How I got started in Property – The story of one of our Directors

How I started in Property.

For most people buying a property is something we are told from a young age is the right thing to do. Go to school, get a good education, get a good job and then buy a house. For most people, their property experience will end at their home. They may change house a few times over their lifetime as they outgrow their property and then later in life maybe downsize.

My experience was much the same. I was fresh out of the education system and hell-bent on buying my first house, I had been around a good few people and noticed all of the people in the nice big houses had bought early and had stretched themselves to buy the best they could, not uncomfortably stretched but all had stories of how they borrowed that little bit more from family members to buy this house versus another. I was sure I needed to replicate what they have done and set about looking for my first house.

I looked locally to where I had grown up and decided on some rough criteria for my property. I didn’t spend long looking and to be honest, had set about looking at houses initially out of interest without a clear plan on buying immediately. My thoughts were it might take a year or so to find the right property and save the deposit money and funds for legals, stamp duty etc on top. Well, best-laid plans and all that, a family friend was selling their property and it matched the criteria. This house was a semi-detached house with a small garden and a garage to the side. 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and a living room. Nothing special, pretty typical first-time buyers home.

As this was a family friend we had a connection, the property was advertised via an estate agent but rather than going through them we went direct. This was an immediate negotiating point. The property was up for 185k. The estate agent saving meant that went immediately to around 181k. I have always been one for a bit of a haggle, however when it came to property I wasn’t exactly sure of the house buying etiquette. I Believed the property was probably fairly listed price-wise, I also don’t like paying full price for anything but normally this was relating to a car where I’d haggle a few hundred quid off and feel happy. I went in with, what at the time felt like a low offer, 170k. Expectations were we would do the usual dance and come somewhere in the middle. The owner asked to chuck another 1k on top so he could go on holiday and we agreed. 171k At the time it felt like a bargain, now I would be starting at 140k looking to spend 150k max, but hey, it was 2005 and the market was heating up towards its peak then, unbeknown to us at the time.

Great I thought, I now have an offer accepted for 171k on a great little house. Then I realised I now needed to get my backside into gear and find some money. It wasn’t like I didn’t have any money, it’s just mentally I was a year away from buying and realistically I hadn’t even worked out how much money I needed, how I would mortgage it if I could even afford it really. I was young, naive and just starting out in property.

Next steps. 

Frantically run around and scrape every penny I could find and see how much I was looking at.

Get a mortgage broker running some numbers and organising an offer in principle

Work out how much this was going to cost me to run, gas, electric, water (honestly I had no idea you had to pay for water up until this point, I assumed it was free) council tax, tv license, phone, broadband (well dial-up at least) TV and everything else.

Get this deal done.

Issues

I didn’t have enough to pay the 20% deposit (34k) stamp duty (not as bad as today but still a few thousand) solicitor costs (1k) fees (another few thousand as a first-time buyer starting out on my property journey)

I was also fresh out of Uni and with only a few months working experience (and importantly pay slips) so a mortgage offer was harder than expected

Options

Option 1

The first thought was to back out and come back in a years time when everything would be easier, I’d have more savings, a better employment history, more time to research what it was all going to cost.

Then I remembered all of my friends and their parents (including my own) they pushed through barriers to get into their respective houses. so Option two it was

Option 2

Find more money for the initial purchase costs

Take a higher costing mortgage in order to secure the deal.

Plan of attack

I had about 30k in the bank (yeah I know fresh out of uni how did I manage that, that’s a long story for another post but let’s just summarise and say I didn’t spend my student loan on books, I set up a few small businesses and turned the money into more money!). I needed another 10k just to do the deal, let alone furnishings etc. I set about getting that additional money by any means necessary. I borrowed a bit, yes I know it’s not ideal but to be able to borrow 5k meant I could buy this house. The rest came from extreme saving, skrimping, doing extra jobs (I was working 7 days a week doing 4 jobs as well as anything on the side for a few more quid)

I managed to get the extra 10k in about 2 months. 5k was a loan, the other 5k was hard work. When people say to me I can’t save any money, I think back to this point in my life. I used to wake up at 4am to open a newsagent, I’d bring in the papers and magazines, sort them into the shelves and the piles for the paperboys until about 5.30am. at 5.30 I would then take 2 of those piles and do 2 paper rounds myself, sometimes more with the flaky teenagers not turning up for work because it was too cold or too hot or to mild. Once I had done the rounds I’d go home and get ready for my job in London. 9-5 at a big bank nothing particularly exciting but provided me with my main income. Looking back at my salary most now laugh but it was a good job for a good company. In the evenings I would be doing odd jobs where ever I could. Anything from delivering leaflets, yellow pages (my back doesn’t thank me much now) painting and decorating, working on allotments and practically anything else that could pay me a wage. Then on the weekends it was a job in one of many retail shops Saturday and Sunday whilst still doing the newsagents work (364 days a year, Christmas was the only day we got off!)

Now I’m not suggesting everyone do what I did, but if you are working a single 9-5 and you can’t save money, you have more options…if you really want to, but you really have to want to. I would say as a twenty-something I was probably working 12-14 hours a day. over the 7 days that’s 80-100 hours a week. I was also earning more money than some of my friends’ parents.

So with the money I needed and a mortgage secured at a fairly high % I was ready to go.

Side note:

Back in 2005 the mortgage system was going nuts, they were seemingly lending to anyone and sometimes up to 100% Loan to Value. I even heard in some cases 105% LTV just to allow you to buy your furniture. I was keen to get on the ladder but also wanted to do it right, that meant having a deposit and not taking 100% Loan to value. The crash came just a year or 2 later and this meant I was in a good position to ride that wave, not that I knew it at the time of course, hindsight is wonderful.

