Well I’ve completed now – exciting stuff! But I haven’t moved as yet. I’m fortunate, I guess, as a first time buyer, in that I am renting a flat, so my current home is not part of a chain. This meant that, once things actually got going, there was no delay in competing. It also meant that I don’t need to move straightaway.
We’d agreed to complete in the middle of the month and I have my flat until the end. That’s not ideal from a money perspective – I’m paying rent and mortgage at the same time and bills for two properties. But on the plus side, there’s no rush to get everything done in one day.
”It was completely empty – no fridge, freezer, washing machine, not even an oven!”
The place I’m buying has been empty for about a year and was tenanted prior to that, so I was expecting a few teething problems to crop up (and they have, but that’s another blog post). What’s more, it was completely empty – no fridge, freezer, washing machine, not even an oven!
And having lived in a furnished flat for the last seven years, I don’t have much in the way of other essentials – saucepans, plates, a bed, wardrobe, kitchen bin, and so on.
”IKEA here I come!”
Having these two weeks gives me a chance to buy everything – and when I say everything, I mean that almost entirely literally! As I want to renovate fairly quickly after I move in (within the first year), I don’t want to spend too much on things I might eventually want to replace so I’ll be nabbing bargains from Facebook marketplace and getting everything else as cheap as possible. IKEA here I come!
The First Time Buy 