To buy a £700k house on £67k

You can't have been that foolish with money if you've managed to save a deposit of £280K!
This is not realistic, you can't afford the house at that price and I'm surprised anyone will give you a £350K mortgage on a £67K income. That scale of borrowing is madness. What if one of you is made redundant or can't work for whatever reason?
The more realistic option is to buy at the lower end of the market where you are looking and plan to move somewhere bigger in years to come. Your kids are young, they don't need lots of space.
It's silly to become depressed over house buying! Though if your wife is feeling depressed generally she should see a doctor.

Totally unreasonable and I can’t imagine why anyone would lend you the extra, even if they are family, when it’s such a high risk they won’t get it back.

Your wife is unreasonable. Why does she think you will only buy one house? Most people buy multiple houses before their children finish their education.

Your wife is going to have to lower her aspirations. You don’t have a hope of getting anyone to lend you the money for the sort of house you want.


(Although, £1900 a month?! Christ, I wish we had that to live off!)

Why do you need such an expensive house, surely you want your outgoings to be as small as possible? Why put yourself into so much debt?

if you've managed to save a deposit of £280K!

Unless they currently have zero housing costs, I'm assuming their savings came from someone else.

Does your wife work? Does she understand your financial situation?

She needs to imagine she's entirely responsible for the pressure of spending that proportion of earnings on a house and think through how she'd manage when costs go up even further and unexpected bills come in. It would be incredibly stressful and I don't think life would be worth living. Children only get more expensive as they get older, too. A house is just one element of a happy home. Having parents who are perpetually stressed and living hand to mouth will take it's own toll, as many who have grown up in poverty will attest to.

do not do this. Don’t let her emotionally blackmail you into sinking yourself over your heads. The next thing would be financial strain taking a huge toll on your relationship anyway.

she can become withdrawn all she wants (which is manipulative, imo) but do not make bad financial decisions to try to make her happy.

please don’t do this to yourself.

I'm risk averse so I'd say you would be crazy to take on huge mortgage like this. Also, why should your relatives help fund the difference? Are they not allowed to enjoy their own money, seems v cheeky to me.

Ps her reasoning is faulty.

people sell and move all the time - it’s why it’s called a ladder.

I am usually on the side of women, because I’m kind of anti-man at this point in my life (sorry, it’s not personal- it’s just anger and damage)

and I am SO not on her side here.

Don’t do it. You can’t afford the upkeep, never mind the repayments. What about lifestyle? You won’t do anything besides pay your mortgage!

Our joint salary is £150k and no way would I purchase a £750k house. Admittedly you may be London area…. Here it would buy a hell of a house and garden. I wouldn’t want to pay the heating bills or gardener! You’ll want to update, new kitchen, bathroom, carpets. Just no!

Flipping heck, we earn more than that and have a mortgage of £80k and I still don't feel well off. There's no way I am considering a bigger house. Happy to not bother and stay in my weeny 3 bed semi because this situation makes me feel nervous just reading about it.

Absolutely do not do it!

Absolutely do not overstretch yourself. Let your wife sulk.

No you can’t afford it

Prepare a budget to show your wife it’s not possible - she can sulk all she likes but she needs to see the reality

I mean I would love a house worth £1m but the reality is that we can’t afford it, so I can’t

Does your wife not understand finances at all?? You can’t afford it. She needs to wise up.

Absolutely not. We bought our current place nearly 3 years ago. My salary was about the same as yours, and we bought a house for £515k with a £280k mortgage. I was only comfortable going that high because:
a) I got a 5 year fix with payments <£1k pcm
b) I'm in a career where salary growth is fairly certain (was finishing a big professional qualification at the time)
c) My DH also has a good income, but he's self employed so it wasn't easy to include in the mortgage for various reasons.

In the current economic climate where rates are much higher, costs are much higher, you want to borrow £440k in total, and without my b and c...hell no. Your DW is being completely unrealistic.

Is there a backstory to you being foolish in your younger years and did this involve your wife? IE did she meet you when you were in a lot of debt, helped to pay it off and is now in a position where she can't afford the house she would love because quite a bit of the joint finances went on making up for your past mistakes? That might explain the strain on the marriage now.

If there isn't such a backstory you can deal straight with the issue at hand, which is you can't afford the house. Hopefully your wife is the one with the bigger salary and has the most earning potential. You could sit down with her and make a plan what salary she would need to have to afford the house she wants and how will she get there: which promotions are coming up she could aim for, can she get a bigger salary if she moves jobs, can she take a second job/build up a side hussle/business in her spare time and how much money could this bring in. Once you have a target salary and a plan how to get there she can implement it. Maybe you can pick up more of the childcare and housework while she works herself silly. Once she has achieved the target salary and it's sustainable you can then go for the house she wants. Everyone happy - if exhausted.

No way. Maybe stretch to a £550k house in the nice area but I wouldn’t go higher. Your wife sounds unreasonable too. Could you buy something that is smaller/liveable but not modern and gradually save up to do work to extend etc. It’s a very risky time to overextend yourselves.

YABVVU

Absolutely daft, Be realistic. It's not a competition with your peers.

That’s a hard no.

This is not a stealth boast, but just to put in context, I am about to buy a £650k house with a £400k mortgage. Household income is over £200k and I am still getting startled awake at night wondering if we are being sensible.

Nope! We are very conservative and make sure can cope on one salary if anything ever happened (loss of job / illness)

I doubt at the moment you can get that mortgage, do you have a mortgage in principle that will give you an idea on what you can borrow.

Could you look for a house around 550k that could be extended in the future?

I think it would be really tight to get a mortgage for an even a 550K house on a 67K salary with a 280K deposit currently. Maybe if the 90K is gifted and that bumps the deposit up to 370 you might, but if that 90K needs paying off as well I think it’ll be too high.

You'll never get that mortgage so use the bank as the heavy when explaining to your wife why this won't work.

We bought a £730k house on a joint salary of £120k with a slightly larger deposit than you, OP. Basically, we borrowed the absolute most they would lend us. With full time childcare added into the mix, finances are tight. We have a lovely house but our wings are clipped in many, many other ways. Dreading the end of our mortgage’s fixed term 😟I absolutely wouldn’t do it again.

We ear similar (actually more now but at the time we bought it was about this).

Our house was £185,000 with about £30,000 deposit. We have a nice life but out mortgage is about 16% of our net pay. You are taking more than 50%! This doesn't feel affordable to me. Personally I think 25/30% of net pay max should be mortgage.