a bit of a compromise. The house I live in now was the only one I viewed, just fell in love with it the moment I stepped inside, just felt lovely, huge, light, great area, a knock down price. I hadn't even put my own house on the market, but luckily my house sold within a week, my offer of the new house was accepted and was living there 3 months later.

[SansaClegane]

Oh, it took us a good few years and about 20-30 houses I'd say!
I think it's when you walk in and you can really picture yourself living there. Room sizes and arrangements need to fit your bill; and not to forget about the road and location (we once saw a house we really liked, and it was very cheap too, but the road was very narrow and it felt 'cramped' to me and I just couldn't imagine living there).
I suppose you need to have a list of your requirements, the house needs to tick most boxes, and then you need to get that feeling about it!

[TroubleinDaFamily]

When you walk in and you immediately know where your Christmas tree is going, you have found the one.

[Trills]

You know that the mortgage people won't give you a loan of 140k on a 100k house, right?

If you get a cheaper house, you might have spare money that didn't go into the deposit, and lower repayments, so you can use THAT money doing it up.

But you won't have access to the same total amount as if you'd bought a more expensive house.

[annandale]

I think in both cases I've bought a house it was the third one I saw which I bought, and I saw something like 7 in total. Real buyers' markets though in both cases with absolutely loads on the market in my price range (it was a long time ago), and I had pretty strict boundaries about what I wanted.

[MummaGiles]

First house, think we saw 3. Current house we saw maybe 10, but it was a completely different market.

[everdene]

We saw about 10 I think - put in an offer on the second one and were outbid, then it fell through and we got it two months later. Definitely as the PP said, it's the One We Can Afford rather than The One, but we're currently modernising it so it'll soon be much better! Good luck - I'd say if you see one you love put in a low offer and see how it goes.

[Cacofonix]

I had a slog when we moved 18 months ago - I think I saw around 45-50 houses. To be fair we did offer on a few, gazumped on one and two others fell through. Really pleased as love the place we have now - so much better than the other ones we had offers on. OP this was London so a very hot market and I did see a lot to placate the estate agents so that when a gem came through they thought of us.