Advice please - To buy a bigger property, or not to buy a bigger property

[FussInBoots]

DH and I have found a dream property that ticks most of our boxes.
It just needs renovating, but a lick of paint here, some carpet or flooring there and I genuinely think it's good to go.
We could replace the 14year old boiler system, and the electrics, but both have been checked and both are okay.
Bathroom and kitchen are very outdated and will be changed when we could afford it
This property has an outbuilding where my husband would work his 2nd job from.
My question is, we live in a semi detached 3 bed that we completely renovated, we've maximised every square inch of the property to use for our family of 5s needs. (14,11,8)
Do we stay where we are, with a £230pcm mortgage which I'm overpaying at the moment at £400 extra pcm, husband is also paying an additional £300pcm for his studio.
Or, do we buy this outdated property, that is our dream size, with the additional outbuilding.
It would mean or mortgage payments would go up to £1300pcm and we'd be tied into a mortgage for 25years
Whereas with the current over payments on our current mortgage, we could be mortgage free in 8 years
We keep flitting from, you only live once, to, we love having disposable income and holidays.
The kids would absolutely love the new property once they've got they're rooms decorated.
We saw the dream house yesterday, and it was lovely, and looks like we're putting our house in the market tomorrow to be in a position to put an offer in.
Any and all advice welcome, sorry, I knownits a long post x

Been there

Dead easy to buy a house, hand over the money, you know what it costs.

BUT the renovation is a blank cheque you can get an estimate BUT its just that who knows what pulling the first bit of wallpaper off will reveal

That's such a disappointment but it sounds like a lucky escape. It's just not meant to be.

Ignore, wrong thread!

So, I'll be honest, I was a little intimidated with all of the surveyor jargon, but there appears to be subsidence issues and cracked render would point to failed wall pins.
There is damp everywhere it seems, the roof beams are full of fungi and require replacement along with the roof, if we were going to replace the roof then that would fix the chimney stacks issues and potentially some of the damp issues found throughout the property. There's multiple possible locations for asbestos and everything that has been highlighted, they've said we would need a specialist report and further invasive investigations to understand fully what needs to fix the issues.
I'll be honest, It's completely frightened us now into thinking we would be putting a financial noose around our necks... it was one thing to add around 20ks worth of remodelling work etc...
But the pinning and roof work would double our starting reno budget... and the scary part is we don't know if we would find anything else in the property that urgently needs fixing.
It's a beautiful property, with stunning features and loads of potential, but the mountain we'd need to climb to get it safe we feel is too high for our family at this time.
We would be plowing every hour, every resource into it... and I'm scared it won't be enough.
We've paused the purchase until we can understand what the vendors know of the issues... but they would need to massively reduce the price of the property for us to consider sinking all of equity into this project.
Still unsure if we should share the full report with the Agents or not.

Sounds like you're now thinking with your heads rather than your heart! Bear in mind a new roof can be tens of thousands depending what needs doing and like you say who knows what else you would find...

Perhaps have a look what else is out there now you have sold yours - it might be the push you needed to get sold and another equally as lovely but less of a money pit property will come up

Personally if the report is that bad I would share or at least send highlights to the EA as proof as you don't want to seem like you are pulling out for no reason and noone will offer any significant money off without seeing proof of the report...

But even with a reduction in price, personally I would walk away. You may not get adequate insurance for it, and trades can be hard to get round/more expensive than budgeted for especially with something that has multiple complex issues

I can see that a bigger house would make sense

I have a mid 60's house hasnt needed any structural work, decent sized gardens

Might be worth looking at them

Yep... our heads are very much leading us now... my heart may have cost us £1k with nowt to show for it.
We've sent screenshot of the reports to our EA on the advice of our surveyor, and the EA has said "it's not even that bad......" but they would prefer to see the full report in order for them to search the PDF file etc.
The vendors are not willing to do any remedial works before the sale so we're now only left with trying to get estimates and a true figure of what needs doing to make it safe.
I still feel like it'll be a finger in the air number at this point because I don't know if I have it in me to go around contractors to seek investigations and quotes for what seems like an endless list of problems, I'm not a builder... and with all the will in the world, I'll never be able to cover everything 100%.

We've have a level 2 survey on our current house, we had to provide evidence of work we had done which was covered by building regs and that was it.
I feel that's what you would class as "not that bad", not a survey that lists every possible point as red or amber.
We've had a quick home search in and around our area, and there are some homes we could consider but we would be conseeding on a few things like bedrooms, or location and space etc.

This experience has put me off a super old reno now.

We've not made any firm decisions as of yet, but I feel like we either need to have a massive reduction in the purchase price, or we walk away (or run, as some of you have said 🙈)

@FussInBoots All good points! Don't let EA pressure or rush you... sellers will find it near impossible to shift a house at top market price with so much significant work needing doing probably. Houses come up every day/week so just keep checking around, it may be that your perfect home comes up sooner than you think!

Thank you.
I've just set up alerts for properties around our area... so let's wait and see.
We're also trying to establish if we should get more surveys done on the house before we make a final decision.
I just feel like we are letting the vendors down and our buyers down with this stall... although we feel it's for valid reasons.

@FussInBoots Don't feel guilty pls!!

Buyers and sellers owe eachother nothing except genuine faith and courtesy - you don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds out of guilt for pulling out - it happens a lot and it's for legitimate reasons in this case!

Plus as nice as the vendors may be, they aren't willing to do any work to make the house more saleable and that's their choice, but it's also your choice to rethink such a mega purchase on that basis and for very very valid reasons

Thank you all for your input... DH and I have decided to pull out of the purchase.
We're not willing to invest anymore money into the structural surveys, damp surveys etc to still potentially find more problems once we start renovating.

We are no longer willing to purchase the property for the original agreed price, and we don't want to insult the vendors with a ridiculously low ball offer (because that's the only way we would consider taking on this risky project with all of the suspected issues)
Where do we go from here? We've already paused the solicitors... do I email the solicitors and explain that we've decided to pull out, should I send them the building report to back up our reasons?

We would then need to tell the EA and of course our buyers will then be informed.
We're not pulling out of the sale of our house, as we're actively looking for another, more suitable property. But we also u derstand and are prepared for our buyer not to want to wait for us and then also pull out.

Big question is, we signed a no sale, no fee contract with our agents... and the agents have also sorted our new mortgage deal out. We've only just signed paperwork to start the searches with the solicitors in the last 2 weeks... other than the cost of the building survey, are we going to be liable to pay anyone anything else?

I'd like to fully understand things before we pull the plug
Thank you all in advance xx

We went in the middle, upgraded to a big house with lots of work needed but nowhere near our max limit. We are cautious and a manageable monthly repayment is important to us. The refurb is slow and it's annoying living in a half finished house but I love being in a big house in a quiet street and it's affordable should one of us lose our jobs.

Cross posted. It always works out for the best with houses, ime.

You don’t mention your income and expenses. If it is going to be a strech I would not do it.

Do you have money for renovations/fixing things. 3 kids are expensive and I would rather spend more in experiences and holidays. If you have a good income I would do it for right property, but not if I have to penny pinch .

You don’t know what you are going to find when you move there either and big houses are more expensive to maintain.