It’s been four years and some change since I bought my first home, a little flat in the quiet corner of south London where I grew up. For most of my twenties, getting on the property ladder felt like an unlikely prospect – house prices in London being what they are, and I also knew what’s often referred to as the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ wouldn’t be an option.
So when I actually managed it just as I turned thirty, I was thrilled. Still, I found myself somewhat underprepared for the reality of being a homeowner – specifically the various hidden costs that come with it. Because here’s the thing no one tells you: being able to afford your monthly mortgage payments is sort of the baseline.
‘Boomerang’ living and buying in London
It’s no secret that Britain is a nation obsessed with homeownership, and far more so than our European counterparts, where renting is much more common. I have no doubt that the great British national pastime – property speculation – seeped into my consciousness in my formative years. But the prospect of homeownership also represented a security and ability to control my surroundings that, as a second-gen immigrant who moved to the UK as a child, hasn’t always been the case.
Consequently, I began putting money aside from the very first paycheck. I’d love to say I was saving with a view to one day having a house deposit, but truthfully I wasn’t saving with any particular goal – or amount – in mind. I saved because it seemed prudent, and also because it gave me a sense of control – it made me feel as though I had options.
It helped enormously too that I was able to live with my parents in London on and off during my twenties, renting a series of not-particularly-nice flatshares during the ‘off’ periods. Bouncing from one’s family home to flatshares and back again, often multiple times, is increasingly common for the so-called ‘boomerang’ generation of which I am a part – a recent survey revealed that nearly a quarter of parents with adult children have had them move back in after initially leaving home, with the average age of those returning home being 26. Those rent-free periods accelerated how quickly I was able to save, and meant that when career successes in my late twenties unexpectedly put me in a position to buy, I had a larger deposit (and overall budget) to put down.
Here’s the kicker: repair costs were nearly on par with my mortgage
After jumping through the endless hoops as a self-employed person applying for a mortgage, I got the keys.
My first inkling that things might not play out quite how I’d imagined came two days after I moved in, when I realised I had a gas leak. Some lifted floorboards and £600 later, the leaky pipe was located and fixed and – still high on the novelty of homeownership – I think a little part of me actually relished paying for the repair. It felt like a sign of maturity, and having dealt with various unscrupulous landlords and letting agents in the past, I felt genuinely grateful that I didn’t have to badger someone else, and could take care of it on my own timeline.
Suffice to say the novelty of spending my money on leaky pipes and remedial brickwork swiftly wore off, as one by one these little maintenance issues racked up.
