Big house, big mortgage or small house, small mortgage

[Iamchanging]

Obviously there is no right or wrong to this one, but I was wondering if you agreed with me or DH.
Probably worth noting I’m from the south and therefore used to people having to take on big mortgages to get on the property ladder. DH is from the north, which is where we live now.

So I want to get a big forever home which would mean a mortgage of around £320k. We can easily afford the repayments as things stand, however I earn around 5 times what DH does so if I lost my job I admit we would be screwed (and it’s very unlikely I’d be able to find another job with that salary where we live.)

DH is much more cautious by nature and would rather have a much smaller house with £150k mortgage max.

Yes we could meet in the middle, but unfortunately it’s the more pricey ones which feel like the true forever homes to me. Which would you do?

I'm afraid I'm with your DH on this one. Why do you need a big house? Do you have/are you planning DCs? We live in the east Midlands, and you could get a nice 4 bed detached in a decent area around here for around £180-200K, or something really lovely for £250-280. I don't get why you want to hog yourself up with a huge mortgage when you could be doing much more fun things with the disposable income than repaying a bank for 25-30 years.

Honestly - we don’t need a big house as no DC yet (put planning some hopefully.) I just love the big farmhouse / barn conversion style and around here they are much more expensive than a new build for instance.

I think you need to work out and have some funds for a situation like one of you losing jobs. If you can still pay mortgage till you find the next job and have a reserve then a bigger house is always nice

If you are planning children in near future do factor in child care costs unless you have family to help. It's a significant amount especially if you have more than one.

I was in this situation and went for a middle way. I could have gone higher but it meant I won't be able to go on holiday for years. Making memories was v important for me.

Definitely middle for diddle. It's not nice to think of but should one of you suffer illness it's a real game changer.

DH and I took on a middle mortgage for an almost forever home (as in, too big for retirement purposes but good for us+DS to live comfortably until DS flies nest). And boy, am I glad we didn't stretch ourselves too far. DH hasn't worked for four years and will never work again due to an accident which led to a chronic illness. I've been the main breadwinner and have had my own health conditions, surgeries and recoveries to contend with.

We absolutely would have been in shit street with a big mortgage. Thankfully with the "middle" mortgage and some buffer savings we're just surviving.

Sorry to be a harbinger of doom but I use our experience often as a sobering reminder that things can change very quickly.

Thanks both, some really good advice. I suppose it’s head vs heart, and especially as we are TTC then head should really win. Must be sensible!

You can always sell the expensive house if you get chronically ill. Provided you have equity. I'm generally cautious but having lived through my parents sell our home when I was at the top end of school, it was great to have a house to sell! They put down a large deposit and got a small mortgage on a new place based on the lower earners wage. Houses are great places to keep your money, especially if you like living in them!