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!

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.

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 .

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.

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!

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.

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

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