To ask if you spent every last penny to buy the perfect home?

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Appreciate there is a property section but I thought I'd get more responses here.

I've been house hunting for just over a year and I'm starting to wonder if I will ever get on the property ladder. I admit that (rightly or wrongly) I am being fussy and there is a couple of things that I will not compromise on such as location and parking. Having lived in shitty areas with terrible parking before, it's not something that I'd like to go back to if I can help it. My next house will also be a long term/forever home so I want to make sure I'll be happy and won't regret the purchase.

I've come to terms with the fact that if I want to buy in one of the nicer areas this will cost more which my budget will allow, but it would be extremely tight and basically leave me with nothing after the house purchase and all the associated costs. It feels quite scary to me as I've always had some form of savings and whilst I could save the money back up again, it would take a long time as I'm a single household and as we all know trying to save whilst paying rent/mortgage, bills etc isn't easy.

I'm just curious to see who else was/is in the same position as me and if you ended up using every last penny to buy the perfect home, was it worth it?

We spent everything to buy a home and neither of us felt it was perfect! No regrets though.

Yes, but ours was a new build so we knew that there wouldn’t be any unexpected jobs to do.

Thanks for your message @wutheringkites

Was it scary not having any savings left afterwards? This is what's stopping me from offering on any properties as I'm petrified of not having a safety net.

Well I think you'll need a forecast spreadsheet for the months beyond a house purchase

You're gonna need savings. At some stage your washing machine is going to need replaced, or your car is going to breakdown or need work. Something unexpected will crop up.

Would I go without holidays for a house? No. I work hard and I'm lucky to have a "perfect" house but.. once I'd moved in, it wouldn't feel so perfect if I was spending every penny I have just to live there.

There has got to be middle ground.

It depends - are you currently able to save every month? Do you have dependents?

We used everything but then started saving again right away. We were ok within 6 months.

Yes, literally every single penny. Positive pregnancy test 3 weeks before we completed so didn’t have any buffer left for mat leave. Will have to make some decisions about return to work in the next few weeks but it’s still worth it. Mortgage was agreed just as rates started rising so we weren’t too badly affected, and hopefully will manage to build back some savings before the fixed rate period ends in just over a year.

I spent every last penny of the house budget but I kept other savings. And the house isn't perfect, no house is.

We spent every penny we had, and really did live on beans until payday. We didn't even have furniture, but we were able to get some freebies from marketplace until we were able to save enough.

We lived with a rubbish kitchen for a couple of years. I loved that flat, and it was completely worth it.

Always thought I would buy the biggest most expensive house I could

But

Went for a less expensive house, I'm not happy about the mortgage prices going up but I'm not 'worried' about finding the money to pay it, can afford 2/3 lovely holidays a year with the family, can afford little treats throughout the year, my child doesn't want for anything, I don't worry about school trips or paying for clubs, if the boiler breaks it's not the end of the world, I can buy food from Aldi or Waitrose depending on my mood, Two lovely cars and if my child needs braces or a tutor the money is there so absolutely no regrets on not straining and stretching every last penny of mine and DH pay check

I was advised to basically to spend as much as you can when you move house to meet your requirements, because moving (and taxes) are so expensive you want to avoid doing that again.

To get the house we bought we literally wiped out our savings (and the kids) after our buyer dropped out at last minute and to stop the chain collapsing (and losing all the money we had already spent) and we had to accept an offer of 10K less.

It was scary, but fine. We had no savings, but also no debt, so worked on basis of worst came to worst until we built a buffer up we could put on a credit card if desperate:

Almost certainly the perfect home will have loads of issues when you get in there so if you spend every penny you'll be in a bit of trouble!

Depends on what you mean - we just bought somewhere which was a stretch, and it will wipe out almost all of our savings, but it’s a temporary thing while we pay all the associated costs around moving (surveyor, legal fees, etc). We can afford the repayments and to rebuild our savings over the next year. Just going to be tight for the next 6 months, and we will need to cut back on non-essentials like coffees/takeaways in the longer term.

We may not have a holiday next summer (not sure yet, we won’t have much spare cash in new year when I would usually book it) but we’ll definitely have one in 2025. If the boiler breaks, we can still afford to fix it. It would be great to have a bit more money to play with, but we can cope.

I wouldn’t buy a house that wiped out all of our savings, with repayments so high that I couldn’t save anything at all.

