Pushing ourselves to the max for our dream house

[ldnirish]

DH and I have been looking to move for 3 years on and off, been stopping and starting the process due to wedding, arrival of DC and more recently covid.

Have found our dream house in our dream location and got it at our max price (but 40k off asking price)

Only issue is, it needs doing up and 'refreshing'. We would be able to do it immediately if it weren't for extortionate,
nursery fees, which will be gone in 2-3 years time anyway.

Also worth noting we have a 5 year fixed rate mortgage so don't need to worry about interest rates rising during this time.

AIBU for thinking 2 years living on the wire is worth it for our forever home?

Any chance of redundancy, illness etc in the next few years?

This is a really bad time to be maxing out on borrowing, far too uncertain.

I’m too risk averse so wouldn’t. But then you know what your situation is like, how stable your jobs are etc.

I’d also point out that there’s a difference between doing up and ‘refreshing’. With the latter, I’d expect the house to be in good nick but maybe the tiles or kitchen cabinets out of fashion. Not a problem.
If it needs doing up, ie rewire, new boiler, roof repair, replastering etc then the amount involved will be far greater than you might realise. With nursery fees at, say, £1500/month, that’s 36k over 2 years which is nowhere near enough for more than a refresh of a sound property.

If you will still have a good standard of living (holidays, trips out etc) when nursery fees reduce I would say go for it.
I would consider hours at work though; will you want to reduce your hours at some point? Would this affect your affordability?

Can you afford the mortgage payments and is it liveable? If so I would buy and then just live in it until your DC aren't in nursery and you have more disposable income. In fact we've done exactly this with the house we're in at the moment

As long as you can afford the repayments alongside nursery fees (and have factored in any increase in bills for a larger property e.g. higher council tax band, heating etc) then of course 2 years is a small time to wait to redecorate if it's your dream family home in the right location. Presume you've looked at schools etc.

But if you have any doubts about jobs, it's a risky time to take a gamble.

The '2 years til we can redecorate' is a bit of a red herring.

It's an extra £200 a month on what we are currently paying, which we can afford with nursery fees, we just can't afford to do it up to the standard we'd like straight away.

They fitted a new boiler about a year ago. There are no glaringly obvious issues, we are awaiting surveyors report to confirm but he didn't mention anything to us on inspection.

Both DH and I have very secure jobs, there is no possibility of redundancy and we have very good sickness packages should illness become an issue (though hopefully not)

I would go for it but do it up slowly and on a budget. If it's the 'forever home' then you have ages to redecorate etc. As long as there are no red flags regarding structural stuff or damp etc and it's just about the decoration then I would just go for it

@ldnirish

DH and I have been looking to move for 3 years on and off, been stopping and starting the process due to wedding, arrival of DC and more recently covid.

Have found our dream house in our dream location and got it at our max price (but 40k off asking price)

Only issue is, it needs doing up and 'refreshing'. We would be able to do it immediately if it weren't for extortionate,
nursery fees, which will be gone in 2-3 years time anyway.

Also worth noting we have a 5 year fixed rate mortgage so don't need to worry about interest rates rising during this time.

AIBU for thinking 2 years living on the wire is worth it for our forever home?

When we bought our first house in 1989 (yes, just before the crash), we had no expectation of buying a finished product. We knew that we would improve it room by room until we moved on. Same with our current house - we still have chip wood (In one room) wallpaper 23 years on.

I think all the property shows on TV give unrealistic expectations.

We’re doing similar for Dream House, knowing our finances will only get better long term. It really is a perfect house for us, though, and we have jobs I’d consider very secure.

So the decor is just a bit dated/not to your liking? Then go for it.

You might just want to look at the cost of childcare once your child starts school as most people find they still pay ££ for wraparound and holiday care.

I agree that the decorating issue is a red herring here.

You need to know what you would do if one of you lost your job etc.

When people move, they are often stretching themselves and so this is always a Q which should be asked.....how would you manage if a crisis occurred that meant you lost much of your income. Many people would always answer that Q and say they would really struggle. Or they might say they could manage for a few months and then would really struggle.

The reality of now is that there is a bigger risk of loss of income.

I guess you need to be really realistic about the security of your jobs. If you're in the public sector as a teacher or nurse or similar you are probably secure. Other jobs less so. You also need to think about having some money kept aside for a crisis to cover a couple of months of living costs, never mind saving for decorating. And you need to be aware of how much you could quickly earn if you needed to take a job at Tesco etc as a short term stop gap....or if that wouldn't be possible in your situation.

