Diary of a first-time buyer: ‘Five brokers, four offers – but at last I’m a homeowner’

Micheál Costello: ‘Landing a property was harder than I imagined.’ Photograph: Micheál Costello

I started looking into buying a property in June 2022 – partly driven by my parents, who thought the £2,040 a month I was paying in rent was ridiculous. They weren’t wrong.

I knew I would love to own somewhere, but from listening to the news and what I knew of the London housing market, I thought it was out of my reach.