It's this house.
Here's the back story. When we moved back to Ireland in summer 2010 the house in the link is in one of the areas I was hoping to live in, but there wasn't anything for sale that suited our needs. We chose not to rent for a while because I didn't want to have to move again within a year, and we accepted that we would almost certainly pay more for doing this as Dubin has a very rapidly plummeting property market. The house we have is fine, but is has lots and lots of compromises like the layout not quite suiting us and the garden being a little too small, location not quite what we wanted, also there are only two bathrooms for five bedrooms. Just niggly things, and I am aware that I am being totally annoying and princessey when so many families are in such dire straits at the moment.
So, anyway, here is this house. We could afford to buy it, but it would cost at least as much again to renovate and it would be trickier to raise the money for that as the Irish banks are simply not lending at the moment. We would have to live in the house we are currently in while the new house is being renovated and if we were to put this one on the market now it would probably have lost about 10-15% since we bought it last year. Anyway I'm very reluctant to move into rented while we're renovating and then move again.
One possibility would be to buy it but not start renovations for another 4 years, this would give us time to raise the money and would also suit us better to move there when DS goes to secondary school as it is close to where he will be going. I suppose the house is in such a bad state that it can't get significantly worse, but I still think that might be madness.
Lastly, DH has no time at all so I would be in charge of all the work and I'm not really sure that I'm the type to cope with so much stress. On the other hand we could get exactly the house that we want, plus we could put a little bungalow where the out buildings currently are. I don't think my father will live that much longer as he is very ill, and my mother will be left alone in a semi-rural location and it would be good if there was the option for her to be near us if needed. She doesn't live that far from this location, but just up a difficult access mountain road, so if she had to live in this location for a while it would be fine as lots of her friends are close by.
Right, do what you can to talk me out of it please.