Tell me about your first home

[chunkyrun]

Would love to hear some uplifting and funny stories. I'm scrimping and saving at the moment. What I want and what I can afford are just miles apart. I currently live in a semi rural area with great schools, open green spaces but it's a housing association and not mine. I would love to buy here but there's no way I could ever afford this area. There are shared ownership options but I just want to fully own. What was everyone else's first home like? Coming to terms with knowing that if I buy my first home won't be my forever home so will need to compromise on a lot of things

You know what, it was tiny, lots of compromises but it was ours. We LOVED that house. We had no money to do it up, very little furniture (remember paying for a sofa from Next at £20 a month so we had something to sit on) and a bed from MFI that cost £99 with a free mattress . We were just really happy.

It was a 1900 mid terrace that I loved. It was cold, had no central heating, needed re-wiring and re-plumbing. I spent 18 months with bare brick and rubble in the kitchen with a cold tap hanging out the wall, chopping veg on a board balanced on the bits of the gas cooker I wasn't using...

But it was ours. The furniture was cast offs from various relatives - I've never had new furniture. But it didn't matter. We slowly did it up, but it was never what you'd called 'renovated'. We just decorated over the damp patches!

We bought our first house in 2013. It was a 1950s ex-council property in a part of the city which had apparently been notorious in the 70s and 80s (for all the wrong reasons!) but is now not like that at all.

It cost £100,000 - we put down a 10% deposit with some savings and a bit from my DM. It had 3 bedrooms, a garden, driveway, and was structurally solid with no damp. We’d seen 3 other properties which were very obviously damp. I was pregnant with DC1 and we just wanted somewhere safe and cosy so I could decorate his bedroom - it was close to bus stops and the GP and some shops which are all helpful when you have a baby.

We sold it when he was 3 as the local schools weren’t amazing, we had a bit more money (and another DC) by that point plus it wasn’t as convenient for DH’s new job. It was a cracking little house though and we have fond memories of it.

We were naive and innocent. We didnt know to check whether the garden was south facing, whether there was decent internet speed or 3/4G signal. Or how long it would take to drive to the closest supermarket.

We still live here, it is our dream home, envelops us with love and I will be happy if I leave feet first

We are just about to leave ours to new pastures. We rented for years first though. Our first rental flat was a tiny one bed up the sky. 9th floor.

But home owner, our current house, is a newish build 3 bed townhouse. A bit bland but very comfortable, came with all the appliances (saved a fortune) & only needed decorating. It’s been a really lovely family home, both my babies have come home to this house & I’ll be genuinely sad to leave next week. But we’ve outgrown the layout, the bedrooms are on different floors & we have two terrible sleepers. We all need to be on the same level for the next few years!

A 1900s 2 bed mid-terrace with swirly brown carpets, woodchip wallpaper everywhere and a 1970s kitchen, bought in 1992. I moved in with little furniture and got an old sofa which had been passed around my family, and second hand cooker, washing machine, fridge, armchair, dining table and chairs. I bought a new bed and wardrobe, but slept on a mattress on the floor for the first couple of months until it arrived. I could never afford to replace the carpets, and I just painted the kitchen cabinets. Dear reader, I loved that house, it was mine. I know I was very fortunate to buy at a time when it was possible. I had some savings, and a mortgage that was 3x my salary and I was petrified that the mortgage rate would go back up to 15%. To buy it now on my own I would need to be on a salary of about £100k, and I think it's incredibly sad that people don't have the same opportunity I had.

1980s flat. Infested with cat fleas. Poor construction. Very cold. Ice on the inside of windows in winter.

Forgot to say, couldn't afford fridge for 6 months. Stored food in a bucket of cold water. Couldn't afford washing machine or launderette. Hand washed all my clothes. After 6 months a colleague gave me a fridge she was throwing out. Another colleague gave me her late mum in law's washing machine.

