How long did you/will you spend in your first home?

lippy1923

Brought our first home (2 bed semi) over 6 years ago and still there now. I have to admit we are outgrowing it now we have a son. The toys alone need their own room! If we ever have another child, we will have no choice really but to upsize.

carguy143

boliston wrote: »

How do you cross the road if there are no traffic lights in the whole town?

The town has a series of well lit footpaths connected by footbridges and subways across major roads. I think there's one, possibly two zebra crossing in the old part of the town but I never really have reason to go there. I walk 1.5 miles to work and only have to use said bridges and subways.

amateur_house

Mortgage_Moog wrote: »

I remember finding out a few months back that you can't get a mortgage on a property above commercial property. Did you know you also can't mortgage any property with more than one kitchen? Not sure why but I remember reading that. I think it's something to do with two kitchen properties being classed as commercial.

Thanks for taking the time to share your story.

Things must have changed since we bought our house, 20 years ago now. It had been split into flats and had 3 kitchens. We turned it back into a house so it just has one kitchen now.

MobileSaver

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

I think it all boils down to the fact that renting, in the short term anyway, is cheaper than buying.

Unless you're talking about the VERY short term of say less than a year then I've never understood this. You would think most landlords do it for a profit so it's hard to see how renting (i.e. paying the landlord's mortgage at commercial rates) can be cheaper than buying (i.e. paying your own mortgage at residential rates) in the vast majority of cases.

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

But I can rent that money pit, house and land, and it doesn't matter to me that it will soon need a new 50K roof or there's some other issue whose expensive remediation is keeping the landlord up at night. Not my problem.

Not my problem either. In 30 years of home ownership I've never had to replace a roof, boiler or any other expensive remediation. I'm sure somebody somewhere must have to pay out for these things but I don't think it occurs anywhere near as often as the HPC crowd would like you to believe.

I have however made a very handsome profit on my house purchases and subsequent sales over those 30 years which would still leave me one very happy bunny even if I had had to pay out £50k for a roof.

bownyboy

We bought our first home together in March 2009. We had rented together for 3 years previously so knew what each other wanted.

It helps if you both want the same thing or are able to compromise! We knew the moment we saw our house that it was our 'forever' home.

7 years later we still love our house, although we might rent it out in a years time for a year and rent somewhere else for a change (we're lucky living in surrey so able to make use of huge increases in equity).

Old_Git

rented for several years .first house I bought was a 2 bedroom mid terrace .It was owned by the bank .It was all I could afford .I stayed six years .Now I own four houses .

worried_jim

Mortgage_Moog wrote: »

Where did you live while renting it out?

Still with parents.

Davesnave

I spent about 4 years in my first property, and then someone else caused much of it to be gutted by fire.

It was scary at the time, but the best thing that could have happened.

I went on a fast-track course in basic building and creative accountancy. I also learned lots about hiring and firing, thanks to some incredibly lax and incompetent loss adjusters.

As a result, 6 months later, the house was vastly improved and we enjoyed another 6 years in it without doing any DIY.

King_Nothing

FTB a 4 bed detatched, shouldn't need to move for a long while yet.

Mortgage_Moog

basil92 wrote: »

Lived in it for 25 years...

Shared it for 3 years, rented it for 10 years, then bought and owned it for the remaining 12...

..it never ever was 'home' though!!!

Where did you consider to be home during all that time then?