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

[Outofblue]

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 didn’t borrow the most we could from the bank, or even use all our savings for the deposit, but we did buy a house at the very max of what we thought we could afford ourselves. I’m very happy with it though and don’t see us leaving it (unless we have to).

Absolutely not, i think that this is a crazy idea. We bought a house that we could comfortably afford and due to cost of living increases, I am very happy we did so. It is not the perfect house but I amn't terrified of a mortgage increase, an unexpected bill etc. Please do not over extend yourself, your perfect house wont be too perfect if you are afraid to put on the heating

We spent absolutely the maximum we were comfortable with but both have a risk averse "you never know what's round the corner " mentality so kept a savings buffer.

This means we haven't quite got the perfect house but if the shit was to hit the fan it wouldn't be the end of the world house wise.

Lots of our friends at the time went on and on about maxing out the mortgage. Whilst at the say time being open about what they would likely inherit. Both sets of our parents don't have two pennies to rub together so as we will never have that safety net we were more cautious

In this economic climate, I personally wouldn’t do it.
We borrowed the max but didn’t use all our savings.

No. We have stretched ourselves for the best of what was available at the time, but always wanted a little cushion in case of unforeseen circumstances and that's how I feel going forward too.

I also don't believe in a perfect home, just the closest you can get without being reckless.