What type of house do you live in , is it your dream house ?

[crazystar]

Doing my mortgage prep tonight and feeling completely clueless about reality vs expectation! I'm trying to gauge whether we're being sensible or overstretching ourselves.

What do you earn, what type of house are you in (is it the dream?!), and what are your monthly outgoings like and mortgage repayments.

Are you happy with the balance, or regretting it?

I have done this a few times I should add and well I end up landing ok but this time it’s a bigger purchase and our salaries haven’t risen much last 6 years since we last did this.

We have an old fashioned 1940’s semi 4 beds and yes would love a bigger detached house but it’s home to us and older houses tend to have bigger rooms, nobody has “the box room” as all. 4 bedrooms are big.

combined take home about £4000
mortgage £1300
2 adults, 1 teen, 2 younger ones

Beautiful high-spec new build. Lovely and warm in winter.

One bed flat, mortgage is £450, bills another £300 ish on top. We’re both self employed so monthly combined take home can wildly vary between £3k-£10k+ (usually more like 3-5k). No, it is not my dream by any stretch and I’d like more space but I love the flexibility and financial freedom such a cheap mortgage brings. No plans to move, if we did it would only be to a more spacious 2 bed flat. I’ve no interest in anything bigger than that

If I could have my neighbours house as they have an indoor swimming pool as that’s my dream I would be delighted. Instead I’m in a 3 bed semi with what is a large garden for a suburban home. It is a lovely road though and area is eveything. We preferred a smaller house on a nice road. Our little row of semi detached houses were built in the 1920’s. The stable block of the original big house is now a house. I assume our houses were built in what would have been the grounds or maybe a paddock.

As someone who paid off their mortgage early do not overstretch yourself. It’s who is in the home with you that counts. We had to spend 19% of our income as our mortgage payment. It was years ago though and we were lucky.

That's quite nosy, OP.
My house is ex-council.
I don't spend much time here.

I love the location & all my stuff is findable.

I don't think anyone lives in their dream house do they? Mine would be in a small seaside town, have the sea at the front, the mountains at the back, and a train station 15 minutes walk away with trains every 2 hours to a large town 20 miles away. It would have a small gym, a mini cinema, a games room (with pool table, and a darts board, and a table tennis table,) a swimming pool, and dozens of large trees, and 7 acres of land. It would have 7 or 8 bedrooms, and be more than 125 years old, and be quirky and cosy.

I do have a small-ish, century old cottage in a little village near woodlands, the river, and the canal, 4 miles from a little market town, with a third of an acre of garden, and lovely neighbours. It's elevated 6 feet above the road, it's in a side road 200 yards from the high street, and I can see the sun setting from my house between early November and late February. So I can't complain, and will probably never move.

I do live in my dream house. Lovely big period property with lots of original features and a beautifully well established garden.
We own it without a mortgage and since we moved in 18 months ago we've had nothing but misery in other areas of our lives.
Gone from a content life with no worries to seemingly one drama or tragedy to another.
What I'm trying to say is you never know what people are carrying behind the doors of their 'perfect home'

1930 converted bungalow. It’s not what I thought my dream house would be but it’s absolutely perfect for us. Make a list of what you really want. For us it was a real fire , original features and some character loads of storage manageable garden and a drive away from the house. There were more but getting the fundamentals right is so important. Like pp said it’s not the size of the house that matters

I live in my dream house. It's a six bed farmhouse in the countryside with a few acres to play with. I bought it outright last year so it's mortgage free. Bills are quite expensive given the size. Gas/electric are £575 a month, council tax is £400 a month, water around £150.

I live in a 1930s semi on a lovely tree lined cul de sac in my favourite place.

It's my dream home because of the location and the homeliness of it. It's not fancy but the rooms are big and light. I never want to leave this house.

We don't have a mortgage because we bought/sold wisely (and luckily!) including a London property, but we sank all our savings into this place and have no money left for home improvements.

No, I don't like my house but for the time being we are stuck here.

Isn’t Mumsnet inherently and it’s more a curiosity

surely only nosey also if I knew you!

I’ve had that life , bereavements etc

1960s semi.

Lovely location backing onto a massive SSSI but it's the last road in a very run down town.

My dream house changes.

I live in a good sized Edwardian terrace house. 20 minutes walk to the sea front if I get a move on! Mortgage free.

I may not have considered it my dream home but recently thinking about downsizing I can’t think of a place that I’d prefer to here.

We live in a bungalow with loft conversion and extension. Not a dream home and feel boxed in. That aside, we've got enough room, energy bills lower than our previous smaller house, we feel safe and have good neighbours in a large quiet cul-de-sac. We're based in our first choice location for the area with great facilities/views/local hill/countryside walks.

Not my dream house but it’s new, energy efficient, nicely decorated and more importantly in my dream location.

I would say overstretching is something people used to do more safely because property values were guaranteed to go up. That isn’t the case anymore. Definitely err on the side of caution - and if circumstances allow it in future, maybe you could put the difference towards a holiday home

Me too. I hate this house. It’s ugly, the proportions of the rooms are weird and so is the ratio of front garden to back garden.

I live in my dream house. A tiny cottage near the people I love. It's cosy, not much housework and a little garden to enjoy. I can afford it and have some left over for my hobbies and happy days out. I wouldn't change it if I won a million.

We live in a nice big 4 bed semi detached Edwardian house in London. We are very mortgaged up and had to go interest only recently as the rates are just ridiculous, but it’s a great house in a good area and nearby for the kids school so not going to moan.

3 bedroom terrace, that's all I'm going to share.

It's a lovely house but on one side is a very noisy neighbour who's now made us feel the need to move. Doesn't work and plays music day and night.

My SIL hasn't worked a day in her life but married a tradesman who was handed his dad's business (she's very beautiful and this guy from their school had pined after her for years) and then she became free, and they ended up married a few years later. She lives in one of those absolutely massive, triple garage, 6 bedroom new build houses (the ones which are actually built properly as they're so expensive) - all that and she's never had to work a day in her life!

I love where I live and my house but the bricks and mortar of it I try not to attach to. My in laws live in DFIL’s dream house and it’s ridiculously too big for them and a massive millstone. But he loves it and the only way he’ll leave it is in his coffin. DMIL bears it.
I want to stay in the same area and either downsize or pass ownership of house and land to my DC. We are v rural and o would love for them to make their homes here on the land but if they don’t want that I’ll sell up to be near them. DH has a very life limiting illness and won’t make old bones so flexibility will be everything.

I have a three bed semi; we never sized up as our mortgage was manageable, and then my husband got super sick and couldn’t work for a good number of years, so we were very relieved.

a real plus point of not sizing up (well once early on) was that we never increased the term of the mortgage, so it was fully paid off before I was 50.

i wish I had a bigger home; I am glad I don’t have bigger bills, so alls well that ends well.

We have a 2 bedroom fisherman's cottage. I bought it outright when I got divorced. I'm living on my teaching pension now so not having a mortgage meant I could stop at 60.
Bills aren't a lot and council tax band A.
It's big enough for us and is in a beautiful location so no plans to move.