Anyone ever gone over budget when buying a property?

[Madmog]

If anyone has gone over budget when buying a property, can you tell me roughly how much by and did you regret it.

We've seen a house we love over the stamp duty threshold. If we can't get this we both feel we don't want to even look at other properties (although know we will have to) as they won't have the feel of this house and tick so many of our boxes. Have put in offer below stamp duty threshold and vendor won't accept, so if we go say up to £10,000 over and incur extra stamp duty and legal fees, then we're looking at appo £16,000 over budget.

It depends what you mean by "budget". Can you afford the extra 16k but just don't really want to spend it?

We went £10k over what we hoped to spend but £40k under what we could actually stretch ourselves to spend.

It depends what it is worth to you and what property prices are like in your area. We didn't really have a set budget, but always had in mind what we could afford. We went way over that (by about 30k) and also bought a property that needed much more doing to it than we ever anticipated but it was the only way we could afford to buy in the location we wanted - and a house that would, subject to time and availability of finance in the future - be our almost-forever house.

That was 4 years ago - prices have risen where we are and we wouldn't be able to afford our house now. At times when we've been skint its been hard, looking at the peach bathroom suite gets me down but we are so happy in the house, love the location, neighbours etc and we will do things over time. So no, don't regret stretching ourselves.

I think perhaps 16k over the lifetime of the mortgage, on the basis that you can stay there for a while, isn't a massive amount to go over by if its your dream house. Good luck.

Yes, but not as much as you're talking about, and although over "budget" i was still happy about total cost and monthly repayments etc
I didn't, still don't, regret it as it was a new-build and I was happy to pay what I paid for the (relative) peace of mind of limited repair bills, efficiency and it being a long-term move.

So, agree it depends what £16k means to you .... Both in "value" of the property versus local market, and your own cash / mortgage figures.

We were initially advised that our budget could only get us a 2 bed house but we kept on viewing 3 bed semis in the hope that a deal could be struck. Most of the 3 beds were close to the 250k limit with tiny kitchens, bedroom and not in the catchment of good schools.

Just as we were about to give up and continue saving for another 12months, a large 3 bed, extended downstairs, large private garden, drive for 3 cars ex council house within 2mins walk to good school; on the best bus route in town for me to get to the station- we had to get it! we paid £12k over our budget. It was literally the most the bank could lend us.

we don't regret it. we moved in june 2013 and we love it. We do have to be more careful with our budget as our mortgage payments are £300 over what we used to pay for rent but it's manageable.

Thanks for your replies. There isn't anything else on the market which we even want to look at and this property could be a home for life as it has the extra room we need with a growing family, but we could live there even in old age as a couple of bedrooms are downstairs and we could put a small extension on side to increase size of cloakroom if we needed to put a shower in.

Having said that, nervous about over-committing outselves.

eurochick, after monthly household expenses and the new mortgage, we'll be left with about £220 a month, but anticipate higher insurance and utility costs which will eat into that, as well as the extra £16,000 on the mortgage. So we can pay the extra £16,000 mortgage, but also have to think about unexpected house and car repairs, and the odd essential can comes along. Initially it will be handy to have a money left over as we'll have to put a shed in, they aren't leaving curtains and we'll need more curtains and furniture than we have at the mo.

Interest rates are going to rise, make sure you can afford it, if you do go for it.

I don't think £220 left a month is a lot to be honest. Have you considered what will happen when interest rates rise?

When we bought MIL said we should stretch ourselves as much as we could - I was going off on mat leave so we had budgeted for one wage and I'm massively grateful I didn't listen to that advice that was frankly ridiculous and irresponsible.

I am a cautious person by nature though and I think even if it's your 'forever home' you would be silly to over-stretch now (but then I don't understand this 'forever home' thing, things change surely??)

Yes to definitely considering interest rate rise ..... This is from someone who once paid 16%! Various sources suggest 5 to 7% being a long term average.

Also consider what would happen if you lost 1 wage ..redundancy, sickness, accident etc.

Good luck with your search!

Yep about 5k more so glad we did though

We stretched ourselves a lot (bought it for about 100k more than houses we'd been looking at), however the house we ended up buying didn't need any work done, whereas we had been considering a wreck which might need 100k or so spending on it.

However, we'd done the figures and the what ifs, and were comfortable that we could cover it with a fixed mortgage...only just got the mortgage offer mind you.

4 years down the line, it was the right decision, and we're fine. However I agree that 220 sounds a tiny amount....and they are predicting interest rate rises.