Buy the best house you can now or save more?

[Kipsy]

We’re in a quandary re our budget.... the area we live in is experiencing a boom. It genuinely looks like we’ll be priced out in a couple of years. And this feels unrelated to covid shortage, it’s probably more to do with people moving down from London (commuter town), good schools etc.
In such a scenario - is it better to
A. invest as much as safely possible in a decent house or
B. compromise with a smaller house but save more on deposit and monthly payments - but needing to move again in 7ish years?

We’re having to enter bidding wars for every property - it’s really stressful as FTB as we can’t read the market as well.
Is there a way I can actually compare the two options monetarily? (Sorry not sure that even makes sense!) I’m guessing the better house will appreciate more but it all feels like guesswork.

I think option A, especially if it means that if you wait a few years, you’ll be priced out.

We were in your position 4 years ago as FTB. (Also looking to buy in a boom area where it is very easy to get in to the city but you could still find houses with gardens etc. Prices have continued to increase since then).

We were very, very cautious and did not stretch ourselves at all and tbh I regret that. The house is now too small for us (2 adults and 2 teens) and we are planning to sell and try to jump up to the next rung.

I wish we’d pushed ourselves before though and then slowly done up whatever we bought over time.

Option A whilst lending is so cheap, get a 5yr fix on a low rate.

Option A - if you can without overstretching. House prices rise in percentages. So if you are aiming to move to a more expensive property in the future, the gap in terms of cash will be bigger.

Best you can now. I know a lot of people who’ve been left behind by fast moving markets while saving more or waiting for a big drop in prices that rarely comes

Option A - your capital will increase in the house the longer you are there

Option A, we did B and needed to move within 3 years, spent the whole time planning how to make our next move. Thankfully the SDT holiday took out most of the sting of moving but it was still expensive and inconvenient.

We went for option 'B' 8 years or so ago, and it didn't sit right with me at the time (but my DP is a cautious borrower).
We ended up having to move again just recently because we well and truly outgrew the space we had and the house wasn't extendable to the point that we'd need to extend.
If we'd gone for option A 8 years ago, we wouldn't have had to move again, and ultimately would have saved a lot of time and money!
On the other hand, option A would have been a house in between what we had before/what we have now, and we'd maybe still have wanted to move again at some point.....
On the whole though, option A!

Thanks everyone!