Buying a house: wanting to keep a very large amount of savings

[Sky0012]

wife and I are in the process of looking for a house. We are in our early 40s with 2 primary school aged children. Our financial situation isnt great: we have a joint income of £80k and a deposit of £300k (after selling our previous home).

we are looking at a certain area where house prices are around £550k to £600k for a 3 bed house.

We have viewed a house on the market for £615k, it’s ideal but needs a lot of work to make it liveable - at least £40k.

I’d like to stick to buying a house around £550k to £600k mark which doesn’t require any work, as I’d like to keep at least £36k in savings.
I am the main earner but have suffered from health issues, so i really think we need to have a large savings pot. My wife thinks different and has her heart set on this house. It’s started to cause a lot of tension between us.

Definitely sit the wife down and do a list of pros and cons.

Definitely sit down with your wife and do a list of pros & cons

Time for her to get a higher paid job or get a second job me thinks ?

Consider income protection if you haven't already .

It always makes me sad when hear of one person in the relationship wanting to live a luxury lifestyle off the back breaking efforts of the other person.

Buy what you can afford OP and leave some for repairs , moving costs , commuting costs etc

To be ho eat if you are thinking of taking on a mortgage of £250k , even a large savings pot (say £50k) isn't going to go that far if you end up unable to work through ill health. Is that likely ?
That said, I think your thoughts are considerably more financially astute than your wife's.