I bought my first home in Bristol for £165k – now I make £6,000 a year by renting it out
Landlord Eve Obasuyi, 27, from London, rents out her two-bed flat in Bristol city centre and now makes an extra £500 a month
A PHARMACIST from London bought her first-home at 24 - and now makes £6,000 a year by renting it out.
Eve Obasuyi, 27, purchased her two-bed flat in Bristol in November 2016 for £165,000 but now lives in London with her fiance Nick Agwuncha, 27.
The savvy saver raised the £18,500 on her own, sticking £16,500 of it down as a 10 per cent deposit.
She saved it in two and a half years by budgeting £500 a month to live off, sticking to half-price meals on nights out and giving up getting her hair and nails done to save some extra cash.
But two years after she bought the flat, Eve and Nick got engaged. Excited about their future together, she planned to move out of her Bristol home and back to London to live with him.
Reluctant to sell her home, Eve advertised the rooms online and found tenants before moving out in July last year.
But becoming a landlord came at a cost. Eve needed to fork out another £5,000 upfront to remortgage as a buy-to-let property and faces paying an extra 5 per cent in stamp duty if she ever bought a home with Nick.
Now, Eve shares her money saving advice on Instagram, posting from , an account she runs with Nick and his sister, Ashley.
We caught up with Eve to find out what it takes to buy your first home and whether it's worth it being a landlord.
Are you a first-time buyer who want to share tips on how you did it? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 78 24516. Don't forget to join the for the latest tips on buying your first home.
Eve, tell us about your flat and how much did you have to pay for it?
I bought my flat in Bristol two years ago, when I was 24. I'm from London but after I graduated I managed to get a job there.
At the time, I wasn't sure what my plans were. I didn't know how long I'd be living there and didn't want to keep paying rent.
I looked for a place that had two double bedrooms in the city centre so I knew it would give me a good rental income if I needed to move.
Most of the places I looked at had one double and a smaller room, but I held out for one with two decent sized rooms.
I bought the flat in 2016 for £165,000 with a 10 per cent deposit which worked out at £16,5000.
Was it easy buying on your own?
Overall, I'd saved £18,500 in just over two years. Initially, I'd planned to save a five per cent deposit which would have come to £8,250 and used the rest to buy furniture but I had a three year contract at my job in Bristol.
Even though it was full-time, lenders saw me as more of a risk as it wasn't technically permanent and said that I needed to 10 per cent deposit.
What help is out there for first-time buyers?
GETTING on the property ladder can feel like a daunting task but there are schemes out there to help first-time buyers have their own home.
Help to Buy Isa - It's a tax-free savings account where for every £200 you save, the Government will add an extra £50. But there's a maximum limit of £3,000 which is paid to your solicitor when you move.
Help to Buy equity loan - The Government will lend you up to 20 per cent of the home's value - or 40 per cent in London - after you've put down a five per cent deposit. The loan is on top of a normal mortgage but it can only be used to buy a new build property.
Lifetime Isa - This is another Government scheme that gives anyone aged 18 to 39 the chance to save tax-free and get a bonus of up to £32,000 towards their first home. You can save up to £4,000 a year and the Government will add 25 per cent on top.
Shared ownership - Co-owning with a housing association means you can buy a part of the property and pay rent on the remaining amount. You can buy anything from 25 to 75 per cent of the property but you're restricted to specific ones.
"First dibs" in London - London Mayor Sadiq Khan is working on a scheme that will restrict sales of all new-build homes in the capital up to £350,000 to UK buyers for three months before any overseas marketing can take place.
Starter Home Initiative - A Government scheme that will see 200,000 new-build homes in England sold to first-time buyers with a 20 per cent discount by 2020. To receive updates on the progress of these homes you can register your interest on the website.
In the end, my entire savings went on the deposit and legal fees so I had to wait until the January sales to buy furniture.
I couldn't use the Help To Buy incentives either because I knew that one day I might rent it out which you're not allowed to do with the Government scheme.
How about saving? Did you have to give up much?
By the time I finished my studies at University of Kent, I had about £1,000 in savings.
My first job was on placement in London as a pre-registration pharmacist so I was earning about £1,300 a month. I lived at home with my parents and paid their council tax which was £120 a month.
During this time, I could put between £500 and £700 into savings.
Once I qualified, my salary went up so I was earning £2,200 a month so I could tuck even more aside.
I also stopped paying my pension for two years so that I could save another couple of hundred pounds every month.
It's not something I'd recommend you do in the long term and I now put extra in to make up for it.
A year and a half later, I moved to Bristol where I rented for six months.
Clifton is a really popular area to live in Bristol but the rent there is around £700 a month so I got a room in Bradley Stoke for £350 a month to save cash.
I wouldn't say that I had to give much up during this time but I just became more savvy with my money.
I budgeted £500 a month to live off, so once the money was gone, it was gone.
Me and Nick would still go out for dinner but we'd find restaurants which had 50 per cent off on opening nights.
I stopped getting my nails done too which saved me £30 a month and I started looking after my natural hair instead of extensions to save more money.
Did you have to do any work to the flat?
Well, I'd spent all of my savings on buying the flat so I had to wait a few months before I could do anything to it.
I moved in in November and by February I'd ripped out the carpets, put in new flooring, installed a new oven and painted everywhere.
I had to wait until the January sales to to be able finish furnishing the place.
In the end I probably spent about £3,000 on furniture and another £2,000 on doing it up.
Was it hard making the switch to being a landlord?
Earlier this year, me and Nick got engaged and six months later I moved into his place that he's recently bought.
I didn't want to sell my flat and as I'd always planned to rent it, I just had to find tenants to fill it.
I advertised it online and found tenants really quickly, filling it in about a week. Now I earn £500 a month from rent.
By the time my mortgage term expired in December 2018, I' owned 20 per cent of the property but I needed 25 per cent to take out a buy-to-let mortgage.
That meant I had to pay another £5,000 just before Christmas.
I also switched it to an interest only mortgage which is very common for landlords as lenders see you more of a risk.
It means I'm only paying the interest rates every month and I'll pay it back when I sell it or remortgage.
What's it like being a landlord?
I'll be honest, at first it was a bit overwhelming but my mortgage adviser was so helpful.
The distance is my main issue because if I need to sort anything out, I have to drive at least two hours before I can get there.
The key is to have decent tenants. Mine are really understanding and I trust them in the flat.
MY FIRST HOME
Will you ever live there again?
My plan is to keep renting it for now and see how the property market is in 10 years time.
I'll only sell earlier if Nick and I plan to buy a place together.
The house we live in now is in Nick's name - if we added mine then we'd be stung with an extra 5 per cent stamp duty because of my buy-to-let property.
For now though, we're saving for the wedding.
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