We bought a house! – Heres our house hunting story

Finally I have got round to creating this blog post, its been on my to do list since the 14th January when we got the keys to our first, and forever home. Our search for our dream home, feels like it took a lifetime. Being self employed is an instant red flag when hoping to become home owners, so after leaving my job a few years ago, and taking the leap to take my business full time,  I had to be fully self employed for a couple of years before we could start looking. Once we started looking in April 2021 (yes this was the first year I’d ever filed my tax return the day it opens haha!) we was pushed into a whirlwind of the crazy covid market, house prices went sky high, everyone was house hunting, houses were selling within hours of being listed- it was intense. I cried, I cried a lot haha! We viewed a few houses, one I ended up putting in an offer within 30 minutes of viewing, it was a panic offer, the agent said I had to or that was it, I cried then. We didn’t get it – thank god. We then viewed a cottage from the 1700s with huge gardens, out buildings and land, we was in love, but we was in love with the gardens and land. In our heads we had it all planned, huge allotments, chickens, donkeys, goats…and then we realised we were ignoring how tiny the cottage was inside, how all of our furniture would have needed to have been extra small to fit in, and how all my stuff would have literally no where to go, so again I cried, because I knew it wasn’t right and it was giving me anxiety haha, so we didn’t put an offer in. It was now June and I started to feel like our large dream period home was never going to happen, none were coming up in the areas we wanted, and any that did, were waaaaaay over our budget. Summer started to drift away and the market slowed down, people were not listing at the end of summer, then the week before our trip to the Lake District in September, the most beautiful 6 bedroom victorian house popped up on my phone, it was our maximum budget, but it was perfect. I called immediately to view it and we got the first viewing for a few days later. I was so casually cool about it, it was not me at all, I just knew this house was going to be ours. I went to the viewing with my Mum as Nathan was working, and we’d made an agreement, that if it meant we could have a viewing sooner for any house we saw, Nathan was happy to trust what I thought and go with it. I loved the house as soon as we walked in,  I could see it was tired and needed love, but I could see the potential. The next morning we offered the asking price, which was our maximum budget, we could have stretched more if needed, but this was what was going to leave us with a good amount of savings to do what we want with it. The seller was happy with the offer,  but said they would honour the next three viewings. which was not a lot of viewings at all, other houses we saw had 20 viewings booked in, it was like this house had gone undetected. The following Sunday we had a trip booked to the Lakes for a week, so I had to give permission for the estate agents to speak to my Mum if we were lucky enough to have our offer accepted, as there was no chance we would be getting signal! So on the monday as we drove to the top of a mountain my Mum finally managed to call us to tell us the house was ours!! What a surreal moment being on a mountain and being told we’d got out dream home!