To still buy the new house

[afrikat]

We are in the process of buying a new house. Due to a combination of promotion and inheritance we are upgrading quite considerably and our mortgage repayments will be significantly higher which wouldn't be an issue but I have been suffering from post viral fatigue (kind of a precuser to CFS/ME) for the past few months and have been off sick since May. At the moment I am still being paid but if I am not back at work by November I will move on to statutory and if I don't recover I can't see me being able to work which means there is no way we can afford the house (I earn a significant higher wage than my husband).
The sensible thing to do would be to stay where we are for now until we know I'm going to recover fully (the dr says I should and that I just need to rest but forums are full of people with CFS /ME who have had to give up work and that terrifies me). I do feel I am slowly getting better but am still struggling a lot and I just don't know when I'll be able to work again. Having said that I love my job and desperately don't want to lose it - I am doing everything I can to recover (yoga, meditation, acupuncture, pacing, clean eating, supplements) but it's just such a slow recovery process.

The house we are buying could be our forever house and it took over a year of looking to find it and it's a new build which they are pushing us to exchange on asap - we've probably only got a few weeks before we need to decide one way or another. We put the deposit down on this place last November so we have been fantasising about living there for a very long time and would both be devastated to lose it at this point. Plus I could be feeling ready to go back to work in a months time then we would have given it up for nothing.

I'm going round in circles in my head so any opinions welcome

DONT DO IT

Yes I am shouting, in bold with caps lock!

I once temped for a housing building company, for 6 months last year - and they are all the same - the workmen travel between companies - they're shoddily built, the stories I could tell - but they are pushing you to exchange to meet targets, which gives the site staff a bonus - the price will rapidly drop too if they have any left.

You've upgraded too far. Maybe choose a house somewhere in the middle? So better than you've got now but that you could still afford on 1 wage + sick pay if needed. You pay a massive premium for new builds and so you would struggle to sell the house and downsize quickly without selling for a lot less than you paid for it. you're stretching yourself too far and forcing yourself to go back to work too soon potentially making your illness worth. Is a bit of bricks and mortar worth all that?

StillDriving - I don't know if it makes a difference but it is a tiny development of 6 houses and the push for exchange is because it will be finished in October. The same company did a handful of houses on the adjacent land previously and they were beautiful (we would have bought one of those had we sold our house at that point)

Agree with the above I wouldn't touch a new build with a barge pole. The potential neighbour problems claiming parking spaces etc that aren't there's. The thin walls so you can hear everything. The way they're built close together to be called "detached but are actually only a few inches apart. But I didn't want to say all that in my first post. Basically don't do it.

We bought a new build last year, been living here for a year, and have had no issues with either thin walls or parking disputes with neighbours, so I wouldn't use those reasons for not moving. In fact, the new build we bought has thicker walls and insulation than our old house due to current building regs. Anyway, that aside, maybe find a house a step up from yours, but that won't push you financially should your health not improve.