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

I legit loved my first house. Loved it. It was an ex-HA property with four bedrooms and a pantry. I would gnaw my own right arm off for four bedrooms and a pantry right about now!

It did have some idiosyncrasies, the worst of which was that the door frames were made of metal, with integrated hinges which were a pig to replace if you didn't have the door half. We needed a new kitchen door (there wasn't one when we moved in) and we ended up asking someone who was ripping out the frames if we could raid their skip!

First property was a tiny 1 bed flat i bought on my own, then a 2 bed qith my partner and now moved to our 4 bed family home. Not planning on moving again until we downsize!
Its been a lot of house moving the last 7 years, glad to not have to pack/unpack again for a while.

You need to plan to start at bottom of the ladder and work your way up

I bought a little end terrace one bedroom house with what turned out to be a leaking roof, a rotten bathroom floor and a damp living room wall, all of which only came to light after I moved in. 4 years of absolutely loving the place, gradually sorted out it’s quirks and recently sold to another first time buyer.

A little studio flat, no furniture, wary days of internet so no Facebook, free cycle etc. Loved that flat, should never have sold it.

I'm still in my first home. Bought it 12 years ago. It was a 2 bed flat but with a stud wall it's now a 3 bed. I bought the place for £100k and have spent another £50k doing it up.

victorian two bed terrace, tiny garden space, sound but no fitted kitchen, not so great area

it was £30,000 which sounds cheap but my brother bought a similar 3 bed house in Liverpool at the same time for £12k.

I had no deposit, it was the max I could afford, interest rate was 19%

I moved to a much better area, another terreace house, but bigger and with a proper garden. It was a real dump though and I’ve renovated over the years as no money upfront to do it.
Only 14 months left on the mortgage and will stay here as don’t need anything bigger and its in a great area.
Don’t see the point in ‘trading up’ for the sake of it

We just moved out of ours 2 weeks ago! I loved that house and I cried my eyes out when we left

It was a 3 bed 1930s semi, awful for parking, very dated and unloved inside when we bought it but good sized rooms and huge windows. The windows and kitchen really needed replacing, and next door's dogs drove me mental, but I really loved it all the same we did some of it up but decided to move before we'd finished. I'll always look back on that as such a happy time of our lives living there, it was a cracking first house

Bought my first home in 1986 age 20 - it was a one bed maisonette and cost me £12,000. It was lovely and had an ok sized lounge with an open plan kitchen with a spiral staircase up to the bathroom and bedroom. Also had my own decent sized garden.
It more than doubled in value when I sold it three years later.

My first home was a 3 bed terrace ex council with my ex. He had sold a 1 bed flat (£36,000) so we had a bit of a deposit. We paid 93,000.

5 years later I bought an almost identical
House down the road with my husband for £157,000 (sold last year for £240,000)

Ex council 1970s so lovely big rooms but cheaply built timber framed so a bit damp and shoddy round the edges!

We stayed 14 years and loved it but it only had a lounge diner and open plan to kitchen. With 3 kids getting older we needed another reception room. So we bought bigger last year!

We had to have a lodger for the first couple of years to pay back some money we had to borrow from my in laws!

2 bed flat above a take away. Had to lug dd up 3 flights of stairs in her car seat every time we came home. It was ours though. Also we doubled our money in 5 years and are now in our forever home.

Ours was a end terrace 2 up 2 down.
It had the biggest bathroom I've seen.
No central heating. If I could have moved it we would still be there.
Cost £7975.00.
1979.

Back to back terrace walking distance from Leeds City Centre, cost me £42k, I earnt £12k a year and got a 110% mortgage through Northern Rock, so and a few quid spare to pay solicitors and furniture etc. Didn’t have to put a deposit down.
It was over 3 floors with the kitchen and and bathroom in the cellar.
Met OH and fell pregnant with DS and it was a pain going down 2 flights of stairs for a pee at night.
It served its purpose at the time.
Sold it when house prices shot up a couple of years later for £75k and I’d hardly spent anything on it.
We moved when DS was a few weeks old, often drive past it now, good memories.

A run down 60s bungalow. Damp, dark, dingy! No kitchen for 2 years. No bathroom for 6 months. Took 6 years to sort (DIY, spare cash only, weekends only). I can laugh now but at the time.... Not so funny! So many great times there though.
Cost 100, sold for 220. Spent about 20.
Now I live in my dream 4 bed house with a much smaller mortgage than others my age/income bracket. I have to pinch myself sometimes at where I am now but it was hard work! Would never have got this place otherwise and lots of people assume it's inheritance or something!

@Monkeytapper

Back to back terrace walking distance from Leeds City Centre, cost me £42k, I earnt £12k a year and got a 110% mortgage through Northern Rock, so and a few quid spare to pay solicitors and furniture etc. Didn’t have to put a deposit down. It was over 3 floors with the kitchen and and bathroom in the cellar. Met OH and fell pregnant with DS and it was a pain going down 2 flights of stairs for a pee at night. It served its purpose at the time. Sold it when house prices shot up a couple of years later for £75k and I’d hardly spent anything on it. We moved when DS was a few weeks old, often drive past it now, good memories.

I love the Leeds back to backs - stayed in a few when I lived there!

My first house was an edwardian 2 bed terrace. It was plaster board walls, only partially carpeted (and rough, not nice, floorboards everywhere else), and the kitchen was a work surface, sink and cooker. No cupboards.
I fluttered my eyelids at a guy I knew with a van to get him to drive me to my bosses bosses house who had a sofa in the garage he wanted rid of. It also had a massive bathroom, just like a previous poster.
It had the most amazing sound insulation -next door had a piano on a share wall, and a drummer. Hardly heard a peep.

In it and love it. Been here 18 months

1920 ish mid terrace with no parking...I thought I would hate it, but actually I blooming love it. It is mine.

I have spent 20k inheritance doing up bits (nealy 10k on the garden alone but it is over 200ft and was a bloody jungle) and buying new furniture for the first time in my life ever (am 40). I have always had "make do and mend" before so to have been able to buy exactly what I wanted has been amazing.

I have decorated throughout in dove grey and airforce blue, am currently renovating/upcoming the kitchen and bathroom.

I didn't want something I needed to do up and I wanted parking. But they meant tiny 2 beds or shared ownership and I wanted it to be mine.

Glad I compromised

We bought relatively late after spending years moving all the time for career development. Worth it though, seven acres, stables, barns, awesome views, easy commute. Life came very good.