To go for the highest mortgage offered?

We're mortgage free and have been for years. Only possible due to getting a mortgage based on one income. If we'd stretched ourselves it would have meant more stress all round. In our 40s and 50s.

It really depends. Can you afford for the mortgage to increase overnight? Ours went up £1000 per month when we had to remortgage and the rate had gone from 1.08% to over 4%. Can't say we saw that coming really ( when we moved to the house years before )

Essentially we spent as much as we needed to, to get the house we needed in the area we wanted to live, i wouldn't rush in to just borrowing as much as possible if you don't need to.

We've always gone to the top end of affordability, but we both earn very well. It really depends on your circumstances.

The question I’d be asking myself is could that mortgage feel like a bind in years to come? If one of you wanted to retrain, take a career break, or reduce hours would the size of the mortgage prevent that and are you OK for that to be the case?

Absolutely not
speaking as someone who saw there mortgage payments literally double in the early 90’s

It's difficult for anyone on here to say without numbers. Can you do stress tests and work out if you can afford the monthly repayment if the interest rates go up a lot?

Arbitrarily pick two properties on Rightmove one with your current budget and one with the extended budget and run all of the numbers and see if it still makes sense. It won't be just the mortgage that's more it will be the stamp duty, conveyancing, council tax, energy bills and so on will also be more.

The other thing I would say it's ok to have a broad budget range when looking. When we were looking for our last house we were looking in the £450-650k range and honestly found houses across the full range that we were interested in and put offers in at the top and bottom of our budget. There were some houses where I would have stretched the budget and others that we walked away and said nice house but not worth that money to us. In the end the house we found that was right for us was towards the bottom on the range. It fulfills all of our needs and we are very happy here.

At the moment, definitely not.

Depends if you can afford the repayments 🤷‍♀️

It sounds like you're in a really good position :D

Can you book any viewings? Even just one or two to get a sense of the extra space at different budgets. Perhaps even a newbuild, even if it's not your thing, f you dont want to bother anyone, just to get a real feel what different budgets/square footage you will get for the price? It might help you work out if spending the top of your budget is a want or a need.

But definitely budget for the holidays you want within that decision. I'm the world's worst for thinking I won't mind going without something and then thinking about it every day 😆

Are you now bound by school holidays? Because that puts the costs for a holiday up loads 🫣

If the kids aren't yet in school, is your current place well located for catchment?

Have you had a big declutter?

I know none of this solves it 🤣 but in your shoes, I'd be thinking about maybe staying put and cashing in on higher rates of interest in the money you have in the bank and then work out realistically where you want to move, what holidays you want and go from there. You def didn't have to buy the biggest you can afford. Have you seen any that you like on rightmove? Are they in budget? Over? Under?

Good luck, this stuff is so tricky!

We went for an affordable 3 bed and overpaid the mortgage. Many friend have gone for 4 beds.

We are close to paying ours off in our early 40s, even having taken multiple trips abroad, and are really looking forward to being able to do stuff like Disney World and other long haul that would typically be once-in-a-lifetime.

Many of our friends have struggled to take UK breaks in half term.

There isn't a right choice, their houses will obviously be worth more, but our lives are currently significantly easier because we used the spare money to overpay first and we could easily afford a 4 bed now, which was unaffordable for us at the time.

What does it mean to you?

The house is the exciting thing now, but in 5 years, if you can't afford other things, it might feel like a slog.

Where do you think the market is going? My concern is that there are so many government plans to throw up new homes that house prices will decrease, which is obviously great for some, not so great for others.

First, I’d speak to a mortgage advisor about what sort of mortgage you could actually get. I didn’t find the online calculators very accurate at all. For example, our lender offered us a mortgage up to £200k (!!) more than the online calculators said we could get. Not that we would have taken on such a large mortgage, but it was shocking how different the figures were. The interest rate through the mortgage advisor was also significantly lower than anything I could find on my own.

