Hi lovelies!

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my partner and I are finally ready to buy a house! We’ve got the deposit saved and we’re ready to hand our notice in at our rented house, but the thing that’s preventing us is actually finding a house we want.

It’s extremely frustrating being ready to go but still having to wait, but with it being a large amount of money and such huge commitment, you have to be patient.

I just thought I’d share some of struggles we’ve faced whilst looking for house!

• Finding the perfect house in the right area! There’s so many houses that are gorgeous but the area they’re in is rough, we’ve struggled with this problem a lot, we’re looking for a house in the South Yorkshire area, the thing is with most towns/villages in South Yorkshire and I assume most places actually, is that one minute you could be on a friendly beautiful estate, then you could walk for a couple of minutes away from the estate and be near a very questionable area. Surprising, there’s sometimes beautiful house’s amongst the rough ones, which is extremely frustrating because we’ll love the house but not put an offer for it due to the area. When looking for a home it’s important to think ahead, how long will Aaron I be living in this house? If we live there for 10 years for example, we’ll probably have children by then and I wouldn’t want my children to be raised in a rough, potentially dangerous area. 
• Repossessed homes! A huge no for first time buyers! I found a BEAUTIFUL farm house, it was within our budget, which normally farm houses are super expensive, naturally I was excited and wanted to view it, I called and found out that it was corporately owned and that an offer had already been accepted but I was still able to view the property  (In this kind of situation you could have your offer accepted and be on the last lap of your mortgage process, and someone could still put an higher offer in than yours and they’d get the house, so you’d lose the house and won’t be refunded any fees that you’d paid so far, it’s basically like an auction until you sign the last papers, this is how a mortgage advisor explained this to me anyway) when buying your first home most people can’t have their money messed around with like that and that doesn’t include the hassle of dealing with what damage the previous owner may have caused out of spite ( I heard a story of a guy who messed around with the pipes, the new people moved in, turned everything back on and had a massive water and gas leak, which they had to deal with as they now owned the property) 
• Almost perfect homes! This one is probably the most annoying because you get excited whilst viewing the house, you think it’s the one, then BAM! Something that stops you. We viewed a house yesterday, it was a 3 bed detached, everything inside was like new, big bedrooms, en-suit, garage, huge kitchen, quiet street, below budget, perfect! No garden... why would they build a house so beautiful with no garden. Wouldn’t be able to have friends and family round for BBQ’s in the summer, wouldn’t be able to hang my washing out, wouldn’t be able to play outside when I eventually have kids, wouldn’t be able to have a dog either. So that one factor of it not having a garden just ruined it. Another home that was almost perfect was a semi-detached house on a gorgeous estate, but it basically had a security camera on a lamppost, pointing towards the back garden of the house... okay big brother.. no thanks. 
• Estate agents. Estate agents are sometimes a real struggle, many are amazing and helpful, but I’ve encountered some that haven’t been helpful at all, for example, they never take note of when they can call me, they ask me every time when I’m available, I tell them the times and give them an explanation to as why, which is basically that I can’t answer the phone during my work hours, they then proceed to call me whilst I’m a work and when I call them back they ask me again when’s the best time to call... the same hours that told you on all the other phone calls... (I never complain, I just tell them the hours again) And another thing that annoyed me that an estate agent did was basically she didn’t do what she said she was going to do and that was to send me an email about a property and arrange a viewing, I called so many time’s to chase up about this property that I wanted to view, she would then say that’s she’s going to get in touch with the vendor, and she never did, I had to keep calling for updates, another month went by and suddenly it changed on right move to ‘SOLD STC’ which means an offer has been accepted but the sale isn’t final, she could have told me that an offer had already been accepted and not wasted my time. 
• Catfish! The pictures on Rightmove and Zoopla make all the properties look bigger inside! I’ve  learnt to not take the pictures as gospel and not to have your heart set on a property until you’ve actually viewed it, I once viewed a house which on the pictures looked like it had a massive dining room... JK it was tiny and disappointing. 
• And the biggest struggle we have faced is the fact we’re still looking, every time we view a property and leave knowing it’s not the one is so disheartening because we want to buy a house now! But like I said, it’s a huge investment and not something you do in the heat of the moment, it simply can’t be rushed. I was hoping to have a new home for Christmas but I don’t think that’ll be the case (unless we find a house this week and the mortgage process goes quickly, but I doubt it)