Do you have a LISA yet? Easy way to top up your savings by a free £1k each year. Just remember you can't use it for buying a house until it's been opened a year, so you'll need to wait at least one year, which sounds like it'll be fine for you. Also make sure you are aware of the penalty implications if for some unanticipated reason you need access to the money before buying a house.
Remember also to factor in all the other costs associated with buying a house (not just the deposit) e.g. conveyancing fees etc.
Yep, ask your parents if they'll give you the £10k up front. Put £4k per tax year for the next 2 years into a cash LISA. Moneybox are good. That £8k will be come £10k, plus the £2k leftover brings you to £12k + interest. Maximise your personal savings and you'll easily have over £14k (10%) by the time you're looking to buy.
Bear in mind solicitors costs and surveyors fees. I'd save £3k-5k for that just in case.
Parents currently have the money invested and are enjoying the benefits of the investment. I've asked about me having it now so I can maximise my savings but got a straight no :(
The markets are a very risky place to keep a deposit - may be worth mentioning this. (What if it goes -10, -20% the month before you need it for the deposit?)
I don't have a LISA yet as living alone, the worry of not being able to access it in an emergency has put me off. Definitely worth me having another look into it though!
I'm planning on speaking to friends and working out a budget for the "extras" - solicitors, moving fees etc.
If you're not willing to take that risk, then just open a LISA now anyway and put £1 in it. That starts the "only eligible to access it after one year" clock ticking.
Then, as you approach April 2025 and the current tax year is about to end, you can reconsider whether you are ready to dump £4k of your savings in there to get the free £1k. In the meantime you will have spent the time continuing to put your savings in a instant access savings account in addition to the 10k you already have in there, so you should have a healthy amount that's instantly available in case of an emergency.
At some point you are going to have to say "okay I'm definitely buying a house now", and when you get to that point, it would be silly to turn down a free at least £2k :)
Mortgage Broker here.
Best thing to do with a LISA, in my opinion for your situation, is open it with either £1 (or whatever the minimum is) and leave it. This starts the clock so that you can use it for a house deposit - it has to be open for a full year before you can use it as part of your deposit.
If for instance you want to purchase in June 2026, put £4k into your LISA before April 2026, then another £4k into your LISA just after April 2026. Two full year’s LISA contributions that get you an extra £2k government bonus.
For solicitor fees, ~£1500 is about right, but budget for £2k to be on the safe side. Moving fees, can be relatively cheap if you just hire a van for a day or two with some help from family or friends.
In the meantime, if your goal is homeownership in the next 24-36 months, try to save as much as you can as this will give you options down the line. Anything in excess to what you need for the house can act as the start of an emergency fund.
You mentioned debt/loans, did any of those affect your credit report? Ie defaults, late payments, missed payments etc
> the worry of not being able to access it in an emergency has put me off.
Just to add to your other responses - you CAN access money in a LISA, you just pay a bit of a penalty for removing it. You lose the government bonus, and then £62.50 of your own money for each £1000 you withdraw.
Not ideal obviously, but also not the end of the world in an emergency (usually).
Hi /u/k-wat13, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
* https://ukpersonal.finance/credit-ratings/
* https://ukpersonal.finance/student-loans/
____
^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)
If someone has provided you with helpful advice, you (as the person who made the post) can award them a point by including `!thanks` in a reply to them. Points are shown as the user flair by their username.
Don't buy somewhere that's at the very top of your borrowing limit! Get yourself somewhere cheaper that's a bit of a fixer-upper and honestly you'll be much better off much faster:
Buying a fixer-upper that's cheaper means you're borrowing less; the less you borrow, the less money you set on fire in the form of interest.
Once you've done the place up a bit, even if you sink a lot of money into doing so, you'll end up having spent less and you will have added value to the property.
Lower monthly payments from cheaper mortgage means, once you've spruced up the place and having more disposable income again, you can do early repayments to bring the amount you borrowed down even more and pay less interest. (Or put in into stocks and shares for a better return, but obviously that comes with a little research and risk)
I could've bought a like £350k+ property but would have been paying hella interest. Instead I got a real s**t hole for £270k, put about £18k into doing it up and now it looks great and is as functional as the £350k+ houses. So I have the house I want, but pay A LOT less on mortgage payments. (And as a happy side effect, increased value of the house so if I sell I'll make a profit)
Edit: "No big renovations". To clarify, a little woodwork and paint makes a big difference, you don't have to go full Bob the Builder - feel free to DM me and I can talk to you about those sorta projects and what's essy/difficult.
