Home buying - no no

So round about the start of last year me and my then fiancé had seriously considered buying a house, we’d done a few rounds and having found nothing within our budget that was better than the flat we were already living in (which we own) we decided to postpone a couple of years.

I was still on the mailing lists of a few agents though and would intermittently; mostly out of curiosity still look at the incoming mails. This Sunday I received a mail showcasing a lovely home. It was in our budget, in a neighbourhood we had considered and it was on show! We dropped everything and went for a look. And it was lovely. We could see ourselves staying there and the price was totally doable and lower then we might have expected so ... I guess we got a bit carried away.

 

Sunday we spent doing sums, Monday I went to talk to the owners, Tuesday we met the agent who pushed us to put in an offer. At that stage I was already having doubts about whether we were rushing into things and nervous about how pushy the sales lady was that we sign right now! We held off, took the contract home and over a relaxed dinner decided that no, now was not the time to buy.

It was a relief. We decided to stick to the original plan and hold off at least another year. By then we might have our permanent residency sorted and a few other ducks in a row.

So what did I learn? Surprisingly the tips for not buying unnecessary clothing counts for housing too! If you are not seriously looking for a house then don’t window shop, don’t read the sales notices or emails you get. Take a few days to consider acquisitions before laying down the money. This is a big investment and deserves quite a bit of research (when it dawned on me that I have clocked more time looking which exact shade of navy would suit me best rather than the house I realised that I had my priorities messed-up).

Just the day after we turned down the house I heard from a friend that his friend who lived down the road from the house we looked at got broken into on the same Sunday we went to view. Apparently the area is experiencing a bit of a crime wave so that might explain the low price. So maybe it was just not meant to be.

As a result of all this I took the time yesterday to remove myself from all mailing lists (not just the property ones). Instead we can refocus on the flat and maybe finally get around to fixing a couple of things. Can’t believe how impulsive we almost were though!