Then buy (or attempt to buy) a home. Yes, I’ve heard the adage before that getting on the property ladder, or working your way up it, is the most stressful thing you can do but I didn’t realise how great would be the sense of helplessness and frustration that came with it.
When you first start looking round houses it’s quite fun – you get to snoop around people’s homes and bring out your inner Sarah Beeny as you judge them on their decorating style. But you soon get sick of setting your alarm early on a Saturday morning just so that you can make several viewings, and that’s when you start to see house-hunting as a chore.
Then, when you finally find the house that you love, it’s an anxious wait, when you plead with the housing gods that the owners will accept
your offer.
Seeing as I’m the least decisive person I know – I have to return to a shop at least six times before buying a dress – it’s unsurprising that I found it hard to decide to buy a house, which is undoubtedly going to be the most expensive thing I’ll ever buy, after only seeing it twice.
In the early, rose-tinted – OK ignorant – days when we had chosen our dream home, had the offer accepted and our mortgage agreed
in principle I thought we were over the worst.
Oh, how I wish for those early days because what they don’t tell you is that despite paying a six-figure sum you actually have very little control over the process and are at the mercy of busy mortgage lenders, estate agents and solicitors.
Trying to get my head around the contract’s legal mumbo-jumbo or reading the fine print for the mortgage is enough to send someone, who is already a nervous buyer, over the edge. One date for moving has already been and gone and I fear that our next one too is going to disappear in a cloud of smoke.
Couple that with the fact that my flat looks like a tornado has swept through it and that we’re constantly stubbing our toes on ill-packed boxes, and it’s fair to say my stress levels are at melting point.
There’s one thing for certain: if we ever do get to move in, there’s no way I’m ever going to go through the process again – my stress levels
can’t cope.