What @FindMeInTheSunshine said.
I bought in around 2004, 1 bed flat right in the centre of London. Oxford St was at the end of my street!
Never in a million years would I have thought I’d buy my first place there, for £250k (I come from an area where it’s possible even now to buy a 1 bed flat for about £50k, to put things in perspective).
ExDH were earning around £55k between us, and we had some of the deposit given to us by parents (about £15k I think)
No way in hell would that be doable these days. I looked on Rightmove recently to see how much 1 bed flats are going for in that same central London area now, and they’re around £650k to 1M!

We had a nice house in a nice place- three bed semi in a rural area- but no money for work on it.

The windows needed replacing, there was no heating, no carpets- the first year the concrete floors used to ice over at night. We sat on two dining room chairs with a sleeping bag over them. Had a fan heater we moved from room to room, and a coal fire which worked much better once we realised we needed a grate!!

We had a list of things needing attention, and slowly worked our way down it. A treat was a can of own brand lager on Friday nights. We had beans on toast a couple of nights a week.

We got there though. Heating, carpet, windows...

Terraced house with no double glazing or central heating. Bathroom downstairs and British Gas came and disconnected the fire as it was dangerous. View out the front was a warehouse and behind was a social club.

We moved a couple of times as we earned more and now have a nice family house with large garden.

We had a one bedroom Victorian purpose built maisonette. It was tiny and lovely, but freezing. I fell in love with the sash windows but in hindsight they were a bloody nightmare.

The back door would regularly fall off the hinges.

And we had an absolute nightmare of a woman who lived beneath us. But it was ours, and we loved it very much. The memories of that flat make me smile.

It was a small 3bed detached fairly new build. Sounds bigger than it was. £50k and I was lucky to work for a building society and got 100% mortgage and a free homebuyer survey. Interest rates were high(mid 90s) but got £30k on 4% which was a great benefit for staff. Moved in with 2 director’s chairs, a portable tv on a cardboard box. We slept on a blow-up bed until we could get furniture. Very happy times .

We bought ours four years ago and we’re still here. It’s looking like we’ll be here for a few more years too.

It’s a two up, two down from the late 1890’s that has been extended at the side and back. It’s a money pit. We’ve spent so much money just trying to get it sorted and I’d have said it was in a ‘liveable’ state when we bought it. Everything has been expensive items that also don’t change the look of the house so it still looks like we’ve done nothing with it. The neighbours on either side of us have something that would probably put experienced buyers off but neither thing actually bother us day to day. The kitchen is older than we are. The windows were packed with tissues. The boiler was held together with cable ties. The out buildings (garage, store and sheds) are derelict and a headache for another day.

This was still the best option for our budget. We saw a tiny house with syringes in the garden. We saw a house with one random boot print burnt into the far corner of the room, the corner furthest from the door and not near any other access points. We saw an alleged 3 bed in which the master bedroom wouldn’t be able to fit a double bed and a wardrobe. Our house is not necessarily in a location we would pick again and it’s a village that a lot of people sneer at.

I’d be here all day listing the flaws with our house but it’s ours. Every month the mortgage payment goes out and I think to myself that I’ve bought another brick from the bank. That brick is now mine. I worry about the cost of big things like the boiler, the roof but I know I get a say in fixing those if needed. I can choose the colour of my window frames. I can choose the colour to paint my walls. I get to make this house mine, put my style into everything. Design a kitchen (when we can afford it) around how I use the kitchen. This house was big enough for us to get two dogs. Our bedroom is big enough to have a king sized bed, a 3 door wardrobe and two chest of drawers. The house has some serious ‘quirks’ but they’re quirks I’ve become relatively attached to.

Our house also has a lot of potential. So much potential that we might not need to move. At the moment we only want one child (currently TTC) and the only reason we see that we might have to move would be because of the busy road at the front and maybe due to schools. I never thought I’d grow to love our house as much as I have, especially as I cried (not happy tears) the first night when we moved in. I think if we do move on from this wreck of a house with it’s undesirable neighbours, I’ll shed a few sad tears at saying goodbye to the house and our friendly neighbours.

