Bought in new development & have hardly any money for decr/appliances handholding pls!!!

[indiana7]

Hi, we are firstly ridiculously excited, we have bought our first home. Property prices in our town are ridiculous & every second hand home that hits the market turns into a bidding war reaching prices we just could not justify so we have bought off the plans in a new development. our mortgage will be 300 pounds less than our rent which we are thrilled about!
However after paying solictiors & after mortgage drawdown we actually have hardly anything left to decorate & buy appliances however the houses won't be ready for another 6 months so we have time to save... advice please!!!!
We didn't want to hit the top of our budget but we were so disheartened putting bids in on properties & being outbid & property withdrawn by seller etc that the most straightforward option was a newbuild. We will be saving substantially on our utlilities as the house is A rated with solar panals etc... I am feeling overwhelmed & we have 2 small children

How exciting :)
So you need to be very clear with the developers in terms of what is included. I assume they'll paint the walls in some neutral colour, put basic flooring etc. If you're buying off plan you should be able to upgrade basics so if you want a specific colour they might do that for you at a cost.
You can get a lot of stuff from Facebook groups if you're willing to make do and save. The money you save each month can go into a pot to buy things. Start looking for deals now to get an idea of what you should be aiming to pay.
Sell things you don't need. It will generate a fund and make moving easier.

Well if its a new build, decoration won't really be an issue for some time. Yes it will be bland, but will be fresh and habitable. And tbh, I never get a 'feel' for wall colours until I have lived in a place for several months, gives me a chance to see rooms in different seasons and weathers.

Appliances, realistically the basics are cooker, fridge freezer, washer, hoover and possibly drier. Initially these can be got from free cycle or cheaply second hand, and given you are saving £300 a month, unless you really want a thousand pound washer you can replace the old appliances within 5 months. For the new products, have a look at places like ao.com.

When we bought our first house together it was a new build and we got a couple of grand knocked off the price for finishing it off ourselves. Was a good two months of filling wood holes, sanding, undercoats and top coats all over the whole house but we decorated it exactly as we liked.

Curry's can be cheaper that ao.com!

I would just add I got nearly all my appliances second hand and only replaced them when/if they broke, there are incredible deals to be made. Just make sure you listen to the fridge, some are incredibly noisy.

Would second the suggestion for FB groups - I've just given away a glass hob and fridge freezer (about 2 years old), just needed them gone quickly. Someone collected within about an hour!!

Also you could look out for odd rolls of wallpaper - lots of people have a roll or 2 left over and it would probably be enough for a feature wall if you wanted to do something to put your stamp on it.

You might find Ebay useful - particularly after Christmas when people are getting rid of unwanted presents / having a clear out to fit all the new things in.

You might also find some bargains in the Christmas sales for carpets and appliances.

If you are looking for good quality second hand appliances look to see if there is a charity shop selling furniture near you. There's a British Heart Foundation shop here. They sell second hand fridges/freezers/washing machines/etc. They service them before they sell them and you can pay them a small fee to have stuff delivered. My dining room furniture came from there. It's period to my 1930's house and if I'd bought from the same company today it'd have cost me 4k for just the dresser rather than 200 for the dresser, a side board, a table and 4 chairs!

I'd go to the British heart foundation shop too, the one by us will deliver too.
Have a look if you have any other charity organizations local to you, we have a local one for special needs adults with two warehouses and a hospice one with three shops and a warehouse, their furniture goes so fast that you can look in there two or three times a week till you get the right thing.
Facebook selling pages local may be helpful too.

I live in a new build and agree that decoration won't matter, ours is still white after 18 months because we can't be bothered doing anything about it but they tell you not to wallpaper for at least a year anyway. Yours will probably be white/magnolia and it's perfectly possible to live with that. We bought after ours had a roof on (an important cut-off point for our developer) but prior to that would have been allowed an input into some of the fixtures and fittings, so check if this is the case for you. I love my kitchen but my neighbours (same house) is horrible and I'm glad I didn't get that one.

It's probably too late but I would recommend you get really tough and haggle hard with developers when buying a new build. We got loads of non-standard extras (flooring, appliances, got them to move fences and pipes and things) just by not taking no for an answer. If you don't have flooring included that can be quite a bit cost, ditto things like turf in the garden. We got turf and fencing plus a patio but I have friends in new builds who were left with just a load of mud outside. You need to check really carefully with what they include as a most will not include flooring as standard. Some include built in appliences as standard but ours didn't. If you have already put down your deposit the time for demanding extras may have passed unfortunately.

Appliances-wise, you can get great deals on local facebook groups and gumtree. We got some great bargains.

Oh, ad if you're moving in while the builders are still on site you can get a lot of stuff done for free or very cheap. We got them to fully tile our bathroom for nothing just because they had tilers on site and loads of spare tiles. My friend got them to put in a new doorway between rooms and supply the door all for free. They often have leftover supplies so don't be afraid to be cheeky!

I don't think you can decorate a new build within a certain time period anyway (my parents was 2 years) as it causes problems with guarantees for plaster work. So it's definitely either accepting it will be cream walls, or asking to upgrade to a coloured paint so that this isn't a problem further down the line. This might not be true of all developers, but it was for millers

I think it's two years till you can decorate but lots do anyway.

If you're wiling to shop around there's;

John Lewis outlet Swindon
Miele outlet in Abingdon
Fired earth outlet in Oxford for paint etc
Fired earth sale for bathroom fittings like loo roll holders
John Lewis sale for decorative accessories
eBay for light fittings (pick what you like on next, JL etc then look on there)
Wilko home. Some items VERY similar to JL.

Sales for tiles, online suppliers for engineered wood flooring etc.

If you get the most effiecent appliances you can afford you should be able to run them off the solar panels during the day.

If you're £300 a month off put the figures into money saving experts mortgage overpayment calculator it'll tell you how many years you could knock off the mortgage term by overpaying.

£300 would take about 9 years off my mortgage.

Thanks so much for the replies, we are super excited! Think we will be investing in quite a bit of IKEA to get us started though too, great tips from everyone, mumsnet is so helpful!!

I would save like mad, do research on the best value items, but not actually buy anything yet (more things to pack on moving day).

We bought a new build and found, although we knew we'd need new carpets and furniture, we'd forgotten about things like curtain poles and light shades. Just in the hall and landing we needed five light shades, plus we now had three loos so that was three lots of loo roll and towel holders.

We didn't do anything to the walls for the first year or so and we weren't proud to take second-hand things off family. It was really difficult to walk into an empty blank space - especially after we'd been round the beautifully decorated show-houses - and try to make it look homely.

I would try and decide now on things that you would like to splurge on and things that you can put up with until you have more money available.
Plain blinds for example, you can get them so cheap online that it's worth just doing the whole house and they'll still be decent for years to come.

Definitely look at your local Facebook household selling pages - stuff goes for peanuts on there. When I moved a couple of years ago I got a 6 month old Zanussi washing machine for £50, a tumble drier for £40, and was given a hoover and small appliances.