Looking to buy my first property - exciting, people say. It's also a bit terrifying!
I started looking naively thinking I'd like two bedrooms and some outdoor space (direct access to private or shared space from ground, or balcony on higher floors). It's taken about three days to realise that is almost certainly not going to happen - I hadn't quite realised how much service charges are per month (freehold generally not affordable around here)!
My real question is, how much should I stretch myself financially? I've got a decision in principle theoretically allowing me a price that could get me a two bed with outdoor space, but the repayments per month would be higher than my rent and I'm not thrilled about that. I could slightly mitigate this by extending to a 30 year mortgage but again, that just costs more over time... a small one bed with a Juliet balcony on the other hand I could be paying the same as my rent/slightly less.
I can't decide! I'm still viewing so no hasty decisions to be made.
Pertinent points:
- it's just me, and I'm single so no potential move in partner (or child!) anytime soon
- the second bedroom wish was for guests (irregular, so not a massive problem) and now for the desk to go into as well - obviously this feels more urgent now than it probably will when the world calms down but I did tend to WFH once or twice a week before anyway
- I have a bike...this needs to be stored somewhere inside, I have no idea where but currently it lives in my kitchen so not high standards I suppose!
- I don't own much furniture, no big bits, which is good from a flexibility POV
Starting to think a decent sized one bed so that desk could go into bedroom/hallway/hidden behind a sofa in large living room, and ideally living room big enough for sofa bed for occasional guest, could work? But then there's the resell difficultly of one beds, and no option to get a lodger.
I'm just not sure whether I'm likely to regret a) not taking advantage of free stamp duty or b) having high mortgage payments more.
Help! As you can probably tell I'm talking myself round in circles