- Welcome to the reading nook of my flat, aka my new filming corner. It's like I've got a professional set, this is amazing, I love it. So I said I would make
this video, so here we are. How I bought a flat in London. I've been getting a lot of questions, just how, how did you do it. Because I am 26 years old,
other than my married friends, I am the only person within
my peer group of people, my age who has purchased property. So it's kind of a big deal
and a bit of an anomaly. So we are going to get
technical in this video, I'm gonna be talking
mortgages and Help to Buy, and all of that yummy stuff
that I learnt all about and had no idea about before
going through this process. But now, feel like a wizard,
I've got all this knowledge. But the crux of it, of how I
managed to buy a flat in London is hard work, savings, money from family, Help to Buy and getting a mortgage. Those were all of the
things that were in place for me to be in the position. And I just want to take
this moment to acknowledge the luck that I have and
the privilege that I have because I had this money from family. So thank you parents, and grandparents, much appreciated you're
welcome to come stay any time. Other disclaimer I bought this myself, my partner lives here
with me but it is mine. If I keep looking down
it's because I have notes and there's a lot, there's a lot of stuff. So first of all I'm gonna take you through an overview of the process,
the timeline of events and what happened and
then I'm gonna talk about Help to Buy and how that works for anyone who is confused about that. And then I'm gonna talk about
the mortgage side of things, specifically trying to get
a mortgage as a freelancer, and then I've got some
FAQ's to answer as well. And hopefully by talking about all of that I'll have covered everything. So the process, it started with me having a very good business year and knowing that I had this money from
family that I was like, ooh, I might look into buying a flat and seeing if the money that I have could stretch that far, we'll see. So I started to figure
out what my budget was and what I could maybe afford
if I was looking to buy. Turns out I love looking at real estate, even before I was seriously
considering buying I would be on Zoopla,
I would be on Rightmove and I would just be looking
at all of the properties and I would often set it to most expensive just to see and do you know what. I love me a good floor plan. I went to a couple viewings of new builds to get an idea of what that was like. One of them was completely
out of my price range, but I had good conversations
with the mortgage advisor there and the estate agent there that I then, going into the next one, had a better idea of questions to ask and the things that I needed
to have prepared beforehand. This was 10 to 12 months before we would have hypothetically been moving, and Dan was just like to me,
stop, just stop stressing. We don't need to think
about this right now. So I promised that I
wouldn't look at anything until after Christmas and I
was just gonna take a break. I obviously did not keep my promise because I found myself on more websites around September time and
that is when I found this. It was perfect, they were
launching the development and having the first
initial viewing in one week or two weeks time from when I found it. And I was just like,
oh my God, this is it. I went of my mortgage
advisor and I was like, I think I've found the one,
can you do everything for me so I am in the best
position possible going in so no one steals it from me. Before I went to look at
it me and Dan sat down with the brochure, we looked through it. Obviously because I was buying it, it was ultimately my
decision but because he was gonna be living with me I was like, what do you think, and also his dad is a structural engineer, so
knows a lot about buildings. So that was really helpful. I went by myself on the open day thing, and I looked around and
I was like, yes, great, I want it, filled out the form
and then it was on the Monday that I transferred the 500 pounds. With Help to Buy is that to reserve it, it doesn't mean that you've
bought it or anything, but to reserve it you just pay 500 pounds, and you fill out a little form. Then it was a few months of
applying for the mortgage and doing all that and
getting the contracts ready, and figuring out all that, dah dah dah. And then in December was
when we exchanged contracts. So that's when you'll
kind of buy the property, or you promise to buy the property and I paid 5% of the deposit
I think at that point. So a big chunk of money
just went off, goodbye. And I actually remember sending the money just as I was getting really ill. So I spent four weeks in hospital starting from the 29th
December, and leading up to that I was super ill as well. And I remember exchanging
contracts from bed, being really ill and sending
the money on online banking, just like uh. And then after my surgery
was when we got the letter through the post, obviously
I got emails as well, but there was the official letter too, that was congratulations you've exchanged. And Dan brought it to the hospital for me, and I was in my hospital bed
just holding it, like yes. So what a time, very dramatic. So then we exchanged in December, and we were due to complete in March. Now completion is where you hand over the rest of the money, you hand over all of your deposit and
they hand you the keys. So completion was due at the end of March, and it was mid-March and we were like, are we moving, what's happening? And the estate agent would
just like, we don't know. It's been delayed, there
was just no answers, and it was very confusing, but
they were like any day now. It will be soon, any day now. And basically they told us
every week that it would be any day now, soon, soon,
soon for five months. So we were just in limbo, it was horrible. I hated it, I hated it,
it was so stressful. And then I had another surgery
during that time as well. This year has not been
fun, but then finally, on the 6th September we moved in. (cheering) So we got the notice to complete
a week or two before that. But finally, finally, it all happened. Apparently it was just all
paperwork at the council, and it was the council
was being really slow to get everything signed
off because obviously it was a new build. So the building was actually
done, the building was finished but you know, that was what
the developers were saying. So maybe, maybe some of
it was there fault too, who knows, who knows. But doesn't matter now, because we're in. So that was the process and
actually one of the questions that I got on Twitter was about what was the timeline of start to finish? So it was about a year, so from
finding this property online to moving in it was about 12 months. But from thinking about
moving and playing around with options and figuring
out what I could afford to moving in longer then that, maybe a few months, six
months, longer then that. Okay so Help to Buy,
this is the reason why I could afford this place. So there are two different
