JETTING off on a summer holiday is a big treat for many – but first-time buyers Simon and Marylia Burke ditched their trips away to save nearly half the deposit needed for their £297,000 home.
Laboratory manager Simon Burke, 50, and laboratory technician Maryila, 48, used to frequently fly abroad and go on mini-breaks once every few months before they started saving for a house in 2018.
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But in a bid to save more quickly for their first-home, they axed their holiday plans for three years to bank themselves £9,500 – nearly half the £20,000 deposit needed to secure the home of their dreams.
Shelving their jet-set lifestyle wasn’t the only sacrifice they made.
They didn’t make ANY unnecessary splurges like clothes and gadgets for two years to squirrel away as much money for the deposit and furniture for their home, saving them £500.
They also managed to boost their budget by an extra £59,600 by taking out a Help to Buy equity loan.
The Help to Buy scheme sees the government lend up to 20% of the value of your property – or 40% if you live in London – to help you get on the ladder.
They also went hunting in charity shops to get pricey furniture like sofas and TV stands for bargain prices.
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They moved into their new house in June last year and didn’t get any financial help from friends or family for the deposit.
We sat down with Simon to talk about how the couple went from being savers to homeowners for The Sun’s My First Home series.
Tell me about your house
It’s a two-bed new-build terraced house in Milton Keynes.
The kitchen, dining and living room is open plan, we have a downstairs toilet and one bathroom upstairs.
There’s also a garden at the back, half of it is patio-ed and half is grass.
How did you decide on location?
My parents live in Milton Keynes so we wanted to keep close to family.
House prices where we work in Watford are expensive and more like central London prices – we couldn’t afford to live in the area so had to search further afield, and Milton Keynes is an easy commute for us.
We knew we wanted to apply to the government’s Help to Buy scheme, so looked for new build homes.
You can only apply to the scheme if you buy a new-build property.
Without this help, we could never have afforded to buy our own home.
We chose to apply for a Help to Buy equity loan instead of the Shared Ownership scheme because it didn’t seem like a great idea for us.
Shared Ownership schemes let first-time buyers buy a portion of the equity in a property and pay rent to the housing association on its stake in your home.
But we didn’t want to pay rent and wanted to own our home outright, and we heard there are sometimes restrictions on alterations you can do to your property.
How much did you pay for it?
We paid £297,000 for our home and took out a mortgage of £218,000 on a 23-year term on a fixed rate of four years.
Our monthly mortgage repayments are £1,190.
We took out a Help to Buy equity loan of £59,600 and put down a deposit of £20,000 for the house – £5,000 of which was given to us for free by the developer.
When we went to view the property in January last year, we were really interested in it but only had £15,000 saved up.
The developer was initially asking for a £20,000 deposit – but when we said we couldn’t afford that, we were offered £5,000 to foot the rest of the cost.
Plus, the developer also paid £1,000 towards the £1,500 solicitors fees.
Developers often offer incentives to buyers to get a deal over the line – like money towards the deposit, cash for stamp duty costs, and free household appliances like washing machines and dishwashers.
How did you save for it?
In 2018, we started saving properly for our home.
We managed to save half of our deposit by cutting the number of trips abroad to Peru to visit Maryila’s family, as well as other mini holidays away.
Once every year and a half we would spend around £4,000 to fly over there, going twice in one year at one point.
We would also spend £400 to £500 every three or four months going for smaller breaks away.
But after 2018, we didn’t go to Peru for three years to boost our savings, banking us around £7,000.
We also ditched the mini breaks, saving us an extra £2,500 on top.
That meant that by shelving our travels, we saved £9,500 – nearly half of the total £20,000 deposit we ended up putting down in the end.
Maryila had a private pension in Peru, and decided to withdraw £4,000 from it to put towards the house.
We also decided not to buy any unnecessary purchases for two years to boost our savings.
Over this time we didn’t buy any clothes or gadgets – saving us around £500.
How have you afforded to furnish it?
We’ve furnished the house in phases so it was more affordable.
When we moved in, we hardly had anything – so we went to our local charity shops and bagged a sofa and TV stand for £250 all in.
That saved us at least £300 if we had bought them brand new.
We had an old bed that we bought with us, and the house had already got essential appliances like a fridge, washing machine, dishwasher and cooker installed.
Advice for first-time buyers?
Definitely look around and see what extra help you can get from government schemes.
Get some advice from a mortgage advisor to see if it’s the right thing for you to apply for these schemes – we could never have afforded buying our own home otherwise.
If you’re buying a new-build house, keep an eye out for the incentives developers may be offering you to get a deal over the line.
Like us, you could get freebies like cash to put towards the deposit or upgrades to the house you don’t have to pay extra for.
Definitely set a savings goal for yourself and stick to it.
Once we had budgeted how much we needed to save for the deposit and by when, it really helped us stay on track.
Here’s how one savvy saver used the envelope savings trick to save £10,000 for the deposit needed for her £199,000 first home.
Another first-time buyer used the 50/40/10 budgeting rule to help her save for her £210,000 first home.
One couple nearly got gazumped on their £187,000 first home but ended up knocking £13,000 off the asking price.
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