DIVERGENT CORNER

I moved abroad in March 2021 and lived in Grimsby, a small town in the East midlands of England. I was there for one and a half years. I met this Nigerian guy who owned an African shop, he told me I could actually own a house within one year of working for the NHS. I remember  bursting into laughter and asked him to guess how much I was being paid. I don’t even know how, but I somehow always managed to convince everyone I meet that I am an ajebo. I told him, well, for one, Nepo babies don’t go to nursing school, secondly, in my opinion, they don’t Japa, they have no reason to. He told me about the UK’s Help to Buy ISA and how he wasted his first 15 years living in London without a penny to his name and how he didn’t want me to make the same mistake.

A few days later, I downloaded the Hargreaves Lansdown app and opened an account. This was only two weeks after the Russia v Ukraine war started, which crashed the stock and crypto markets. I had lost over £7k in stocks and crypto combined. “Diversify your portfolios!” so the experts say. Both my portfolio and broken pieces of my heart  were evenly diversified across Etherium, Solana, S&P 500 etc, Just like they had recommended. I was still nursing my breakfast, but somehow found the courage to open an ISA account. I set a direct debit to save a set amount monthly.

It was set back after setbacks that nearly finished, scratched that, it actually finished me. I needed to move to Portsmouth to resume a new job, which meant terminating my contract in Grimsby and paying the NHS £4k because my contract had a three year retention clause. But my mind was made up.

Setting up a new house in Portsmouth was way more expensive than I’d anticipated. My new job required me to have a licence, so I had to block-book driving lessons at £40 per hour. I ended up needing 30 hours. I still don’t want to do the math.  Lewis Hamilton should thank his stars, I have no interest in ridiculously fast automobiles with limitless horsepower and sound sweeter than a lullaby, not even for sports. All this was happening while we were preparing for our wedding.

Around the same time I’d spent over £2k on private therapy trying to get to the bottom of whatsoever was ruining me. By the way, it was one of the reasons I left home in the first place, to find answers, so I was willing and ready to splash the cash. Therapy didn’t help, turns out it was only ADHD and a sprinkle of autism that was doing me. Which would have been nice to know before spending all that money in therapy. Then I invested heavily in a failed transport business that swallowed another £7k. At this point, even my village people were confused.

After one year in Portsmouth, I lost my job. That was when I finally hit rock bottom. My wife basically carried me this time, and fortunate for me, I was credit worthy, so my credit card came to the rescue. I was jobless for months. 

By this time, I had £5k in ISA savings, but I had completely forgotten about it. It wasn’t until I resumed work when I needed to start saving that I remembered the account existed. By December 2024, I had a little over £10k in it. My wife and I had two separate savings accounts by then. I don’t know what kind of financial magic she did, but she had £11k+ sitting quietly on her side.

By March 2025, we had settled into a nice neighbourhood in Wrexham, North Wales. We had been saving for a mortgage, but we never bothered to study what it is or how it actually works. Everything we knew came from those nuisance content creators who only take pleasure in telling people how mortgage is a very bad idea especially for immigrants. My impression was that mortgages were complicated, mysterious, and almost impossible.

My wife works as a district nurse in a small community. One day in March, she came home excitedly and told me she saw a new development site near her office, and she wanted us to go ask some questions. I completely dismissed the suggestion because not only was I not ready, I was sure we didn’t have nearly enough money to begin that conversation. We had just settled into a new flat and squandered over £5k on a new sofa, television and household stuff. I was pessimistic and mentally exhausted, but she is “Captain Masifa” for a reason, she won’t let me drink water drop cup.

What I didn’t know was that she had already gone ahead and booked an appointment with the sales rep of the company. On Sunday morning, she just woke me up and said, “We have an appointment by 11am. Let’s get ready.” I was very angry and convinced we were about to embarrass ourselves for absolutely no reason.

We went to the site, but of course we were late. It took her only 23 hours applying make-up and getting ready for an appointment she booked 1 week earlier without my consent nor approval yet, I was somehow dragged into it against my will. Surely, you understand why the drive to the place was silent. Barney had this very warm, welcoming presence. He offered us tea, and after a bit of chit-chat and a cold cup of water, he suddenly said, “Alright then, are you ready to go?” I was like ‘go where’?. I asked him, I thought this was your office. He said yes, that it was time to show us around.

