It’s your move, or more likely mine. Week 26

We had a breakthrough this week.

If you’ve been following this blog you will know we have been renting for over 13 years, since the first day we moved south from Bedford. We were also renting for the last 3 years we lived in Bedford, although for different reasons, so strictly speaking we’ve been living in someone else’s house paying their mortgage/into their pension for over 16 years. That is virtually all of my oldest son’s life and all of my youngest who has never known what it’s like to have his own home.

For the past 7 years we have been renting because we had no choice due to the changes in lending rules; despite paying out well over £100,000 in rent we were apparently a bad risk.

But not anymore; as I said there has been a breakthrough that has only recently happened.

Two weeks ago the mortgage broker received our company accounts; I was banking on those to prove we met the criteria. My role at work had also changed from zero hours to a part-time job which I felt sure would help.

I couldn’t help but notice he was less than positive about the news, but he still asked  more questions and for a copy wage slip.

However, when I moved from part-time to full-time he told me it was a game-changer and suddenly the questions became more meaty and searching. Suddenly we were eminently more desirable to lenders.

• Middle names
• NI numbers
• Previous addresses in last three years, etc

He has told me we should be able to get a mortgage for around £200,000 + the deposit we now have and my new salary meant we had moved from 1 bed flat territory to a 3 bed semi. Okay, not the house I expected to be living in by this time in my life, but who cares? It will be our house, no one else’s. No more letting agents making us feel like second class citizens, no more 3-monthly inspections, no more danger of being asked to move out because the landlord wants to sell.

More choice of décor, more choice of bathroom fittings, more choice of floor coverings instead of making do with threadbare off-cuts that have no underlay, more time to think about what we want to do with our home.

After I read and re-read his email confirming we would be able to get a mortgage, I sat staring at the words and smiled a very big smile.

I wanted to tell my sons straight away but they have the impatience of youth and wouldn’t understand that we now have to go through a lengthy process of actually getting the mortgage offer in writing. If I told them my youngest son would already be planning what puppy he would get and where he’d put the chicken run.

But for me, eversince I read that email I have had a very warm feeling inside I haven’t felt in a very long time.

It’s probably that light at the end of the tunnel that has suddenly become so much brighter.

Of course we are not out of the mire yet and I know there are going to be many more questions we have to answer, but I have allowed myself the luxury of looking at the property pages without thinking what’s the point?