Should we buy this house

[fruitstick]

We have had an offer accepted on a house, which was 11% under the asking price.

It's in our village, walk to school, all done.

We would need a mortgage of 2 x DH's salary which would be a third of what we are currently paying in rent. I am currently freelance and income is insecure.

......... but it's not my dream home. Right location but the garden is too small and is not as grand as I would like. However, those houses are out of our budget, even if we stretched ourselves to 4 x DH's salary.

We sold our house at the very bottom of the market in 2009 and have been renting ever since.

I'm so scared that as soon as we buy houses are going to fall off a cliff, then our dream 'forever house' will come on the market at a price we can afford and we won't be able to buy it.

Or it might not.

This is the sensible, low risk, low stress option, but is not the delapidated wreck of my dreams

Tell me what to do oh wise ones.

I would buy it and enjoy the benefits and freedom you'll get from having much lower monthly outgoings. Think of the holidays you could enjoy, the fabulous stuff you could buy, the restaurants you could go to...

But that's just me and, as I'm sure you know, you need to be comfortable with whatever decision you make.

Oh, don't be so daft.

My garden is too snall and not as grand as I would like. But just like you, we couldn't afford a house with as much garden as I would have liked in the area we were looking. You're not going to get the house with the dream garden in the right area at the right price. Even if you see them on Rightmove, when you go to visit them, they turn out to have some massive disadvantage and you suddenly realise why they're so cheap (such as the house we saw with 2 acres of garden that turned out to have ceilings less than 6ft high)

Buy the house and enjoy yourself in it!

You could always put the money you are saving on rent into savings and then potentially you could afford something bigger if prices drop.

How much use do you really get out of the garden? I know mine don't find ours nearly as interesting as I would like. Smaller is easy to maintain and you can do loads of things that might make it more interesting to you.

We have houses near us that I have in my mind as a dream home but are currently about 50-100k over budget. We've just had an offer accepted on a house that I really like and will totally work for us, so I'm happy with that. You're lucky to be in a position to buy at the moment and rents are at an all time high where we are so I'm glad our money's going to be going towards our mortgage and not someone else's.

Thanks, you have all been very wise.

We have just been looking for so long I assume that if anyone accepts our offer we must have made the wrong decision.

And you're right about the garden, they prefer the park.

The garden is the only part of our new house that I don't like - is small, needs lots of work and is very overlooked. However, all these things can be improved and it is a lot better than being stuck in rented even if prices do take a nosedive over the next few years!!

As GrendelsMum wisely says, getting the right house, in the right location with a lovely garden will cost ££££. Sounds like you will be paying much less for your mortgage and is in the right location so I would go for it personally

Well we've bought it.

I'm still nervous about buying in this Market and still a bit sad that we can't afford my dream house but all in all I think this is a safe bet.

Fingers crossed the Market doesn't now fall off a cliff !

Congratulations! And just think of all the money that you're saving that you can use to make it look lovely.

You will have a great financial relief, one of the main reasons I would go for it.