Advice for a first time buyer!

kittykitten

I'm currently in the process of buying my first home. Had offer accepted (yay!) and so am trying to get organised, although I am still aware that many many things could go wrong yet (eek!) particularly as vendors want to complete ASAP, so am looking for as much advice as I can get re: setting up a home.

I'm living with my parents at present, so basically I have nothing. I own no furniture, no appliances, nothing, although kitchen does come with built in fridge, freezer and washing machine so that's those taken care of. The master bedroom has built-in wardrobes and dressing table, and my mum's friend has very kindly offered me a wardrobe that she's getting rid of which I'm planning to put in the spare room until I decide what to do with the master bedroom furniture.

The house I live in now with my parents is a 4 bedroom house stuffed full of the accumulation of 27 years of living here, plus the fact that my parents both work full time and are fairly comfortably off. I earn a decent wage and am not overstretching myself, but am going to have limited funds, especially at first, so really only want to buy the essentials, then move in and I'm sure I'll accumulate the other necessities over time.

What do you see as essential purchases for moving into a first home? What do you have in your home now that you'd recommend no-one should try and live without? I'd really appreciate any advice on this, as I'm trying to go into this with as much info as possible!

muckybutt

A decent comfy bed for starters, you spend more time in bed than sat on your settee so make sure its comfy.
Then theres your settee, get one with removeable washable covers just in case of accidents, some of the charity shops have some good second hand ones if you cant afford a new one.
Dining table, again good ones can be bought from second hand shops etc.
Another thing is make sure the house security is upto scratch, personally when moving into a new house I always change the locks as you never know who has keys that you dont know about.

Other than that its down to personal preference and how far you cans stretch your budget. Happy first house to you....enjoy it

iamcornholio

When we got our first place we had nothing at all to move in with.

We got a new bed, oven, washer/dryer, and fridge (all on HP), basic cooking stuff,a second hand settee from relatives, a 14" portable a cheapo bistro table and chairs, and a few floor mats. Oh and some sheets of melamine for me to DIY our wardrobes and cabinets

It was basic, things were tight, but we still look back with fondness as to our scrimping, making do and the cheap rubbish we had to buy which did not last five minutes. But it was fun

Good luck and don't forget to change the locks as soon as you move in

kittykitten

muckybutt wrote: »

Another thing is make sure the house security is upto scratch, personally when moving into a new house I always change the locks as you never know who has keys that you dont know about.

Definitely a good point - assuming all goes well and I get this house that will definitely be my first priority, as there seem to be keys floating all over the place - the house is being sold by the daughters of the owner, so presumably at least one, if not both of them have keys, the property is empty, so the estate agent had the keys (I viewed the house both times in the company of the estate agent's viewer) and it's also on the market with another local estate agent, so I can only surmise that they also have keys! Too many possibilities for me to feel comfortable with.

esmy

When we moved into our first home we bought a new bed - everything else was donated ( a friend commented that our house looked more like his home every time he visited as we had loads of stuff from them!) - or second hand - or we did without till we could afford!
Join your local Freecycle/Freegle group, scour Gumtree, notices in local shops, Ebay, charity shops, local auctions, Ikea's Bargain corner if you're close to one, all sources of free/cheap furniture. Do your parents have stuff that you could have or loan until you can replace things? Look for Interest Free credit deals if you want to buy new. It's definitely do-able.
Good Luck!

lagaaa

Bedroom curtains or blinds or just something to hang at the windows if they are not leaving them...easy to forget but not easy to do without. Best of luck and early congratulations, first home is very exciting.

VoucherMan

As others have said - a bed with a decent mattress. After all, we spend about 1/3 of our life on it.

Depends on your cooking habits but my most useful item when I moved in was a microwave(at least 800 watts). Many on these forums would recommend a slow cooker.

If you're thinking of getting a settee from one of the companies who advertise on tv (they've probably got a sale ending soon) don't get sucked in. They usually have another sale starting the day after! Up to 4 years interest free!! All I could get was 12 months. And the sofa may have been cheap but the rest of the suite wasn't.
That said I'm happy with suite I got from them 4 years ago.

What sort of flooring has it got? I got a vacuum similar to this. Great for cleaning lino & laminate flooring, and for less accessible places (cellar, attic, utility room) if you've got them. For the rest of the house I use an upright cleaner. Whatever you go for try to get a decent high powered one. I find the product reviews on the Argos website a good guide.

capeverde

keep your powder dry and dont buy at the moment. Just look around you, prices will be falling an awful lot more over the next few years. Not what you want to hear, but you really should consider this. More and more distressed sellers will enter the market once interest rates move up ang government cuts really take hold.

tiggerjj

Freecycle is the way forward, I bought my house a year ago, the slightly ugle sofa is infact very comfy and im still using it with a throw to hide the colour. also IKEA has a coffee table for a tenner and other cheapo stuff like that.
For me I had a lot of work to do on the house but also had to live in it, try to make one room liveable and stress free, maybe the living room so you can excape from the chaos when needed.

If the front door is a wooden one then changing the locks should just be an easy job of changing the barrel. However with mine i found that the muppets who had installed it put it the same level as the letter flap, thus the first time i locked myself out i got back in with the skinny bendy arm I have!!!!

KETTLE AND A COUPLE MUGS think they must the be the most important things for move in day along with a lot of cleaning products.

Sorry this is a bit ranbling, but just how i found being a FTB moving out of the parents house!

kittykitten

tiggerjj wrote: »

If the front door is a wooden one then changing the locks should just be an easy job of changing the barrel. However with mine i found that the muppets who had installed it put it the same level as the letter flap, thus the first time i locked myself out i got back in with the skinny bendy arm I have!!!!

KETTLE AND A COUPLE MUGS think they must the be the most important things for move in day along with a lot of cleaning products.

Thanks for these. I actually already have a couple of mugs stashed away, only because my mum and myself went to center parcs a few weeks ago and ended up buying a couple of mugs to use while we were there cos neither of us could stand the pathetic teeny tiny cups that they call mugs in the apartment!

My dad reckons the locks should be fairly easy and cheap to change, as they're standard UPVC doors.