How We’re Going To Approach House Hunting

I’m now in full-blown savings mode and although it’s nice to see our savings go up I just want to start looking at houses. We have started to look at areas and work out a list of places that could work for us. For example, they’re a max 30-minute drive from my work, have a direct train into London and are close by motorways for Luke’s job. But every time I go onto Rightmove or Zoopla I find houses which look just right. And I don’t want to keep finding things I love but we can’t even think about looking at. So we’re trying to put a hold on looking until the new year when we may be in a position to start booking viewings.

We have an idea in our minds about how we want to approach house hunting. Although I’m fully expecting things not to go to plan 100% of the time. But here’s how I envision that we’ll start the process.

Before we start house hunting: Have a meeting with a mortgage advisor

For us, we have an idea in our minds of what mortgage we should get based on what we saved and our earnings. But there is absolutely no point going to look at anything until we know 100% what we can get and that it’s not maxing out our budget. I’d rather not get the very top mortgage we can get as I don’t want our money to be stretched. So something I am going to do in the next few months is to book in an appointment to chat over our situation with someone who knows far more about mortgages than we do.

Before moving: Only buy essential items

I am so bad when it comes to spending money so saving is quite a toughie for me. Thankfully I just put a large chunk of my wages away the second I get paid. So there’s less temptation, but that’s not stopped me acquiring some items (like these) for the house we don’t yet have. I am trying to be more considered and careful and only buying essential items. For me, this is things which are non-dependant on sizing/ style. So no large bits of furniture which may not work, or things which would be dependant on a particular colour scheme. They also have to be great prices and a real deal.

For example, if I spotted lawn mowers on a great deal I’d buy one as it’s something we know we’d need but have never owned. I’d also buy basics things like cutlery, plain cookware etc as we’ll need these regardless of the style.

House hunting: Go in with a budget in mind

When we do start house hunting I want to be very mindful of our budget. There is no point going to see something massively over our budget. Or something which is only open to offers over a certain amount. I’d hate to see somewhere, fall in love with it but know there’s no way we can afford it.

I want to be realistic with the process and get what’s right for us. But I know we’ll be viewing a lot (or at least I’d like to), as it’s our first time doing this so I’ll want to know all the options. So anything we know won’t work can be eliminated beforehand. When I bought my shared ownership flat I didn’t see anything else, and just jumped straight in. So I don’t have an idea of the viewings process as I was quite young when my parents moved into our current house.

Look at the areas before committing to viewings

Something I’ve seen Sophie Eggerton do in her viewing vlogs is looked at areas before booking a viewing. I’d happily spend an evening driving around areas and seeing where houses are before committing to anything. I’m sure there are some places we’d say no to straight away without having to see the inside. This way we could visit the outsides of loads of places in one go and work out which ones are worth an actual viewing.

For us, we’re hoping it’s pretty much going to be a forever home so it’s got to be right. If that means it takes an extra 6 months then we’re prepared for this.

House hunting: Have a maximum of 5 non negotiable things we want

While there are loads of things we’d like I don’t want to push our non-negotiables too much. For us the things which a property has to have is:

1. A driveway
2. A toilet downstairs or somewhere to fit one
3. A garage or side access to the garden without a need to go through the house. For the latter option, this would mean a decent secure shed in the garden.
4. Either 4 bedrooms, or 3 with space somewhere else in the house for my office

There are loads of other things we’d like such as an open plan large kitchen/ diner, built in wardrobes in the rooms etc but these are things which would be nice but aren’t deal breakers. We don’t want to be too picky when it comes to the house as a lot of things can be changed. For example, if the bathroom isn’t great it’s not really an issue. As long as it’s useable we’d always be changing that further down the line anyway.

How have you (or would you) approach house hunting?

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