I bought my first home on my own in the 80s. It was a purpose built studio flat on a modern estate in an undesirable area, which was the only way I could afford it. I stretched the truth about salary, the mortgage broker would only agree to setting it up if I took an endowment product and also a date with him (creepy bloke, much older) . I strung him along until the deal was done then told him to sling his hook and when I'd moved in shopped about for a standard mortgage (good move in hindsight) The studio flat was really well designed with a place for everything. The double bed was hidden behind floor to ceiling cupboards and pulled down from the wall ! It served me well then I moved to a Victorian terrace in a nicer part of town.

I was 23. This was the 90s so a bit easier then!

It was so crooked that when you stepped into the bedroom you had to walk uphill to the window. If you put chest of drawers facing a certain way the drawers would open.

The walls were so thin on one side you could hear next door stirring a cup of tea.

It was very cute. It had a wonderful view of a church. I got a wood burning stove, smelled beautiful. It was round the corner from town and everyone used to come back to mine after we’d been out.

My first house was a very typical Cardiff terrace that had been knocked through so it was one room downstairs, the kitchen was a half width extension on the back that only one person could be in at a time. Vile fake beams, a green tiled fireplace, and an open staircase to the teeny spare bedroom, bathroom and front bedroom. Concrete yard.
It had so many things wrong with it, but it had so many happy memories. We still go and drive past it when we are in Cardiff

A nondescript 1960s townhouse. It was a timber framed construction and we used to joke that it was built in a rush on a Friday afternoon as nothing was straight. I didn't even want to view it initially but DP persuaded me, and the interior was a nightmare of brown and orange tinged with nicotine that took forever to sort out. However, it had the most amazing picture window at the front of the house, and we had fantastic views across the valley. It turned out to be a great house for us.

Mine was a 1980s 1 bed under a flight path. But it was freehold, I had a parking space, and it was mine. Oh, and in the 90s I managed to flip it for a profit, and felt magnificent! 😀

Ours was a one bedroom first floor flat, in a converted Victorian house. There was only us and the downstairs flat, and we had an equal share of the freehold, so no service charges, but we had to do/pay for any work needed & sort out buildings insurance between us. We made a few improvements (new boiler, shower, boarded the loft for storage, nothing major), and after three years we moved to a house that needs a lot of TLC a few roads away.

Mine was also a new build studio flat but with a separate sleeping area so like a one bed flat but open plan. I lived there for eight years with my two cats and was really happy. I think a really nice TV unit (which my sister still uses 20 years later) and a bookshelf were the only items of furniture that weren't second hand. I loved that flat.

We moved into ours only this year and we love it to bits. It's in a really up and coming area that we've rented in for 3 years before buying. It's an Edwardian semi detached with two beds and a front garden and big south facing garden. It needs A LOT of work but I couldn't be happier. Also live on the friendliest road, all our neighbours are just wonderful.

We had saved for a while but then DPs grandad sadly passed and left us the money for a deposit. Using our savings for the work. I appreciate how lucky we are to have had financial help but we quite often raise a glass to grandad. I think he'd be really proud if he knew how much he had changed our lives for the better.

Thank you everyone for sharing! Definitely lifted my spirits

In the late 70s when to get a mortgage you went to the building society with your pay slips and asked for the money! It was a small1960s semi semi with only decorating to do. All our furniture was given to us by family or bought second hand. We were the original upcyclers
It was a lovely house with central heating from a solid fuel stove in the sitting room. I was sorry to leave and move to a 1860s wreck

Mine was my most favourite house! It had been done up a bit and was well looked after. I move from social housing with help to buy. It was built in 1925, two bedrooms and open plan. I invested time, money and emotion into it. You can do it!