If the state of the house is such that you really can't face living in it with the possibility of it being several years until you can do it, then don't do it.

Only buy it and really stretch yourself if you're willing to wait perhaps 4-5 years to do the work, have a plan to avoid re-possession if a financial crisis occurs to your family and feel happy living right on the edge.

Lots of people make this step every year. Most of them don't face a crisis and find that in a few years everything is easier in financial terms. Others find it very stressful living in the financial edge and some do find a crisis comes and either are or are unable to manage it. Some people do lose their houses and sadly I the current climate there's more likely to be more if them. But you can mitigate the risk by not being head in the sand but being realistic about your situation and making plans.

It isn't quite just a redecoration, what I meant by that was that a freshen up would do for the time being.

I would say it needs about 10k investing into it to bring it to the standard we'd be happy with. Issue being we won't have that available to us for another few years.

Just wanted opinions as to whether people would actually do this, especially in the current climate, or whether we are biting off more than we can chew.

We bought a lovely house over our budget last year. I adore it. We have the money to do the things needed to prevent damage - the actually necessary renovation and maintenance stuff. Redecorating can wait. Waiting isn't a bad idea anyway, so you can see what you really want to do. If I'd redecorated this place immediately, I'd have done it wrong.

Thank you for everyone that has replied so far btw, I appreciate the honesty and help.

Wasn't trying to mislead anyone so I apologise

So being risk averse, I would and haven’t done such a thing.

However, it’d depend on a bigger picture. For example, if you’re a pair of nurses in London and are stretching for a cheap 2-bed house in an affordable area, then I completely understand. However, if you’re stretching for a house in an unnecessarily expensive area or 5-bed on a tight budget, then I wouldn’t see the point of feeling squeezed for that.

So what you're saying is that it's your dream home, (apparently) structurally sound, secure jobs, good sickness pay, fixed repayments.
So the 'current climate' is apparently irrelevant.
The only fly in the ointment is that you wouldn't be able to 'do it up' for a few years.
Yes, I could live in a scruffy house for a few years.
But are you sure you can afford the higher utilities? Increased council tax? Increased grocery costs if brexit turns out disastrously? No chance of another child arriving unexpectedly?
I'm risk averse, so avoid any situation where I wouldn't have a cushion to fall back on.

I like that one “ living in the financial edge “ 😃👍

No I wouldn't and didn't. We were in pretty much the exact same situation a few months back and I could have written your post as we have nursery fees etc and the house needed doing up. Me and dh spoke at length about it and it was a very difficult decision.
Ultimately we decided to go for a less expensive more "done" house.
It came down to the fact that we have small children and really want to enjoy this time with them. I did not fancy making do with a half decorated home, not to our standard etc while working and caring for young dc. I want to come home and relax in my lovely house which is to my taste and spend time as a family, not spend time worrying about what needs doing, spending evenings and weekends doing a house up, not being as comfortable as we are now with money meaning we might have to compromise on holidays and days out etc as we really enjoy those things with our dc.
Just after we made that decision I became unwell. I'm still able to work in my very secure job but I don't want to anymore as its contributing to me feeling unwell. So I'm looking for a less stressful but probably slightly less paid job.
I'm work part time and me and dh have agreed il do this forever pretty much if I want. If we had purchased the other house I'd have felt more pressure to go full time when the kids are at school. Never thought I'd get so ill as its totally abnormal for me but hey ho. It's made me realise how secure I want to be financially just incase.

Not trying to put you off but giving my honest account. Hope it helps. Good luck whatever you do.

I bought my dream house in the last financial crash. The economy had imploded and no one was getting a mortgage. Dh and I had a budget and our dream house came within it. Now, 9 years later, the world and his mother envy that we have this amazing house in an amazing location (and that we got it so cheap - but of course it was not cheap for us, we had to use all of our savings and had to do forego an extension as there was a limit to the mortgage we could get at the time.

I am all for sensible risk - ie take a risk if it is not a risk for you. So everyone who thought we were crazy 9 years ago would not have taken the jump we did - but it was not a risk to us as we factored in all financial eventualities.

That is why there will always be buyers in a downturn - someone's risk aversion is another person's opportunity.

I was just in this situation - we bought our dream home but it was a stretch. Wouldn't do it any other way tbh. We had enough money to do the urgent work, but we'll be living with the dated bathrooms for a while and the garden will just have to be a barren wasteland for a bit. We're also working with furniture which doesn't fit properly while we save for some nice new stuff. I find it all ok though because my new place is everything I wanted at a price we can afford.

I'd go for it.