Did you use all your savings towards a house deposit?

[Caramels8]

I'm a first time buyer, looking to buy alone.

I've come to the realisation that I will probably have to use all my savings towards a house deposit which makes me slightly nervous as I've always had some money saved just in case (job loss, car repairs etc). Only having 1 income (I only earn 27k) obviously makes things a bit harder.

I guess it's the only way most people manage to get on the property ladder nowadays though. I know I can always save up again or put emergency purchases/repairs on a credit card, but it would be scary not having any savings.

It would be good to hear other people's experiences. Did you have to do the same, and if so, were you ok financially/saved up again or would you not recommend it? Am I silly for evening considering it?

Yes, we worked out how much we needed in total including legal fees, stamp duty, removal costs etc and cleaned out everything. Even the kids’ savings accounts. We had to be extremely careful with money for quite some time.

it’s the best financial decision we ever made.

However this was in 2009 and they didn’t scrutinise your finances in the way they do now.

I kept £10K back. I was a FTB and buying alone. I just couldn’t take the risk tbh

This is a good point.

They didn’t scrutinise affordability to anywhere near the same degree “back in the day “ which did encourage some reckless behaviour on the part of buyers. Including myself, which I wouldn’t encourage others to copy though very fortunately we did manage to keep up with repayments (just).

I kept about 20K and I am lucky I did that because there were more things to urgently fix in my 1930 house than what the supposedly full structural survey had listed...

It all depends on whether you buy a fairly recently built house or a period one.

With an older house I would be a bit more careful as it is quite common to find various issues when you move in.

Mine needed a new boiler, rewiring, removing a faulty old gas heater, new floor tiles in the entrance & a bit of re-plastering. Also it turned out to have a leak in the bathroom cistern a few weeks later that caused some damage in the ceiling & a broken kitchen drain gully. I had to do of that in my first 3 months of owning the property...

I did as much as I could myself (removing carpets, painting the whole house, restoring original wooden floors and stairs, the garden, sanding and painting the kitchen cupboards ...) but even that means you need some money for supplies.

I have been saving every month as well to rebuild my repair emergency fund to at least 10K.

My salary is about 29K so not easy but I don't regret buying my house :).

Were you doing it alone on a £29k wage? I’m genuinely really impressed you had £20k(!) still in savings after buying a house. You must save incredibly hard. If you have a secret savings tip please share!!

@@SBHon

No secret tip I am afraid.

My first property was a 1 bed shared-ownership flat in London bought 15 years ago and I sold that at a profit and then moved 2.30 hour away to afford a small terrace.

Deposit came from savings & a small inheritance (my share of the sale of the family home).

I live a frugal life (no car, no holiday abroad, avoiding buying new clothes) to 'religiously' save every month. Still really hard though with the cost of living crisis!

Pretty much, yes. I wanted to reduce the mortgage as much as possible, in hindsight I’m glad I did.