Is this a ridiculous time to buy a house?

[LittleMyDancing]

So DP and I are renting after selling our house in London last summer. I have just got (I hope, waiting for contracts etc) a new, reasonably secure (govt agency) job, but we're expecting DC2 in April 09 so I will have 9 months minimum on Maternity Allowance coming up.

DP runs his own IT consultancy business, which obviously is risky in the current climate.

There's a house round the corner from where we live that has just come on the market. It's really cheap for the area, much bigger than we could normally afford, but needs a lot of doing up (mostly cosmetic, some rewiring, new boiler etc).

We could get a mortgage for the amount required plus some extra for doing up costs, I've checked. But is this a ridiculous time to consider it? Is the property market going to fall massively even more? Would we be daft to get ourselves into this, given the current climate? The repayments would be less than our current rent, but I'm nervous about the fact that we would have almost no savings left if we did this.

Going to see it on Friday, not sure if it's a totally stupid idea or not. Help, MN Jury!

Little - CAT me and I'll give you the name or if we come along to a meet up, can do that as well. I will also be telling you which gardener NOT to get as just had my garden landscaped and not too impressed tbh...he cracked one of the slabs and didn't fill it in properly - I said can you fill it in please blah blah

'that was not part of the job'

Er...you had to take the slabs up to put a retaining wall in didn't you?

Yes

Right, so it became part of the job by default

And there is more...we didn't part on great terms I confess...

Could be a very good time I'd have thought. Everything seems to be dropping in price - time to get a bargain