To my surprise, I honestly thought there had been a serious miscommunication somewhere. We didn’t come to view any houses. We didn’t even know if we were allowed to view. We came simply to ask questions because, truthfully, we had no idea how mortgages worked at all. Before I knew it, Barney was already taking us around, showing us beautifully finished properties, three-bed houses with prices ranging from £250k to £360k.

Captain’s eyes lit up when she saw the kitchens. We viewed about three or four properties, and Barney explained every detail with so much clarity. After the tour he asked us Which one do you prefer?”

And that added to my confusion. We weren’t even there to choose anything, yet, captain was already picking favourites. I simply said, “Well… if I were to choose, I’d definitely go for the last one we viewed.” The Amersham. Just thinking about it now, I wonder why Taylor wimpey has names for their houses. Greshford, Coltham, Amersham, Corsham. All welsh names I think. 

Amersham wasn’t the biggest, but for the price, compared to the bigger ones, it made more financial sense to me. It has a sizable garden garden, a garage, three toilets, two bathrooms, a study, a mini-storage room, a kitchen-diner setup, all in a quiet neighbourhood with stunning nature views. It was like ticking boxes we didn’t even know we had.

So when we said we preferred the last one, Bernie casually replied, “Great, so we’ll go ahead and reserve it.”

Reserve? Reserve what exactly?

He explained that once you identify the house you like, you “reserve” it with £500 or maybe £1,000, I can’t even remember, all I know is that we didn’t have even a single kobo. We had to borrow the reservation fee from a friend. At that point, I figured, captain didn’t explain it well to them what our intentions were exactly and so they assumed we came just like any other prospective buyers. When she gets excited about something, details and logic mean nothing to her. I was very confused about how we suddenly went from “lets go and enquire”, to viewing furnished houses and now we are talking about reserving a house we didn’t plan to buy in only just a few minutes

I played along, imagining what must be going through Barney’s head. Poor man thought this woman was a serious person, I fell for that charm too. I kept pitying him as he took his precious time seriously explaining to her the difference between a “cloak room and toilet with all his attention and seriousness”. I was just there taking pictures and videos just to kill time. Then I asked him,  “Okay, if we reserve it now, what’s next?”

Back at the office, Bernie explained that the next step was the affordability check. He handed us leaflets for different Financial advisors, legal advisors. He told us to research the options and choose who to work with. And that was how we left. Still in disbelief, holding documents about a house we supposedly “reserved.”

At home, we started researching the advisors. My own style of research was simply checking Google reviews to see who had five-star ratings. Eventually, I called RSC New Homes, on a Sunday afternoon, completely unprepared.

I introduced myself and told them who referred me to them. After a brief chit chat, they started asking me serious questions. Forty minutes of intense financial interrogation, employment history, income, expenditure, visa status, financial risks, spending habits, gambling habits, alcohol consumption, everything. By this time my head has started spinning. If you know me well, you know I tend to get dizzy if I speak for more than 5 minutes. We only called them to introduce ourselves, I didn’t realise the process had already begun. I would have mentally prepared to talk and gather all my documents before calling rather than embarrassing myself by frequently putting them on hold to look for one info or the other. Quite frankly, I thought they’d get angry and forget about the whole thing because I seemed unserious. I know I would’ve done that, but the lad was very patient and understanding. It felt excessive until I realized they were building our financial profile for the affordability assessment. When he finished with me, he moved on to my wife with the same questions. They also asked about our deposit, we had £22,000 saved in Help to Buy ISAs.

After a few hours, they called us back, We passed the affordability check! yayyy We could proceed with the reservation. We were excited!