I think most people spend every last Penny when buying their first place. It’s hard to see the amount you’ve saved years for just disappear and if you’ve got your mortgage with your bank, that is replaced by a very big negative number for your mortgage. We spent every last penny and it wasn’t our forever home or even one we really wanted. We built savings back up slowly but never to the amount of our deposit because we’d need a new boiler or do the living room.

We’re about to spend every last penny again and we know it will be tight financially but it’s only temporary as childcare costs will start to reduce for us.

Will you have money leftover after the mortgage to rebuild the savings so you can fix the car, buy a new boiler, redo the kitchen? Slowly doesn’t matter as long as you aren’t right up against it as a single household.

We used every last penny to buy our equestrian run down property. The location was absolutely fantastic. Falling out of our gate onto bridle paths literally a dirt track up to the old farmhouse.

I could see beyond the house the mess, the house high brambles, the hedges that curled over the drive above the bedroom windows and the shabby interior because the location as an equestrian was key.

Five years later we are still doing this up but we have the most incredible home. It’s a total labour of love but by goodness I pinch myself when I draw back the bedroom curtains and see my horses grazing outside in immaculate fields.

The house is not far off completely being done, a redundancy in 2020 put us back and we’ve undertaken lots of work ourselves.

We we’re looking for a property with less land, in a less desirable area but all completely immaculate but went with the neglected farmhouse in a truly desirable and beautiful riding part of the countryside.

I’m so glad but I’d be a liar if I said some days weren’t tough as we were spending money left right and centre to clear it up before even starting on making it pretty. No holidays for 5 years. A lot of commitment but we equestrians are crackers about our horses so I think it was a no brainer for us.

I can't remember about my first place, that was 1999 and I only paid £81k.

When I got divorced I used every penny I could plus maximum mortgage to ensure the kids and I had a reasonably future-proof home - enough bedrooms, garden, drive, close to school etc. Was at a point where my earnings were going up, the mortgage was still cheaper than renting and the house (whilst structurally sound, double glazed etc) needed redecorating top to bottom and the garden completely redoing.

But, we had literally nothing to loose and over 7 years we've redecorated everywhere, completely overhauled the garden and are getting to the point of being able to replace the cheap as shit furniture I bought at the time for reasonable quality stuff. You really can survive on beans on toast, and learn decorating and gardening skills from scratch, and save thousands.

The first few years of a mortgage are always the hardest (notwithstanding COL crisis and current interest rates).

Yes. We knew our salaries would increase, which they did for many years, so we knew we'd be OK.

In 20 years our house is 3x original value.

In 20 years my salary has gone down (ft to pt).

In 20 years DH's salary has increased x 4.

House has made more money than wages by far!

No I’d never do that. It’s not a perfect home (I don’t believe perfect homes exist anyway), if you then lose your job and have nothing to fall back on,

We did for what we thought would be our forever home. We enjoyed it for nearly 18yrs. But our circumstances changed drastically, and then we needed to downsize to a bungalow to accommodate my advancing disability. No regrets, pleased we bought such a wonderful, large family house. Sold it for a great price. We are equally as pleased with our new home. If you can do it, and it’s a long term home, do it.

We have stretched but I view it as renting a spare bedroom. We have enough ‘spare’ to deal with boilers etc and when we no longer need four beds will downsize to be mortgage free.

We did the same for our first property. Our salaries went on climbing and our equity built.

I didnt get a huge mortgage but I've wiped out my savings, and some, renovating it. But the location is perfect and in a few more years it will be a perfect home for me and my kids.

We spent every penny we had and had to have a loan from my husband’s firm in order to buy our house. When we moved in we had a bed and wardrobes, a second hand kitchen table and chairs and deck chairs in the lounge. Don’t know if was the perfect house but we fell in love with it and have been here a very long time. Not long after we bought it prices started to rocket so we definitely did the sensible thing.

With houses I’ve always gone with ‘go big or don’t bother’

Moving house costs an absolute fortune so in my option your should always buy the best house you can possibly afford each time.

I’ve never quite been able to see how a home can be perfect if you can’t enjoy your life once you live there. If you’ve no money left to live life, all you’ve done is buy an expensive box so you don’t get cold or wet. I’d stick to budget and buy the nicest house I could afford in budget so I have money left to enjoy myself!

When we moved it was to our 'forever home'. Having compromised on the house before (busy road, not great schools), this time we didn't want to compromise on location and we also needed more space. This obviously meant 💷💰! We really upped our budget and stretched to the limit. No regrets. Since then our salaries have increased and I feel lucky every day to live in the house I do in an area I love.

For first homes I'd say most people spend every penny, that's what the savings were for, to buy the house