Buying Your First Home Webinar by Brickzwithtipz: The platform educating first time buyers onto the property ladder
It is 7pm on a cold Wednesday evening. Tayo Oguntonade, one of the co-founders of Brickzwithtipz is wearing a simple black T-shirt scanning the near one thousand participants joining his webinar, “Buying Your First Home: The Homebuyers Club”. His partner and co-founder, Antoinette Oguntonade, has packed her hair back and out of her face eagerly waiting for the session to commence.
Photo Credit: Black Business Magazine
Tayo and Antoinette are most known for their informative property tips and home buying content that has garnered them collaborations with renowned brands like The Daily Express, Zoopla and more. Combined, they have over ten years of expertise within the property industry. After buying their first property in 2015 and going on to found Brickzwithtipz in 2019 - the platform that uses education to bridge the gap between dreams and reality, Tayo and Antoinette have formed the perfect duo.
On this occasion, the duo are joined by David Gissing, a mortgage broker and property & finance specialist to deliver the ‘Buying Your first Home’ webinar. The webinar aims to dispel any limiting beliefs around the notions of buying a first or second home. “Buying a home in the UK is still possible” since “300,000 people buy homes each year”, Tayo encourages.
Photo credit: Antoinette Oguntonade (bottom), Tayo Oguntonade (middle) and David Gissing (top) pictured on the Buying Your First Home webinar.
In the short 1 hour webinar, we have rounded up the key tips, takeaways and topics covered:
Property fundamentals
Tayo kicks things off discussing the dynamics of the UK Housing market, making a key comparison between house prices in 2021 vs 2023. The average house was £260,429 in 2021 vs £292,049 in 2023 according to the first slide of the PowerPoint flashed across the screen. “The right time to buy was yesterday. Don’t wait to buy property. Buy property and wait” says Tayo.
Aspiring home buyers have been quick to highlight the disparities between the difficulty of buying today and that of buying even two years earlier. Tayo walks the forum through the various property cycles that can occur over the years in the property market, most notably the “explosive phase” (also known as a sellers market where there is high demand and limited supply) and the ‘recession phase” (where there is high supply and limited demand in a buyers market).
Schemes and Strategies
The second section of the webinar continues with Tayo taking the majority of the lead, captivating the audience with the “answer to a problem”, the problem being the difficulties of the housing market. And the answer being schemes and strategies available to help first time buyers save for a deposit.
His voice picks up in pace in a race against the clock to cover each section in depth. “Start with setting a savings plan” Tayo advises. By setting the savings plan, it creates a goal to achieve each month. One of the recommendations is to open a dedicated savings ISA and automate savings so that money is automatically saved from your monthly pay cheque.
Photo Credit: Antoinette Oguntonade from Brickzwithtipz instagram
Tayo advises to cut down on “regular” non essentials with the caveat that simple guilty pleasures here and there are fine. It is not about cutting out a coffee here and there but having a strategic plan towards how much needs to be saved each month. Antoinette interjects “maintaining disciplined” is the key. (See 3 habits that will get you closer to buying your first home).
It is the end of the second section. Tayo takes a breath and gleefully laughs with David Gissing before he hands over to him for a walkthrough of the value of a mortgage broker. David Gissing takes the floor. He covers the importance of credit when trying to get approved for a mortgage, particularly around getting a mortgage with adverse credit. David’s top tips for credit building are getting a credit builder card, recording your rent and registering on the electoral roll to position yourself as a reliable borrower.
Before ending the second section, the three hosts discuss the different schemes available to get onto the property ladder such as rent to buy, developer schemes, shared ownership and right to buy. Even briefly touching on the lender schemes available such as Nationwide’s helping hand mortgages.
Photo Credit: David Gissing from @davegissing instagram
Picking your property
The final section of the webinar circles back to Tayo whizzing through the final sections. The clock ticks past the allotted time whilst he blitzes through the ‘Negotiating know how’ tips - one such tip is for reduced properties. A property that has been reduced once potentially presents an opportunity to double down and try to get a further reduction.
First time buyers can buy a fixer upper (a property that is habitable but requires cosmetic work) in order to get onto the property ladder. It is the end of the webinar and Tayo delves through the differences between leasehold and freehold property options as well as new builds and old builds.
It’s just past 8.30pm and the webinar is drawing to a close. Tayo thanks the audience of over four hundred attendees that remain past the hour. He takes the final moments to showcase the launch of their new platform ‘The homebuyers Club’ which is due to go live on 31st January 2024.
Follow @brickzwithtipz on instagram more details on ‘The Homebuyers Club’.
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