House purchase - WWYD

[Animallover87]

Myself and Fiancee getting married next month. Planning on each selling our flats and buying a house together. I love going on holiday/eating out regularly and would like to hopefully have a baby soon so I think we should buy something quite modest and still have plenty of disposable income. Also I would like the freedom to go part time after baby. DFiancee thinks we should stretch ourselves to the max to get the best house we can as it's an investment for the future and will be worth it as we could get a nice house with lots of space. I just worry about having to worry about money and that I might resent the lack of freedom it will bring. The more we buy the more tied to work we are! AIBU to want to live well below our means so we can enjoy more of life?

It's not that we won't have any, but not much after we pay for everything. We each have a car on finance, bills, council tax, food, insurances plus everything rising and eventually childcare costs adds up to a lot.

I'm with you OP- he's not a particularly high earner and relying on you working full time maybe - childcare is hugely expensive and if you can work part time for 3 years or so it makes a massive difference. I would say work on something about 250k with room to extend . We have a big house but and it's a big difference my H needs a ton of room for his job and the 'stuff' he needs to do that job- so a bigger house enables us to make income. If you've got 3 bedrooms then a little one is fine with the small bedroom for quite a few years.

I would say work on something about 250k with room to extend

that is what they are looking at

Chipping on with teacher experience, this is likely how it'll work (or it has with many teachers I know!)

Have baby. Go back to work.
Have enough flexibility to get baby from childcare a smidgen early this saving money (not nursery day rate but hourly CM as they often don't charge for school hols either). So you save some £. Fab

So you leg it out of school, pick up baby and get some lovely time in from 5-bedtime. Then you start the schoolwork from 7/8pm. On broken sleep quote a lot of the time

Teaching is tiring. Teaching with a baby is exhausting. I went back when my eldest was 4 months old to pay the mortgage.

We moved to a different location and whacked £50k off the mortgage so I could go part time. It saved my sanity. Should never have bought the other house. We bought in 2007, top of the market just before financial crisis and were so lucky to sell for what we bought it for.

Even though the kids are now much older I am still 0.8 and can't "do everything" as my life revolves around work and them and the house.

Build in the flexibility to have PT as an option.

@GuyFawkesDay thank you for understanding.

I would push to get something that will suit both of your needs for the next 10 years or so including room for DC. Moving costs are horrendous and not worth it if you think you'll grow out of the cheaper house in a couple of years. But each couple are different and you have to compromise on what you both feel happy with. All those saying he doesn't need an art room, if that's what he really wants within your house is he ever going to be long term happy in a house that hasn't got one? Much the same as would you be happy in a house that you've compromised on?

@savemeagin I dont grudge him an art room at all (I know you weren't saying I did!). I love that he's creative and talented at it. A place for his art is non negotiable and I would never dream of not 'allowing it.' It's half his house too after all! I just hope we can come to a compromise on space but also at a reasonable price that I'm comfortable with.

It's purely a matter of opinion.

We pushed it a bit in 2014 and our house is worth over double that value today.
We have done a lot of work to it, but it would still be worth a lot more without having done the work , if that makes sense - because we bought sensibly in terms of the type of house it is.

Some houses will always definitely have a ceiling limit and never increase that much.

I would give it some serious thought and try to look at the long-term because sometimes it really does pay-off.

Just my opinion but completely understand your thinking as well!

You need to be on the same page about working expectations post children.

If you expect to go part time & rely on his as the main earner he needs to agree with that.

Oh yeah I totally get what you're saying.

It's probably also because we're likely at the peak of the market that's causing me to worry. All the headlines that keep popping up suggest there's going to be a crash. I can't imagine having much more growth on property than there has been recently.

The suggestion of a pp that you would be able to retire early if you limit your income. You simply won’t have the headroom on 40K each so it’s false logic.

No, but I definitely don't want to be working full time til I'm 67. Teaching is exhausting.

Ps we pushed to a big mortgage in 2015. Our incomes have doubled since, we've overpaid loads despite having kids in that time and it was absolutely a good move.

There isnt going to be a crash. People need houses to live in and we don't build enough of them to meet demand.

Are both your flats only one bedroom?

No, we each have a 2 bed flat. They are both quite small though!

That's brilliant, nice one. Unfortunately we don't have that kind of scope with our salaries so we're already at our max earnings.

We could afford a 3 or 4 bed detached - if we used our equity and borrowed £230k. We've chosen to stay in our 3 bed townhouse with home office and should be done paying it off in 10 years for the exact reason that we want holidays and savings.

That must be such a good feeling!

I am on your side. We chose to buy a house that we could easily afford. Consequently we have been able to overpay the mortgage and will be mortgage-free much sooner, which will be life changing. It's allowed me the freedom to stay at home with dc if I want to. That's very precious to me.

I absolutely believe that house prices will crash, I predict in 2025/6. I think it's sensible regardless to not overstretch yourself with interest rates likely to rise.

Try and find a house in your budget that fulfills both of your requirements? Compromise on location or something else?

Yes, I think this is probably the way forward for us!

I really don’t understand why you both need to be so extreme. He wants to stretch to the max, you want to live “well below” your means. Just live within your means and stop with all the drama the pair of you.

Why not sell your flats now, invest the money and rent until the market inevitably crashes and you will be able to afford the bigger house with a smaller mortgage, with a nice fat deposit in the bank meaning your LTV will be even better so lowering the interest rate further.

From my experience I am so glad we pushed to get the maximum mortgage when we did, I was pregnant but full time and so were able to get a decent mortgage. Although the mortgage was the maximum we could borrow it was definitely manageable (or we wouldnt have gone with the bigger house), so much so we could still afford it when I went part time.
If we tried to get the same mortgage now, the bank wouldn’t lend anywhere near due to my part time wage but we’re able to afford it. I dont feel that you need as much disposable cash when children are small as you go out less and over time your wages will go up but you enjoy spending time in your lovely family house in the mean time!

We are similar.

Really regret not buying a house in 2002 for 68k... Now worth over 500k...very little done to it from what I can see.