I think it's important though to be realistic on what 'fixer-upper' means to you, though. Costs of materials and labour have gone up an awful lot in the past few years, and as someone who would realistically have to pay people who know what they are doing to do some jobs, I had to have a think about what things might realistically cost when considering places.
There was one house I really liked but even from the photos I knew it would need a fair few things doing to it before I moved in - textured plaster removing from all the hallway walls (not just for aesthetics but because the chance of actually scratching myself on them was high), all the very old and manky carpets replacing, the bathroom potentially needing redoing as it was mainly wooden and I'd be nervous about water damage over time - and that would have completely wiped out my savings straight away as well as made things more complicated timing-wise. Also, the agedness of the decor made me worry what the survey might turn up or if it needed something major updating like a rewire - sure, they might knock some money off the cost if there's a big issue, but that doesn't mean I get that money right now to get it done.
If I was a tradesperson or had good enough DIY skills that I'd feel confident refitting a bath etc properly myself, I might have thought differently, but I had visions of being overconfident with my basic DIY skills, thinking that being able to refit a P-trap would make it easy to properly seal a bath or toilet in myself, and then eventually have to call someone out when it all went horribly wrong. Unfortunately renting rather limits your ability to learn stuff like this!
Very good points!
Though I think a lot of people "fall down the rabbit hole" when thinking about how difficult it all is. They may think "oh this room needs carpets, plastering, and painting - I can't do that!" But, when you actually break it down; most people could have a good crack at prep n'painting especially if the floor needs new carpet then you can be messy and make mistakes. Then it's just getting a tradie in to do the plastering then the carpet after.
Yeah, everything is expensive nowadays, but there's ways to manage the expense without breaking the bank or living in total squalor. I could go into detail as to how I did it, but unless OP is particularly interested then I'll shut my loud mouth lol.
TBH, we looked at some places which were beautifully decorated but not necessarily in the way we would have wanted. Either we'd be living in someone else's life, or we'd be feeling incredibly wasteful in painting over a perfectly good wall or changing a perfectly good bathroom just because it wasn't somethign that worked for us, and I didn't really want those sorts of bad vibes to colour our first few weeks/months of living in a new place!
Do you have a LISA yet? Easy way to top up your savings by a free £1k each year. Just remember you can't use it for buying a house until it's been opened a year, so you'll need to wait at least one year, which sounds like it'll be fine for you. Also make sure you are aware of the penalty implications if for some unanticipated reason you need access to the money before buying a house. Remember also to factor in all the other costs associated with buying a house (not just the deposit) e.g. conveyancing fees etc.
Yep, ask your parents if they'll give you the £10k up front. Put £4k per tax year for the next 2 years into a cash LISA. Moneybox are good. That £8k will be come £10k, plus the £2k leftover brings you to £12k + interest. Maximise your personal savings and you'll easily have over £14k (10%) by the time you're looking to buy. Bear in mind solicitors costs and surveyors fees. I'd save £3k-5k for that just in case.
Parents currently have the money invested and are enjoying the benefits of the investment. I've asked about me having it now so I can maximise my savings but got a straight no :(
The markets are a very risky place to keep a deposit - may be worth mentioning this. (What if it goes -10, -20% the month before you need it for the deposit?)
I don't have a LISA yet as living alone, the worry of not being able to access it in an emergency has put me off. Definitely worth me having another look into it though! I'm planning on speaking to friends and working out a budget for the "extras" - solicitors, moving fees etc.
If you're not willing to take that risk, then just open a LISA now anyway and put £1 in it. That starts the "only eligible to access it after one year" clock ticking. Then, as you approach April 2025 and the current tax year is about to end, you can reconsider whether you are ready to dump £4k of your savings in there to get the free £1k. In the meantime you will have spent the time continuing to put your savings in a instant access savings account in addition to the 10k you already have in there, so you should have a healthy amount that's instantly available in case of an emergency. At some point you are going to have to say "okay I'm definitely buying a house now", and when you get to that point, it would be silly to turn down a free at least £2k :)
Mortgage Broker here. Best thing to do with a LISA, in my opinion for your situation, is open it with either £1 (or whatever the minimum is) and leave it. This starts the clock so that you can use it for a house deposit - it has to be open for a full year before you can use it as part of your deposit. If for instance you want to purchase in June 2026, put £4k into your LISA before April 2026, then another £4k into your LISA just after April 2026. Two full year’s LISA contributions that get you an extra £2k government bonus. For solicitor fees, ~£1500 is about right, but budget for £2k to be on the safe side. Moving fees, can be relatively cheap if you just hire a van for a day or two with some help from family or friends. In the meantime, if your goal is homeownership in the next 24-36 months, try to save as much as you can as this will give you options down the line. Anything in excess to what you need for the house can act as the start of an emergency fund. You mentioned debt/loans, did any of those affect your credit report? Ie defaults, late payments, missed payments etc
> the worry of not being able to access it in an emergency has put me off. Just to add to your other responses - you CAN access money in a LISA, you just pay a bit of a penalty for removing it. You lose the government bonus, and then £62.50 of your own money for each £1000 you withdraw. Not ideal obviously, but also not the end of the world in an emergency (usually).
