Anybody else got that feeling when you’ve waited for house prices to go down, but now, interest rates are cruising upwards, lenders are asking for even bigger deposits and we’re all living through another “once-in-a-lifetime” recession 💀
At times like these, it’s okay to feel discouraged.
And it’s okay if you aren’t clicking on every headline about mortgage rates for your own sanity.
But it doesn’t mean you have to give up on your dream of owning a place one day. When you focus on putting money towards your first home, you focus on the things you can control.
So here are 6 reasons to keep working towards your goal.
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Progress is progress
You might not be able to put as much towards your first home fund as you did before. But, over time, any amount adds up. If you save £50 every month, that’s £600 by the end of the year (which is a whole lot more than £0).
And when you put that £600 into a Lifetime ISA, the 25% government bonus gets added, and £600 becomes £750! 🔥
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Your dream home could go on sale
You know that house. The one you used to point to and say “one day, I’ll live there”. Well imagine it has gone up for sale for the first time in 60 years.
If this ever happens, you want to be ready to put in an offer.
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Don’t wait for the “perfect time”
Although it would be nice (really nice), there are no guarantees that house prices and mortgage interest rates will go down at the same time.
If you wait for conditions to be “perfect” before you start saving for a home, you might never buy a place.
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Put more in, owe less
A bigger deposit can help to bring those dreaded mortgage repayments down: you'll own more of the property outright, and have to pay back less to the bank.
How come? Well if you have a 10% deposit, your repayments are on 90% of the property's value. If you have a 25% deposit, you'll be paying back 75% of the property's value.
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Boost your bidding power
If demand is high (e.g. house prices fall and lots of people jump at the opportunity) you could be asked to bid above the listed price when buying a home. In most cases, the person with the highest bid will be given the opportunity to buy the property. This is what’s known in the industry as “offers over”.
The more money you can put towards your home, the more you can up your chances of outbidding the competition 💪
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You can get money from the government to boost your deposit 👀
For real: it's called a Lifetime ISA (LISA), and you've come to the right place, because yep – you can open a cash LISAor a stocks & shares LISAwith us!
You could be getting up to £1,000 from the government every tax year (25% of what you put in) towards your deposit.
If you wait til the next tax year starts, you'll miss out on getting some (or all) of the 25% bonus from this tax year.
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Saving for a home is no piece of cake, especially nowadays. But we want to help you make progress towards buying your first home, no matter what’s going on out there.
With the Nude app, you get personalised money-saving ideas, a link that your friends and family can use to put money towards your deposit and accounts that give you up to £1,000 from the UK government every year.
Join thousands of first-time buyers like you and install Nude on iOS and Android now.
