AIBU to buy the house?

[WatchingBenidorm]

Firstly I am fully aware that this is a very first world problem that we are extremely lucky to have.

I’ll try and keep this short. I would really like opinions as I genuinely don’t know what to do!

It’s me, DH, 3 DC age 10,8,6.

Current house is nice size 4 bed detached, open plan kitchen diner, living room, 2 bathrooms and one en suite. Medium size but very manageable garden (big enough for shed, 8 seat table and chairs, 12 foot trampoline and a climbing frame with a little grass to spare. Off-street parking for 4 cars. Lovely quiet road, great neighbours and a short walk to primary school and to likely secondary school. DH works from home, currently in the garage but if we stay we are planning to swap the shed for an outside office building with storage. We did a huge amount of building work in 2017 including all re-wiring and new boiler so no work to do for the foreseeable.

We have no mortgage on this house.

A house locally has come up for sale and we love it. Absolute tip of a house, the entire place needs re-wiring, re-plastering, all plumbing works done, new kitchen, new windows, new floorboards in some rooms, around £25k worth of work on the roof alone. A lot of the light switches are marked ‘do not use’. There is only one bathroom, plus two separate toilets and one of the three toilets does not work. Most of the house is not double-glazed, what has been done has mainly been nailed to the inside of the existing window. We could still walk to both schools but would be a longer walk (25min as opposed to 15).
BUT it is a massive house, 6 large bedrooms upstairs, 4 reception rooms downstairs so we would have the possibility of older relatives moving in if needed later on. The plot is just over an acre and has the most amazing garden, part lawn part woodland with some very rare trees and a mass of bluebells at the right time year. I am a forest school leader and looking to qualify as an outdoor therapist to work with adult and young people and this would be perfect for that. One side of the plot borders a community farm project which looks after 14 acres of protected land, so lovely open fields and no chance of this being built on.

In order to buy house 2 we will need to take a mortgage again. Our builder estimates £250k to do the main works required to make it safe and suitable to live in. So we would be borrowing around £300k. This is affordable but repayments would obviously have an impact on our day to day lifestyle. Plus every spare minute would be spent ‘doing up the house’ to minimise cost of getting professionals in.

Would you buy the dream house (that is currently a nightmare) or would you stay put in the safe, risk-free house and enjoy lots of disposable income and saving for the future?

I would do it in a heartbeat, particularly as you are able to stay with your parents while the worst of the work is being carried out. You are able to ride an increase in mortgage rates and your children will love having a large garden.
But then, at the age of 65 (and unable to speak the language) I moved to a European country to a wreck of a house with 3 untamed acres, so I am obviously not risk adverse.

No. I did something similar and it was one of the worst decisions I made. It taught me what my priorities were though, the time and means to enjoy experiences beyond my own front door. Also that however many rooms I had I could only use one at a time, so it made little sense to compromise on so much else to have loads of extra empty ones.

If you'd be "living in" during such huge renovations, that's going to be a couple of years work. Is it REALLY worth that disruption to family life, especially the childrens' at this stage of their lives? Hard to have pals round to play in a building site. Longer journey to school.

Hete's some advice from the other end of parenting. Those childhood family years do not stretch to infinity; fact is they are over far too soon, and you only have a few left when the kids are real "homebodies". Don't swap those precious years for all the mess, stress, financial pinch and inconvenience of dust, workmen, living out of boxes. Right now you have the perfect setup; make the most of it and enjoy the peace; with no mortgage worries.
Mortgage free = security future proofed against economic/political downturn. Against war in Europe, another pandemic, fuel and food shortages when Putin takes his revenge for our cruise missiles.

In just a couple of years your boys will be gangly teenagers, their lives will be focussed beyond the garden gate, on the wider world of 2ndary school, their friends and hobbies and sports, a social life away from parents and outside the home.

Looking ahead to accommodate aged parents is all well and good; but in fact by the time they need it, your boys will be leaving the nest and freeing up space and rooms. Beyond that, after parents and after boys, you and DP would end up facing your own later years rattling around in a huge house and a garden no longer played in, still paying that mortgage, cleaning, mowing, heating and maintaining.

I'm a serial mover. but in your shoes I'd stay put and enjoy the gem you're living in. You're living the dream, don't put yourselves in hock to buy a nightmare.

Exactly this.
OP, please don't do this to your children. If you could stay in your house and leave it to professionals, sure. But in your situation, count your blessings and prioritise your children.

I wouldn't touch it with a 100ft barge pole. It'll be an expensive nightmare!

If I could afford the mortgage repayments I'd buy it and do the work on it. Dream homes come along so little in life.
If you were to flip a coin and say walk away for heads buy it for tails and it came up with heads what would your gut reaction be? That'll give you your answer.

I would be putting an offer in straight away, but that's because I don't mind a project, and if it's really your dream forever home, you may regret it.

It's not completely mad to do this. Especially if you have a good builder who is being realistic on prices and timescales.

We spent £250k doing a partial renovation - so I'm impressed that this is the quote you have...

But I'd also be looking at other places with less baggage that have land.

This.

A friend is now 3 years into a massive building/renovation project. It stalled two and a half years ago and he's been in litigation with the builders ever since. The stress it's caused him and his family is awful.

We did this, moved from a very nice done up semi with a large garden and virtually no mortgage to a dilapidated detached bungalow on a big plot. We moved in and then got a big extension done including an upstairs. Our builder did the major works in three months, which were quite trying (I was working from home at the time) at one point the only bathroom was upstairs, but no staircase, just a ladder. It was also winter and the back of the bungalow was out for a few freezing weeks. You definitely needed a sense of humour. We also totally changed the layout downstairs moved the kitchen and bathroom added utility and cloakroom, so all the plumbing had to be re-routed. Lovely when it was finished! Still trying to tame the garden.😃It was fixed price on the building works and the builder kept to it.

