I bought the flat of my dreams

A lot of things only make sense with hindsight.

I had been property searching on and off for a year. I knew I wanted to buy and had set myself the goal of buying a property in London by the age of 25. At the same time, I knew I had specific non-negotiables (mainly, that I wanted to buy a place that was close to my parents’ house, that had at least two bedrooms and was a property with good transport links) but I was struggling to find a property within budget that fit my criteria. Each time I went on a viewing, I felt like the property was not quite right for me for one reason or another and if I was to go ahead with it, I wouldn’t be completely happy. I became discouraged. Would I have to refine my criteria to make it easier to get what I wanted? Maybe settle for 1 bedroom only or look further outside of London where there are cheaper options in abundance? Clearly, there would have been nothing wrong with purchasing a property which met this refined criteria but it wasn’t what I wanted. Aside from these thoughts, I was becoming frustrated that I had “wasted” so much time making fruitless visits. Anyone who has been through this process will know just how time consuming it is so to feel like you’re not getting closer to the goal can be annoying. In an attempt to meet my self-imposed goal, I nearly made some terrible decisions and almost gave up hope. Thank God for grace and for persisting even in our seasons of doubt or discouragement!

By this point, I had actually put an offer in for a property that I really liked at the time (trust me, I had mentally moved in and had planned how I was going to decorate each room) which was rejected for being too low and looking back from my current property, I’m so grateful to God for blocking that!).

Be patient – He makes all things beautiful in His time – Ecc 3:11

I was now 26 and after taking a break from property searching, I decided to go back on the hunt. I soon found a property I loved but it was out of budget (originally over 50k of what I ended up offering). Although I knew I couldn’t afford it in that moment, I still decided to go and visit it. That way, even if I couldn’t get the property, I could see what it was like in person and encourage myself if it didn’t look as good as the pictures that it wasn’t what I wanted anyway (lol). Plus, I liked the sound of the area and visiting gave me an opportunity to look around it which would be useful in the event that I was able to find a cheaper property in the same location.

Upon visiting, the property was by no means perfect but it met all of my non-negotiables, was by far the biggest property that I had visited and most importantly, I really liked it and could see myself living there. I felt God tell me that this property was mine. I didn’t see how but I decided to trust Him. At the point that I went to visit, they had reduced the asking price a bit but it was still way out of budget. I decided to make an offer of 25k lower than asking price confident that they would accept it given that God had told me it would be mine (this offer was actually stretching me to the maximum limit of my budget). I was wrong. They rejected my offer because it was too low and confirmed that they would not be considering me as a potential purchaser as a result. I was confused. "But, you said it would be mine, God! Why was I being rejected again?" I remember telling my dad that I was a bit disheartened and he encouraged me that I’d get the right thing at the right time and he was convinced that the sellers would come back to me. My parents also reminded me that property purchases are not cheap and so it made no sense to settle for something that I wasn’t happy with if I was still going to end up spending a large chunk of my savings on it. They encouraged me to keep being patient.

To my surprise, the sellers did come back to me a few weeks later as their preferred purchaser ended up being a problematic choice. It was only in this moment that I realised what God was doing in blocking the original offer that I put forward. He was setting me up to have the stronger hand in negotiating. Now they came back to me, it was clear that they needed me more than I needed them (or so it would appear to them), giving me an opportunity to negotiate a better price. I used this position of strength to knock some more money off the purchase price and some money off my final completion statement to resolve some minor issues with the property meaning that I got my ideal flat, in a great location, within budget and for less than I was originally prepared to spend!!!

So what have I learnt from this? The importance of trusting God with everything (including timing!) and not settling for anything less than what is reasonably non-negotiable to me. Settling for less than I wanted (and believed that I could get) to meet my own arbitrarily-imposed timeline would have meant that I let fear rule rather than faith.

I’m adopting this mentality to all areas of my life now (and I’d encourage you to do the same) and expect to update you with more testimonies in due course!