Most of the posts I’ve written on here about buying a first home assume that you’re already settled in the area that you’re looking to buy in. Of course, that’s not always the case and certainly wasn’t for us. Before getting on the ladder up in York we had to relocate from London which meant a load of change, including new jobs.
It was a fair amount of hassle, but has proven so worth it. It’s allowed us to buy a lovely house in a great neighbourhood with a sensibly-sized mortgage. If we’d stayed in London, it would have been a studio flat in the stabby part of town with a humongous mortgage.
I reckon a lot of people find themselves in our position in their 20s/30s so hopefully our story will help some of you guys with your life moves.
London life
After uni, Haz and I both moved to North London for work. They were no doubt some of the best years of our lives. However, it got to the point that we were spending more time playing Scrabble than going out and making the most of what London has to offer and spent most weekends driving far away to see family and friends. On top of this the rent was a killer, annual flat move a ball ache, and we never really saw ourselves settling there. Cue some adult conversations about what to do with our lives.
Where to relocate
Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh – there are loads of areas of the UK where we’d love to live. But York was where the pin landed. I’m from York so have family there and know how lovely it is. Haz is from Ipswich which is a good 4 hour drive away but she’s always been a big fan of York and somehow I persuaded her to make the transition from southerner to northerner.
York is a pretty expensive place to live so it may seem like an odd choice, given that being able to afford a better home was top of our list of wants. Yep, it is certainly expensive for the north, but is nothing compared to London. Trust me, I spent about 2 years constantly on Rightmove.
Work
Neither of us had jobs that could be transferred up north so finding new work was definitely the biggest challenge we had in our life relocation. We couldn’t move without jobs so this was our top priority.
Haz has worked in universities for several years which she really enjoys so it made sense for her to apply for jobs at unis in and around York. I was a bit more awkward as I worked at the head office of a car manufacturer and none of these are based anywhere near York. So I spent several months pondering what to do with myself.
I was going to have to change industry but didn’t want to go back down to the first rung of the career ladder. I half-heartedly applied to a couple of jobs and became frustrated with how few jobs were coming up in and around York that A) appealed and B) I thought I had a chance of getting.
Then, one day, a job alert came up on LinkedIn for a product manager job at a building society. This job really appealed as I was already working as a product manager and am a complete nerd who’s really interested in the housing market. When I got the call to offer me the job I tried to play it cool but as soon as I put the phone down I went mental.
Haz is apparently the most employable person on earth as she’s got pretty much every job she’s ever interviewed for. A few weeks after I was offered my job she got an interview for a role at a university and sure enough, got the job so we cracked open the bubbly. We were really lucky to have got jobs with start dates just 2 weeks apart. Time to start planing the move.
The move
We were living in an unfurnished flat which meant that we had a hell of a lot of gear to take north. After shedding some of our stuff on Gumtree, we hired the biggest van we could and prepared ourselves for one of the least enjoyable days of our lives. We’d considered paying for a removal firm to do the job but assumed it would cost hundreds of pounds given that we were moving 4 hours away. The van hire only cost £50 for 24 hours so we must have saved a shed load by doing it ourselves.
The move took 16 hours and was absolutely knackering. A personal highlight was getting the sofa down the fire escape from our 2nd floor flat… But it all worked out in the end. A few goodbyes with friends and colleagues and that was it, see ya London.
Buying our first place
Having moved up and started our jobs, the final piece of the puzzle was to get on the ladder. Being able to stay with my family whilst we house-hunted was a massive help. If you have the option to do this then I’d definitely recommend it as it gave us flexibility for the move-in date of our place and meant that we could save really hard for a few months before moving in. Having some cash left in the bank when you move into your first home is a huge help
I won’t go into much detail here as I’ve written about our house buying journey already so have a browse if you’re interested in the ups and downs of the 3 months we spent buying our place.
We’ve been up in York for a year now and we bloody love it. The process of getting new jobs, moving up and buying our house was pretty intense but we’re so glad to have done it. We’ve settled into jobs that we enjoy, got ourselves a lovely little house and welcomed a furry fella to the family. It won’t be right for everyone, but if you’re thinking of relocating to settle down then I can’t recommend it enough.
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