A lifelong renter became an estate agent to buy her first home - "It helped me realise important things"
A woman resigned to renting for life got on the property ladder by temporarily becoming an estate agent – to learn the tricks of the trade.
Comedian Kate-Lois Elliott thought she was going to live in a rented basement flat for the rest of her days due to her career choices.
As a former actor-turned-comedian – who is married to another actor – their irregular income offered little hope of securing a deposit and mortgage.
But all that changed when Kate employed an unusual tactic to help her get clued up on the property ladder – by getting a short-term gig with an estate agent for around six months near Brighton.
She said: “It helped me realise important things – the first is that buying a property often goes wrong for one reason or another, and also that people always have such an idealistic view of what they want.
“They'll be like ‘it has to have a garden, it needs to be in this area, it needs to be next to a train station’ – and often by the end of the process, they’re just like, ‘it just has to have a kitchen!’.
“So what really worked for us was we narrowed our wish list right down to the basics and decided to look at it as a starting point so we could own somewhere of our own.”
Kate-Lois added that the experience also taught her that “knowledge is key” and first-time buyers need to “get everything in writing”.
While it also hammered home the importance of getting a solicitor who will “actually speak to you in person” and going with an estate agent which will “treat you like a person”.
“It helped me realise important things”
Alongside this, to save the all-important deposit, Kate-Lois knew she would have to get savvier with managing her cash.
She discovered the Lifetime ISA (LISA), a government backed incentivised savings product designed to give young people a helping hand to save a deposit for their first home and prepare for a comfortable retirement.
She said: “When I found out that there was up to £1,000 free money up for grabs each year if we could save £4,000, it was hugely motivating and it definitely set me on a path to saving all I could.”
By committing to saving regularly, putting in more during the good months and less during the leaner times, in seven years they had saved for their deposit and were ready to buy last Spring.
And while Kate-Lois was able to overcome the odds and get a foot on the property ladder, she recognises it’s not always easy for others who also work for themselves – especially those in the arts who are sole traders.
Even her stand-up routines reference the issue, with a popular opening gag about the drama involving in a Millennial buying their own home – which she’s currently touring across Scotland and England.
She added: “I mean, especially for a comedian, you either go to the Edinburgh Fringe and debut, or you buy a house.
“I think it is really, really difficult for people who choose to work in the arts, and I think they're very much undervalued.
“At the start of the process, I was really pragmatic and thought I’ll open a LISA, and if it doesn't work out and I can’t buy, at least I’ve got a retirement fund for when I’m old in my rented basement flat.