Mortgage free in suburbia or build a house in dream area

[Artybird2]

Have the opportunity to be mortgage free in suburbia (at 45😳) or the chance to do a new build ( always been a dream) in area of choice with a circa 140k mortgage. Am I mad???????

Not mad. Depends how much you earn and how secure your job is to pay the mortgage. If security is high I'd be tempted to take the plunge and do the new build.

Go for the dream of course! Only thing I'd say is expect to spend double what you budget! Make sure mortgage would still be affordable

The escalating costs are what worries me😔.

I would go for mortgage free if the house you would get is big and nice enough for you and your family. I hate risk and would love the feeling of knowing that whatever happened we would have a good place to live. Some people don't seem to be bothered by debt hanging over them. If you don't mind it then why not? It is probably a better investment.

Look at Huff Houses online. Kit house from Germany. You provide the concrete Base and land and they send German engineers to put up what you have ordered down to the taps and sockets. You will have a fixed price. There's a showhome in Weybridge. It's fabulous!

Thanks! Will do. Would def need a fixed price.

Watch last night's Grand Designs to see how you'd feel about accidental overspend. They were the first people I think I've seen on there who were really honest about the difficulty and the impact on their lives.

I saw that episode. They went £40,000 over budget because they forgot to check where their utilities would be coming in from (turns out it was miles away).

It is very very hard to stay completely on budget because there will always be some unexpected and invariably expensive surprise.

Don't forget to budget for furniture. Can't tell you how many new houses I've been in where the walls and bathrooms are lovely, and then the ratty old Ikea sofa is pride of place Or people forgot they would need a lot of money for curtains/blinds for the hundreds of windows. Or they didn't spend any money getting an adequate security alarm.