My visa expired that same day. I had already applied for renewal, but technically, I had no active visa. They called again to say that because of my visa status, we likely wouldn’t get a mortgage. All the excitement collapsed instantly. Captain was so disappointed, everything suddenly felt like a dream that wasn’t meant to last. I said to myself, it was too good to be true to begin with. So I went on to continue with my real life

The following day, I was at work on monday afternoon, they called again. They had found a lender! Principality, willing to consider us. They said because Captain had only had a new long-term visa, they would proceed with us provided we can prove that we were indeed married. From our names, nothing join me with woman. She won’t take my surname. But who would blame her?  The name Dayol doesn’t carry any weight at all, infact, it baffled me once when my cousins famously ganged up against me and banned me from using it because they deemed me unworthy of the name. In their defence, I had replied “God forbid” to a facebook question asking hypothetically, if one would like to come back in another life to the same parents.  Captain’s reluctance to use it had cost us a few times, only a few weeks earlier, in very similar circumstances, because I couldn’t simply prove to these guys that I am married; they denied me a rental property. If you know these agents well, you know they prefer a double income household as tenants . Lucky for me, this time I had our marriage certificate.

While all this was happening, Barney had earlier mentioned  ‘Help to Buy Wales’ scheme, a government program for first-time buyers. We had no idea what it was. He explained that it could give us 10% of the property value, interest-free for five years, for homes under £300k. Again, it sounded too good to be true.

They offered us about £57,000 from Help to Buy Wales, interest-free. The developers also had incentives totaling £15,000 that we could use for flooring, gardens, or anything else we wanted. The whole thing was just becoming more and more unbelievable. 

We kept going back and forth because clearly we had no idea what we were doing. Solicitors kept sending documents to sign, to scan and send back, back and forth. We kept asking very dumb questions because we had not done this before and had no idea. So, to cut the long story short, we were approved by Principality for a loan, and Bernie managed to convince the developers that if they added our £15k incentive to the deposit, it would push us over the required 10%. We were just like, “Absolutely fine, add it,” because we had no idea what we were doing, we had no choice but to trust him.

In fact, when we finished reserving the property the following day, we went in, saw all the remaining work, signed documents just to reserve it,  and Bernie offered to take us a photo in front of the house but we politely declined. I told him this is still a dream for me. I explained to him that I am not being pessimistic, but considering my journey and our background, I had no right. It all felt too good to be true. He joked that the house was already ours.  Me ‘EVEN THOUGH’!, Nigerian know what that means. It turns out there was another couple who were also interested and had already started the process since November 2024, Berney assured us that it is a  first-come-first-serve something and we were quick enough so we overtook them. We were in disbelief, took the documents home, and weeks later, had another round of back-and-forth with solicitors. At one point, I had to drive to Manchester late evening to correct some of our errors.

We signed a mountain of paperwork sometimes in the wrong places. Our colleagues Keisha and Kindness witnessed the whole process for us. By May, we were told our property would be ready to move in by the last week of the month. We sent our deposits, the home was completed, and on 29th May, we collected the keys.

We still couldn’t believe it. We spent 30th May packing our boxes, and on the 31st, moved into our new home. It was stressful, but incredible.

 Despite all the financial misfortune, therapy, wedding costs, driving lessons, failed investments, and stock market losses, we were finally home.

Even now, I can’t explain it , maybe it’s grace, maybe it’s luck but we ended up paying £1,000 per month for a three-bedroom house with a large garden, multiple bathrooms, a kitchen-diner, and total freedom to decorate. Compare that to paying £1,000 for a tiny flat in Portsmouth with barely a kitchen, and it’s just incomprehensible how people still fear mortgages. Logically, to me, It’s not a trap because we can sell, adjust, pay early, or stay for decades. It is basically our choice.

When we went back after reserving the property, I spent two days and nights researching mortgage scams because it seemed too good to be true. How Barney is so kind to make adjustments even behind our backs just so the deal would favour us. As a Nigerian It was only normal for me to question any act of kind even though it was his job and was profit. But everything went smoothly, fast, and by March-to-May 2025, we were moved in.

We would have moved earlier if we hadn’t made silly mistakes with signing and sending documents. But here we are, settled in North Wales,  proof that patience, persistence, and a little courage in the face of uncertainty really do pay off,  sometimes,  or like my friend Byencit said, Opportunity meets preparation. She is never wrong

Want a tour?  I can’t wait to show you my favourite part of the house

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