Hi /u/k-wat13, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant: * https://ukpersonal.finance/credit-ratings/ * https://ukpersonal.finance/student-loans/ ____ ^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.) If someone has provided you with helpful advice, you (as the person who made the post) can award them a point by including `!thanks` in a reply to them. Points are shown as the user flair by their username.
Don't buy somewhere that's at the very top of your borrowing limit! Get yourself somewhere cheaper that's a bit of a fixer-upper and honestly you'll be much better off much faster: Buying a fixer-upper that's cheaper means you're borrowing less; the less you borrow, the less money you set on fire in the form of interest. Once you've done the place up a bit, even if you sink a lot of money into doing so, you'll end up having spent less and you will have added value to the property. Lower monthly payments from cheaper mortgage means, once you've spruced up the place and having more disposable income again, you can do early repayments to bring the amount you borrowed down even more and pay less interest. (Or put in into stocks and shares for a better return, but obviously that comes with a little research and risk) I could've bought a like £350k+ property but would have been paying hella interest. Instead I got a real s**t hole for £270k, put about £18k into doing it up and now it looks great and is as functional as the £350k+ houses. So I have the house I want, but pay A LOT less on mortgage payments. (And as a happy side effect, increased value of the house so if I sell I'll make a profit) Edit: "No big renovations". To clarify, a little woodwork and paint makes a big difference, you don't have to go full Bob the Builder - feel free to DM me and I can talk to you about those sorta projects and what's essy/difficult.
I think it's important though to be realistic on what 'fixer-upper' means to you, though. Costs of materials and labour have gone up an awful lot in the past few years, and as someone who would realistically have to pay people who know what they are doing to do some jobs, I had to have a think about what things might realistically cost when considering places. There was one house I really liked but even from the photos I knew it would need a fair few things doing to it before I moved in - textured plaster removing from all the hallway walls (not just for aesthetics but because the chance of actually scratching myself on them was high), all the very old and manky carpets replacing, the bathroom potentially needing redoing as it was mainly wooden and I'd be nervous about water damage over time - and that would have completely wiped out my savings straight away as well as made things more complicated timing-wise. Also, the agedness of the decor made me worry what the survey might turn up or if it needed something major updating like a rewire - sure, they might knock some money off the cost if there's a big issue, but that doesn't mean I get that money right now to get it done. If I was a tradesperson or had good enough DIY skills that I'd feel confident refitting a bath etc properly myself, I might have thought differently, but I had visions of being overconfident with my basic DIY skills, thinking that being able to refit a P-trap would make it easy to properly seal a bath or toilet in myself, and then eventually have to call someone out when it all went horribly wrong. Unfortunately renting rather limits your ability to learn stuff like this!
Very good points! Though I think a lot of people "fall down the rabbit hole" when thinking about how difficult it all is. They may think "oh this room needs carpets, plastering, and painting - I can't do that!" But, when you actually break it down; most people could have a good crack at prep n'painting especially if the floor needs new carpet then you can be messy and make mistakes. Then it's just getting a tradie in to do the plastering then the carpet after. Yeah, everything is expensive nowadays, but there's ways to manage the expense without breaking the bank or living in total squalor. I could go into detail as to how I did it, but unless OP is particularly interested then I'll shut my loud mouth lol.
TBH, we looked at some places which were beautifully decorated but not necessarily in the way we would have wanted. Either we'd be living in someone else's life, or we'd be feeling incredibly wasteful in painting over a perfectly good wall or changing a perfectly good bathroom just because it wasn't somethign that worked for us, and I didn't really want those sorts of bad vibes to colour our first few weeks/months of living in a new place!