Yes to all of the above. Your children are young, but giving your time and energy to a project that you don't actually have to take on will detract from the time and energy you can give to them.

I'm also on the other side of raising children, and I think back to all of the projects I spent time on, regretting now that I didn't spend it with my three sons. They don't stay young for long.

You also mention that the walk to school is only an additional 10 min per trip (25 vs 15), but when you add it up, that's an extra 20 min longer per day, 100 min longer per week. Why have them waste an extra hour and 40 min a week on getting to and from school? The house you have sounds perfectly nice.

@WatchingBenidorm I know you say you have an amazing builder but you need to consider what would happen if he gets sick or goes bankrupt (it happens!)

I wouldn’t take on that sort of project while you have children who currently live in a lovely comfortable home. It isn’t fair to expect them to live with several years of disruption, noise, mess, dust and having builders around constantly.

Personally I would do it like a shot! We bought an old wreck that was an absolute money pit but all of the work has been so worth it, because it really is the house of our dreams.

Every time I come home I look at my house and feel a rush of love. It's like gazing into the eyes of Brad Pitt (circa Meet Jo Black).

Even in winter this house is light and airy and the garden is teeming with wildlife which is endlessly entertaining.

If you and your family like old houses and enjoy spending time outdoors then you might never find another place that offers so much scope for pleasure.

So you need £300K to buy the house and then another £500K to do it up.

Are you an only child? Would your parents consider this as a retirement / care option for their future? Would they consider investing in this property with you?

Will it be worth £1.5M when it is done up? Can you finance the £500K renovation costs?

If you could, I would throw everything at it and go for it... but £800K of finance is a huge amount with 4 children who will shortly (in mortgage lifetimes), be needing support through university / setting up their own lives.

Is it a long term investment - when you are retired, your parents are no longer around and your children have left home, will you be able to downsize and use it to fund your retirement?

I'd do it!! I'm an absolute sucker for an old wreck and it sounds gorgeous.

Can we pleeeeeeease see a link?

In general people regret things they didn't do much more than the things they did.

On that basis, i'd go for it provided you could remain living in your home until the bulk of the renovation work was completed on the new house.

Also I'd allocate a certain amount of time to spend on the new house each week still leaving you time to relax and have activities etc.

I love a renovation project, DH less so.

No way!! Mortgage free is my dream! That's financial security right there
Madness to take on a sizeable mortgage in these uncertain times

Is it a period property?

Factor in more expensive materials if so - ie lime plaster, slate or clay roof etc etc. if the windows are original, try and keep and upgrade instead.

It totally depends on the property and what else it out there. Ideally, I'd rather have a larger mortgage than a renovation project, but that's just because my tolerance for chaos is limited. But I can't say enough about living in a house you truly love.

Dh and I spent considerably more than we originally planned to buy the most wonderful house last year. We have similarly aged dc so I imagine are about a similar age and place in life. Have absolutely no regrets. Beautiful house and garden, 5 acres, woodland. We plan to live here forever, or at least as long as we can live independently, but I would hope for another 30+ years. I'd like to think we've made a good investment and will add value over the years - re-building outbuildings, a barn conversion to make a holiday let, other improvements. But really we just love it and enjoy living here and it's made such a difference to our quality of life and the lifestyle we live.

So whether you buy this one or not, but I'd look to see what other options there are near you. To be mortgage free at your age is a real gift, but I wouldn't personally just want to be comfortable. You have another 40+years of life left, I'd hope. I'd want to spend it living somewhere I really loved.

Brilliant idea!

I'd also add that I was brought up in a grade 2 ongoing renovation and that our DD was three months old when we purchased a wreck ourselves with 25 acres, her childhood was playing with construction materials and befriending builders.

She's 23 now, sees her upbringing as pretty idilic and is currently building her own tiny house.

Her next project is to build a floating house on the pond.

Go for it.

No.

You're happy where you are, stay there.

We did similar, except our children were teenagers. We bought the dream house/money pit in the middle of the country, with some land for animals - the typical escape to the country crap.

We spent £££££, loads of time, tears but also some good times.

Finally finished, kids were at uni, or living independently. One set of parents conked out mid renovation, the others were seriously independent.

The place was too big for the two of us, too much maintenance.

We sold ( at a small, small overall profit) and downsized.

Live for the now, nit for what might happen in years to come.

What you describe currently is a happy life and you would not be so happy if you bought this house. There is way too much work and the cost implications are sky high and I have no doubt these would mount considerably. This is pre-survey and other nasties are likely to come out. Not only that, some lenders are very wary about such matters.

My colleague bought similar many years ago and in the end, she was so relieved to move. She moved back to a very similar house she parted with to make the big move. So many other things went wrong as well. The septic tank was on another small plot of land with an agreement but after she moved in the landowner told her to move it. That was one of many. The final straw being the obtaining of planning permission on former hospital land to build numerous new homes. Nothing is safe from planning permission, believe me.

I think you have made the right decision op, but keep a look out for a larger plot with a better house!

I did do it. It was a lot of work and sometimes fucking annoying (and smelly). But now we live in a lovely house which far exceeds what we could afford on our income.

I'd say no. We have thought about moving loads but if we stay where we are we can be mortgage free soon. I always said I'd prefer a smaller house and bigger disposable income.

Plus that house sounds like it could have all sort of hidden issues once you start work