kinds of Help to Buy. There's the Help to Buy
ISA which a lot of you may have heard of which is where you put up to 200 pounds a month
into an ISA savings account and then you can use that
towards a house deposit and the Government will give
you a percentage of that added to it, so the
Government will give you a bunch of cash. That's not what I did,
I did the Help to Buy equity loan, this is when the Government basically pay for a
percentage of the property. So the Government own that
percentage of the property and if I were to ever
sell it the Government would either make a profit or a loss also on their percentage. If you are outside of London, the Government can buy up
to 30% of the property, if you're in London it's 40%. So I did the full 40%,
so I only actually own and have a mortgage for
60% of this property, 40% of it is my Help to Buy loan. The way that a Help to Buy loan works is that it is interest
free for five years. So I am paying nothing
on this loan right now, and then on year six I
start paying interest only. The only way that I can
buy them out to get more of their share and reduce their share is by buying it in 10% chunks. It's 10% of whatever the current value is. So this is my Brexit fail safe. So fingers crossed prices just go up, even though that's just
bad for everyone else. But fingers crossed this
property doesn't reduce in value because that wouldn't be great for me. But if it does because
of Brexit potentially then I can use that opportunity to buy the Government bit out. I don't know, we'll see, this is my plan. Who knows, Brexit might screw
us all over, it might not. So with Help to Buy,
in order to be eligible you have to be a first
time buyer in the UK, you have to put a £500 reserve fee down. You have to have at least 5% deposit, and you have to be
living in that property, and you can't have another property, it has to be your only property. So I can't now just buy somewhere else. So Help to Buy makes up
40% of this property. 60% of it is my cash
deposit and my mortgage. So now let's talk about mortgages. Is this what you were expecting when you signed up for
a sex education channel? I know it is, uh huh. So the mortgage was probably by far the most stressful thing ever. Literally the mortgage
advisor came round to my flat and was there for four hours. We were going through
everything for four hours in order to fill out all the forms and figure out which mortgage
would be best for me. So my situation was a bit unique, as being a freelancer,
although probably not that unique nowadays, loads
of people are freelancers. But it does make it a bit difficult because you don't necessarily
have a fixed salary that you can be like this
is how much I earn a year and it is guaranteed
because I have a contract with my employer who pays
me that salary every year. No, if you are freelance or self employed, or have a limited company
it is ideal for you to have at least two years worth
of records, at least. When I was applying for a mortgage, I'd actually recently just switched to being a limited company
from being self employed which just meant it was a hot mess and no one wanted to loan me money. There were only two banks,
I only had two options of mortgages that would loan me money. One they would loan me a lot more money, but at a much higher interest rate and the other one, they
would loan me less money at a lower interest rate. I ended up going for the less money one, but what that meant was
that I had to come up with a huge cash deposit. So the minimum cash deposit you need if you're buying through
Help to Buy is 5%, mine was much more then that. Just because that was the only way I would be able to afford this. And that is when, thank you, thank you, parents and grandparents,
that money came in. And then also my own savings. What I'm paying now is just over half of what I was paying for one
room in a flat share rent. So I am paying a lot less per month now, but obviously I'm now in a lot of debt because I have a huge mortgage
and a student loan, oh God. So that is logistically
kind of how it all worked. Okay so I think that is everything, but I had a few general questions that I got on Twitter that I
thought I would help answer. If you have anymore questions,
if you've got more stuff that you want to know
that I haven't answered in this video then please do
let me know in the comments and I'll try my best to
answer as many as I can. So the first one is, how
did you decide on an area? I had a general idea of a very large area, and it was because I
used to live near here when I first moved to London. But I knew that I wouldn't be able to afford to live there because
it was too close to central and so I basically was just
like, kind of this area, but a bit further out. I love this area, it's not very cool but it's very convenient. It's got some neighbouring
cool areas so you know, that's good enough for me. Why buy instead of renting? So it's kind of up to you in
terms of what you want to do, I don't think it's super necessary to buy, in fact it's really
stressful and expensive. But for me, I was lucky enough that I had the cash deposit, I
probably would have been equally as happy just carrying on renting, and maybe getting a better
place and paying more for that. I don't think there is a perfect
time, I just decided too. How does it work owning
a flat that is part of a multi-unit building? Great question. I own the lease hold but the ground, the land that this building
is on we don't own. That is the freehold and someone else owns the freehold and we
have to pay ground rent. That's also when you
are living in a block, a thing called service charge. So service charge pays for
all of the communal areas, cleaning and lift maintenance, and then we have like a communal garden, so then I'm amusing there's a gardener and it also pays for that,
but yeah great question. How much did you know about
getting a mortgage beforehand? I didn't know a huge amount
but I had a basic understanding and then as I started
talking to a mortgage advisor and just going through the
process I would just read a lot online. Money Saving Expert is a great website and has loads of info
about all financial things for the UK specifically. And I would just make sure
that every conversation I had with the mortgage
advisor I would understand what they were telling me before we moved on to the next thing. Don't be scared of it. I think if you're going into this process, yes there is a lot to learn,
it's a big learning curve, but there are people who's job it is to basically help you make the choices and understand what your options are. This video is super long, if
you have anymore questions like I said, do leave them in the comments and I'll try my best to answer them. Please give this video a
thumbs up if you enjoyed it, and hopefully we'll have some more videos in my new filming corner, I'm so excited. I built this, I built this, good old Ikea. Don't forget to subscribe
because I make new videos every week and I'll see you soon, bye. (upbeat techno music)