Once you know what you can get, then think about your affordability. I’m definitely a fan of stretching yourself. We did and we have a beautiful house that has been a great investment. But I think I’d be careful about going to your very limit if the margin is only £300 per month. I had a bloody mouse eat through a wire in my car and cause £4000 worth of damage. I ended up putting the repairs on a service plan that then cost me an extra £350 a month for a year. It was fine, paid off in the end, and I wasn’t on my ass, but if the margins had been more slim, big car repairs or a new boiler would have been a lot more stressful.

No one can tell you what rates are going to be, trying to predict swaps is a fools errand but what you can know is this year the Bank of England will likely cut the base rate another two times, so you’ll likely see swaps go down a bit and rates to come down.

beyond that who knows

(for clarity mortgages aren’t priced on the base rate so the base rate is largely arbitrary unless you’re on a product that tracks the base rate)

You can always take the risk away with a long term fixed rate. Don't believe anyone who tells you that we will see very low rate interest rates again for the foreseeable.

We have a 10yr fix to 2032 and if the rates are high at that point this will be heavily offset by the significant reduction in outstanding capital

We have always gone for much less than we have been offered but it has always been enough to find a house that meets our current requirements plus some growth. Our first house was a 3 bed semi. We got it with no children but it would accommodate a child's room as well as a spare room so it allowed us to start our family.
When we moved due to my partner job relocating we jumped to a 4 bed detached which meets all of our needs plus option to expand our family, in an area we like. We could easily live in this house happily for 10-15+ years. We will probably move again when we start thinking about winding down work to somewhere more rural when we don't have to factor in commuting into our requirements.

We have always prioritised being able to fund our lifestyle on one salary as my partners job was precarious until recently as his in an industry where you move from short term contract to short term contract. As it happened it turned out my job was the problem and I was made redundant in Feb. It has been a huge comfort to know that the bills are all sorted and I can take my time job hunting, I work in a niche area so it can take time to find employment.

I would look at what you can borrow, what monthly repayments you can afford, pressure test your finances in case of the costs start spiralling again, what would happen if there were issues with employment. Then start looking at how far your money would go and what your needs would be to meet your requirements now and over the next 5-10 years. Trying to find the balance between stretching your budget to get a house that will grow with you in an area you want to stay in with not stretching yourself so far that you can't enjoy it because of fears of it all crashing down. It's costly to move so you want to minimise the risk of having to move because you have been too cautious and not stretched your budget enough to cover growth whilst also having to move because circumstances change and it's no longer affordable.

Also go for a fee free broker, they are already getting paid by the lender.

and keep in mind when your fix ends you can product transfer without your loan being re underwritten and a lot of brokers don’t have the PT rates

ultimately the bank will assess your affordability prior to giving you and offer (remember a decision in principle isn’t credit scored and is just based on soft facts) the bank will asses your security (house) and your circumstances (affordability), they will stress test it (5 year stress tends to be your initial interest rate, 2 year more discretion is used)and make an offer that they’re confident you can pay back, they don’t want you defaulting on that loan. So if the bank thinks you can afford it, you probably can (major like crisis aside)

Best to speak to a proper broker, the online calculators are rubbish and lots very inaccurate because of interest rate changes. Our broker found us deals at over 1% lower interest than one of the big-name calculators.

No one can tell you. Some people have always dreamed of a big house and are willing to stretch themselves to get it. Others crave the security of not owing anything to anyone. If we live somewhere more modest, we can pay off the mortgage earlier, then put more into our pension, and build up a pot to help DC with university expenses and a deposit, which will have a bigger impact on their quality of life in future than whether we had an extra spare room and a bigger garden when they were growing up. But those are very individual choices and vary widely with circumstances.

You are thinking about it the wrong way.

Work out what the most that you could afford is and feel happy about committing to, and then set that as the top of your budget when searching for houses. What that amount is will depend on your incomes obviously, but also your attitute to risk, how safe your jobs are etc.

And then pick the house you like the best within that budget. If that is under your top line amount, that's a bonus.

I think this depends on your personal situation. We could have gotten a much bigger mortgage but felt it was a risk so didn't. I was made redundant this year, 2 years into our mortgage, and my first thought was how relieved I was we hadn't taken on a bigger mortgage. Especially with how interest rates have gone.