In Search of the Perfect First Home – Tips for First Time Buyers

When you search for a new home, specifically as first time buyers in our case, you tend to have a preconceived idea of what you’re looking for in the perfect house.  Some of these needs can be a little unrealistic, some set the base upon which you would like to build a home in. It can be anything from the number of bedrooms, size of the living room, does it have a garden, does it have an attic space.

As we are currently (fingers crossed) in the process of purchasing our first home, we thought we would share with you our list of wishes/needs in a home. When we started looking, we firstly had a price ceiling in mind, who doesn’t right?  So once the boring money thing was out of the way, we began our search. We didn’t want a new build, so that was one easy thing to cross off the list and we didn’t really want to move far from where we are.

What’s on our First Time Buyers Wish List – Jon’s Wants

I (Jon) am very well known for walking into a house and looking at the floor first.  Laminate or wood flooring and I’m pretty much half way there. Obviously we plan to decorate our home to give it a bit of our own personality and tastes, but ideally we would like to not have to make huge alterations like relaying entire floors. Second, living room, can I put the tv in the middle of a wall and not stick it in the corner?  Its very much a man thing I know, but I didn’t spend £1000’s on audio and visual equipment to put it in the exact place its not meant to go, so silly shaped rooms, you can keep em. Last on my top 3 list, is it fairly open plan/spacious. This is something that we both agree on. We both love open spaces where you can easily move around, be sociable while say in the kitchen and your guests are in the living room, plus I dont really like closing doors! Why? I dont want to have to open and close it every time I walk around my home, its my home and they just get in the way.

A home has to have a bathroom but it doesn’t really need to have a bath. We are both very much shower people: in, scrub and out, we are too busy to be sitting in a bath for hours, so just a nice bathroom with a decent shower. For us bedrooms, two minimum, three would be a treat but not needed. The second bedroom is going to be used for extra storage and possibly a home studio space, so just something big enough for us to work in.

Chantele’s Wants

So then it was on to what I (Chantele) wanted. As Jon said we like open spaces, and those open spaces need to have plenty of light, we don’t like turning overhead lights on until it is absolutely necessary, and even then we often just like using side lamps instead. So nice big windows were pretty important.

Being a woman there are 2 other important things (that I think most women will also agree on) my kitchen, and my bedroom storage possibilities! For the storage, knowing that I will be able to fit enough wardrobe/drawer space into my bedroom is hugely important. I’m not a huge fan of built in wardrobes unless they are done well and work with the room, so I need to be able to see the possibilities for storage (I have a fair fashion collection that will need a home!) For the Kitchen, I’m not an amazing cook, but I do like to cook when I have the time, so a decent sized functional kitchen is important. A good amount of counter space, and something that is easy to clean! Integrated appliances and a large Fridge/Freezer (or at least space for one) is also high on the list.

Is Outdoor space Important as First Time Buyers

The thing neither of us had really thought much about was outside space. When we started looking at houses we realised, a drive and off road parking wasn’t a must (having lived in flats in Cardiff for a number of years we knew it wasn’t a necessity) but we did like the idea of a decent sized garden. We are not green fingered but we like to sit outside and have a cuppa or relax if the weather permits.

We kept all of these points in mind during our search and a few weeks of searching later we were lucky enough to have found what we think is the perfect first home for us, which hopefully we can share with you all soon!Hopefully we can make this move to our first home as stress free as possible!