Nothing on the market

[Roseybee10]

We've been looking since January for a four bed house with decent flow (living into dining area) and a decent garden.

Anything in our price range has either had a weird layout or been too small (3 bed with no real prospect of a garage conversion etc).

I don't mind doing a bit iof work to a property like knocking down walls or putting on a small extension etc.

My dilemma is this.

We've fallen in love with a house that meets all our requirements but is at the top end of our budget and we feel it would just stretch us a bit thin per month.

There's another property we really like but it has a weird layout and we would need to knock a wall down, redo the kitchen and potentially put a small extension on as the living room is tiny.

With doing the world we would need to take a loan out which would be almost as much together with the mortgage per month as the bigger house that needs nothing done that we feel would be over stretching us.
However that would only be over ten years whereas obviously the bigger house would be for the term of the mortgage.

We know that the kind of house we want does come up in our price range but just not very often and just can't decide whether we should keep waiting or whether we should go for one of the two houses above.

We're in a tiny flat with two kids now and I'm going completely crazy. It's a nightmare getting the kids up and down the stairs every time I want to go out, my 2 year old can't run about as the downstairs neighbours complain and the garden isn't very accessible so she's like a caged beast unless we go out every day which is exhausting with a new baby.
I don't know how much longer I can wait before something else comes on the market (and they're so sought after that they usually go to a closing date so there's no guarantee we would even get it).

What would you do?

1. buy the bigger house that's completely done but had a high mortgage payment
2. buy slightly smaller house and do Renovations when we can afford to
3. wait until the 'perfect house' comes on in our price range.

I don't think option 3 is an option really.

If there are no houses that tick the box in your price range, why do you think one will come along in the future?

Is there much interest in the expensive one you are considering?

If it sells for the asking price chances are the next one like it will go on at a similar price.

With 2 young children and the same monthly payments with options 1 & 2 I'd go for option 1 as just doing the work on option 2 will be hard going.

A lot might change in 10 years- maybe better, maybe worse but I wouldn't worry too much any further ahead than that when considering these option.

Are you sure you'd get the loan and a mortgage? Lending criteria is pretty tough nowadays.

It's a tough one, is there much between 1 & 2 in terms of others things, like proximity to decent schools/ transport/ friends/ family/ etc?

On the one hand, your salaries are likely to increase over the next ten years and things like childcare costs (if you use childcare) will go down once both DC are at school. On the other hand, interest rates may (probably will) go up as they can't stay at this historic low forever.

I think because we know houses have come on in the past that tick the boxes hubby keeps thinking one is going come on if we 'just wait'.

The more expensive one has come down in price but we would only be willing to offer 245k at most and it's on for a fixed price of 250k now so I don't know if they would accept our offer.

We had put an offer in on the house of our dreams in March and then had to pull out as we discovered there were power cables across the garden which had high levels of radiation coming off. I think now hubby is really struggling to accept anything that doesn't have the same space as the house we almost bought.
If we look over the past year there are quite a few houses that would meet our requirements that have sold within our price range but then house prices have gone up.

Hubby works in finance and property so he knows a lot about values and things and I think he overthinks things sometimes tbh. I'm finding it so exhausting.

We're going to see an amazing semi detached house in a great area on Wednesday but he's already written it off because it's semi detached ????
I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall because what he wants just isn't out there just now.

The interest rate thing worries me!! They are very low just now and I would worry we wouldn't be able to have holidays and other nice things if it did.

The two houses are in the street next to one another. I slightly prefer when no 2. is as its a bit more child friendly with the roads.
No 2 has a much better garden but much less living space downstairs. Not much in it upstairs.

X

The interst rate issue isn't going to make a massive differences in terms of option 1 or 2 if you take out the loan.

The loan will be a fixed payment but the bigger repayment ie the mortgage will be affected in either scenario.

I'm sure many of us have looked at sold prices and wished we could have snapped up a property at that time for that price but in many areas that simply isn't going to happen now as prices are on the rise.

The bubble might burst, but equally you might get less for your money this time next year- that's the trouble with house buying- it's a gamble.

There no point in comparing the radiation house with anything else- there was a good reason why it was cheap!!

If you can live with option 2 and do it up as and when you have the money then id go for it- if you'd need to take out the loan and do it straight away I'd go for option 1.

OP, I've just seen you post on another thread saying you have had to rent out your property because you didn't get a single viewing.....

If that's the case I think you'd be insane to go for option 1 or 2- you need to think about reducing your requirements or trying different areas.

Being an accidental landlord with all the potential hazards it entails does not sit well with overstretching yourself on another property- you'd be in a very vulnerable position if the slightest thing went wrong.

Are you sure you'd even get the mortgage/ loan you're considering with a rental property too?

We're renting it to hubby's brother so it's not really an issue. The monthly payment is very low.

And yes we already have a mortgage in place for our previous property that fell through so it's not a problem getting the mortgage.

As I said, hubby is a qualified financial advisor so knows all the ins and outs. Covering our mortgage payment should the renting thing be an issue is something we've already taken into consideration when budgeting for a new property in our monthly payments.

Fair enough- I'd still be very cautious about over committing in an area where properties simply can't be sold though- there aren't too many of those around anymore and it may well be house 1 is overpriced if it can't be compared with recent sold prices and the market is stagnant.

3. probably won't get you anywhere.

I would go for the cheaper place, and do the adjustments when I could afford them. I'd worry about being overstretched on the big house.

Think we've ruled out option 1. Could live with option 2 for a while but went to price kitchens today as we'd be planning on knocking kitchen into dining room to make a big dining kitchen.

Have you considered dropping a letter into every letterbox of the properties you are interested in?

I mean, not on the market but with the hope that a letter might prompt them to sell.

1. Definitely. It's what we did.

Incomes grow with time.