AIBU to buy the house I’ve fallen in love with

[Summeryjustice]

I have the choice between two houses in the same town:

A - Modern, brilliant condition, big garden, but terraced. 3 bedrooms. I’d be mortgage free if I bought it.

B - Dream house. Old, detached, enormous garden, views. Also 3 bed. Would be paying off mortgage for 20 years plus.

Houses are similar size but obviously there’s a massive price difference. Me and DP are early 40s with secure jobs. Would we be crazy to buy the dream house?

Honestly I’d just wait for an in between, you say your buyers are pushing but there will always be another buyer. I’d be looking at it as there are downsides to both rather than upsides! But I’m a natural worrier when it comes to things like that

Most people telling me to go for it but some voices of caution. Hm still conflicted!

Ours is also very old op . Every single morning I wake up and feel happy.

Dream house. Why not? You can afford it.

That's my opinion. But I'm old enough to remember when interest rates went stratospheric in the late 80s and a lot of people who'd taken the advice current in those days - "Take on the biggest mortgage you can afford" - found themselves losing their properties.

Inflation is over 10% and rising. Fuel costs are insane and help is now only promised until April.

Mortgage-free is a much more sane idea.

A - have a really fulfilling life with all the spare cash. Travel, have days out, pursue hobbies...

B for me. I'm of the view that your home IS your quality of life, so it's always worth a (considered) risk in my eyes.

B. Detached if you can, always.

You have the opportunity to be mortgage free in your mid forties and you don;t want to take it?

If you are real home birds and yoru favourite thing in the world is to potter around the garden or repaint an interior wall every weekend, go for the second house. But I live in a big detached house (having been gazumped on a new-build semi.

While I love it, it is a PITA. Heating is cranky, the wiring is in all the wrong places but can't afford to get the whole place rewired. Every ceiling we replaster costs a grand Exterior painting cost us 12k. That made me weep when I thought of the holiday we could have had for that money. Instead all we get is the outside of the house no longer looking like a squat.

DH does nothing but garden yet we are still overgrown with weeds and huge trees that have to come down from time to time at a couple of grand a go. It is a money pit and it looks scruffy. To redo the whole place would cost another 200k on top of the mortgage.

Get some builders around. Don't rely on the survey. Get it properly costed.

Are you brave enough to link to them on here?

We are in house A at the moment, with noisy neighbours, so will soon be looking for house B.

we are very fortunate to be mortgage free now, so we are piling as much in to saving for the next year or so, ready to start all over again

I would buy the house you will be happy in.

I upped my mortgage at age 51 and have no regrets.

Detached is the way to go, no one ever regrets buying a detached property, much better to live without neighbours noise.

I would go with A. Imagine having no mortgage! All the freedom and possibly that gives you.

How big is the enormous garden? If it is truely sizable then why not consider selling off part and using monies raised to pay a lump sum off the mortgage?

I would go A for certain. We're heading into a recession and uncertain times, I'd rather have the financial security for the time being. You might find on living there that you really want a detached or semi-detached rather than terraced, but you can move again in a few years, you don't have to stay put forever. A cheaper terrace will be easier to sell again.

Although older houses sound delightful, when they need a lot of work doing to them they quickly lose some of their appeal. If you're paying a mortgage you'll have less disposable income to pay for all those repairs/refurbishment, and materials and labour are expensive at the moment. Large gardens are very labour-intensive, even if you've got mostly lawn and hard standing with nice flowering bushes and trees rather than loads of pots of annuals or hanging baskets, which are very time consuming. Would you need to get someone in to mow the grass and keep weeds under control?

I'd go for A, and revisit the idea of another property that's the dream at a later date. With a modernised and maintained property that's mortgage free, you'll be able to make a reasonable savings pot in the meantime.

A lot of people could be mortgage free if they lived in a home they didn't really like.

You've got 25 years of working life ahead of you. 1/3 of your current income (particularly at the current high mortgage rates) is affordable

Dream house - but you must give us a link so we can drool too!

B- it's detached.

I lf b is affordable I wouldn't even consider terraced even with being mortgage free.

Mortgage free all day long

With no other information, I'd go with B. If I could buy my dream home & the mortgage was 1/3 of my income I'd do it PROVIDED it wasn't a money pit (I'd get a bloody good survey, have a builder around etc) and if it was only improvements I might want to make I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Did you know if you have a good fixed energy deal you can often move it over to your new house? You need to be careful how you ask because you can't 'move it' exactly, but you can be signed up to the same fix.

detached
Big garden

im in!!

I've just left the big dream house. It was a wrench. But I'm sat in the small mortgage free house and
A) I'm warm. I put the heating on the house warms up and stays warm. There are no drafts. It doesn't take £680 per month average to heat the damn thing and still be cold.
B) I can cut the grass in 5 minutes not 2 hours.
C) my cheap vaccum with a short lead can reach all around the room. I don't need top of the range cleaning gardening stuff anymore
D) the sheer relief of being mortgage free
E) not having to spend hours on cleaning because it's so big
F) the joy of having spare dosh that doesn't get swallowed up by the house

Any children?

I’d go for B definitely. We did 2 years ago and just love it, despite all the work we’ve had to do. I’d never buy a terrace or semidetached having had some nightmare neighbours in the past

Would B still be your dream when you're in your 60s, one of you might be in less good health and less up to maintaining or even cleaning it or doing the garden? Or earning less?