40 year mortgage?!

[SerenaOverjoyed]

Are they madness? Myself and DH are looking to move, I'm pregnant with our first child. We'd love a 4 bed so we could have two DC and hopefully not have to ever again. Family live far away so the 4th bedroom would be really helpful in the coming years.

With the upcoming childcare costs a 4 bed would be a stretch, unless we got a super long mortgage. Is this really stupid? We're both 30

Not ever have to move again

Doubt you would get a 40 year mortgage ages 30... maybe 37 years.
If you plan to overpay at the same time I see no problem with longer term mortgages

When we got our forever home, 25 year mortgages were standard and we stretched to the amount we needed with a 33 year loan. We did then scrape every penny we could into overpayments, and every 2 or 3 years when whatever fixed/discount/tracker rate came to an end we would re-jig to take a couple of years off the term so we eventually got to the point where the end-date is what it would have been if it was 25 years from the start.

It is understandable that you never want to move again but 4 bedrooms is way more than a couple+baby need. If you could rent out one or two rooms to lodgers for the first couple of years, and put every penny of that rent into mortgage overpayments, then you would probably be reasonably stable quite quickly. Overpayments in the first few years of a mortgage make a huge difference as each month's official payment is almost all interest with only a tiny increment paying towards the capital.

Do your lenders know you are pregnant? If your calculations for what you can borrow are based on 2 full-time incomes you may be in for a shock. The amount you are allowed to borrow will plummet with the patter of tiny feet on the radar.

What about a three bedroom house with potential to convert the loft in future, if needed? You have a chance to add value then too, if you ever do come to sell.
Kids can happily share (some siblings enjoy it!) or have their own rooms but bunk in together when family stay, at least until puberty, so you won't need the extra room for a decade.
We have a 30 year mortgage but you do pay more in the long run on interest so we plan to overpay to reduce the term if/when we have any pay rises.

We applied for a mortgage when I was 6 months pregnant and the pregnancy didn't affect it. I had a letter from work stating my planned return date and that was that. We went through Santander.

We also have a 4 bed, just us and the baby and it's so lovely to have loads of room. If you can afford the monthly payments even with horrendous nursery fees and planning for interest to potentially increase then I don't see the problem. You may not be approved for a mortgage that length at your age though.

Good luck.

If you can afford it get the biggest mortgage possible. (Be careful you have enough left over to fix the car when it breaks, have a holiday each year, repair the shower if it leaks etc) moving once is incredibly sensible and will save thousands on fees....but check out all the schools around...make sure you are in the right location for catchment areas etc. Research this yourself. Do no listen to the estate agents as they tell you all sorts.

If you’re looking at a 40 year mortgage, you can’t afford it.

Sorry but buying a 4 bed on a 40 year mortgage is madness. Start at the beginning and perhaps work your way up?

If it's for the perfect house go for it but make sure you can overpay when your income increases over time, you can also remortgage on a shorter term later on

Either get a three bed you can extend or a loft you can convert. We plan to buy somewhere with three bedrooms and an 'adequate' guest option - i.e. a 4th bedroom if we can afford it, but if not perhaps a second lounge that can host a sofa bed etc.

It would be utterly ridiculous to overextend your finances for a problem that could be solved simply by your relatives occasionally checking into a hotel.

(In fact my friend rented a house in London with her husband with a second room 'for guests'. For the extra £400/month the bedroom cost, they could have paid to put their guests up in the hotel across the road, and pocketed the difference when they weren't there.)

We did exactly this last year - except we are 40 so a 30 year mortgage Fun is fin when we are 70. We have a lovely 4 bed that we don’t intend to move from and we’re very happy with it. I didn’t want to be in a position where we wanted to move again in a few years. However, we are very stretched with the payments and I do wonder whether getting a cheaper house would have been more sensible. We got a 5 year fixed so that at least we can let everything settle post Brexit before worrying about a rate change.

Thanks everyone for your replies

Looks like the sensible thing to do would be to find a 3 bed with a lounge we could use as a guest room, and with potential to extend. My DB would need a room when he visits for health reasons (he couldn't stay in a hotel) but maybe our kids can bunk together when the time comes.