My mortgage was around 1500 per month, bills another 350. With food and other essentials on top, I was pretty much-spending everything that I had coming in. Looking back now I have no idea how I passed any sort of vetting, of course also looking back now it’s clear with the crash of 2008 they may very well have not cared that much either.

So I purchased my very first house and I was now starting out in property as a first-time buyer. It was great, wonderful, exciting, I was all grown up. Well I mean I had a house and a mortgage. I was also sleeping on an inflatable mattress, had mismatched deck chairs for my living room chairs and a moving box for a dining table but I was on the property ladder.

The property.

I mentioned briefly about the property itself at the beginning. I didn’t mention much about the condition. The house was livable and had all the bits needed to be a home but just wasn’t my taste overall really, not very modern. I was desperate to get it how I liked it, however for those paying attention above will notice I had no money. 

The sensible people at this point will settle in and focus on how to get furniture and worry about doing up the property later.

I ripped out all the carpet in the house and started pulling down dado rails (does anyone know what these are for?). My thinking was this, if I have no carpets and holes in the walls, I’ll figure a way out to solve this problem. If I left them I’d probably eventually get used to them and live with them. So out it all came.

My limited DIY skills were now being put to the full test. I ploughed on, walls were fixed and repainted. I purchased carpets from a local shop who had offcuts and fitted them myself (poorly) total cost was about 300. House immediately looked better. I got the buzz.

Next up was the Garden. It was a small garden on a corner plot. Out came the pressure washer for the patio, looked 10x better immediately. Some time and attention getting the grass into a good state meant it started looking good. I was given an old electric lawnmower with a cord. it reached almost to the end of the garden plugged into the nearest socket with a 1 meter extension cord plugged in. Now most people would just buy a longer extension cord. Me, no I build some decking over the bit it couldn’t reach. It did the job and made the garden look pretty nice to be honest. Again, I built it myself with some help from a family friend with some tools. Painted the fences and bought a couple of pot plants. Total cost for the garden, 100.

Now the house was looking nice, but the olive green bath tub with the pink sink (painted white but not very well) and the white toilet were starting to drive my OCD mad. Bathrooms and kitchens I was always told were expensive but also made the house. They had to be done.

It’s worth noting at this point my aim was always to live here, not to buy, refurb and sell. So everything I was doing was for me at this point.

I had managed to save a few quid by this point and upgraded to a proper bed (Ikea) and a sofa on 0% finance over 5 years. hashtag winning

Bathrooms I thought to myself are a step too far even for me in my optimistic mind. I needed a professional. 

I went, as you do when you are young and naive to the bath store. Picked my ideal set up, had it all measured and priced. They provided me with some cards of local fitters and I went about getting it priced up.

After a bit of haggling all round I managed to get the whole lot done for around £5k. Not cheap but I also didn’t go cheap on this. All pipework sunk into walls, upgraded windows. Spotlights, fancy taps and tiles. It was a bathroom I was proud of for my house, again not an investment or Buy to let at this point.

After the bathroom was completed I was well on my way to a lovely family home (for 1) Just that Kitchen now. It was fully functional, clean and really nothing was wrong with it except it was in my view ‘old fashioned’ dark wood with a laminated worktop. Horrible cheap handles and plain white tiles all round. Again, fully functional and fine for most, just not me.

The bathroom was a fairly hands off experience and I paid for it, by this time I was training to be a project manager and decided the kitchen would be managed by me.

I’d pick the kitchen and organise various trades to come in and help and even do what I could.

First up – Which Kitchen. I chose a lovely MFI kitchen, had it priced and planned. All good (for now)

Found tiles, appliances etc.

I needed to move a door and a window to get my ideal kitchen so found a FENSA approved fitter.

Found a worktop

Found a worktop fitter

Found a kitchen fitter

Found a plasterer

Found a tiler.

Found a plumber and electrician.

I pulled everything together and created a plan, schedule of works and a cost schedule. Everything was looking good.

Then MFI went bust. DOH. The kitchen was exactly what I wanted. No one else had anything like it. What was I going to do? Glad you asked as I’m going to tell you.

I drove around about 10 local stores and bought all the bits I needed from the plan that had been created. The best part about it all was this kitchen was priced at about £5k in materials. With a fair amount of effort I managed to get everything I needed for about £800. Clearance prices with store managers who know they are out of a job soon is a magical combination. I was asking for bits and people were just giving them to me.

With everything in place we started the work.

I love to say it all went well but let’s be honest that rarely happens.

First kitchen fitter decided halfway through he wanted to double his price. He was told where to go and promptly left taking with him some of the kitchen doors and half the worktop knowing we couldn’t get any more. (ba****d)

Timewise it took much longer with trades blaming each other for all the issues.

I was pretty much living off takeaway (hardlife I know)

It was a tough few weeks.

But we got there, with a bit of help from some family members again with a few of the tasks and some getting hands dirty on items I had never done before to try and reign in the costs we finally got the job done. And it looked Fantastic. I was so pleased.

Some of you will be reading this thinking finally the house is how he wants it, and you would be right, so what did we decide to do, enjoy it I hear you saying. Yeah we…erm…decided to sell. Why I hear you ask, well someone planted a seed saying it would be worth loads more now, and that piqued my interest.

So we had it valued, it was around 2007/2008 and they estimated it would be worth £250k. Now we had bought at £171k spent about 12k total and would be making around £70k. That was more money than I had seen in my whole life.

BAM

Recession.

No one is buying or selling, loads of people in negative equity. The time was not right. We settled in, let the dust settle, enjoyed the new house and waited patiently. The bug however was now well and truly caught, I could see how in property you can make some serious money.

Stay tuned for our next post on what happened next…