All flustered - would you be looking to buy now?

[HouseWanker]

I know this is a dumb post because it’s a totally personal decision but I’m feeling a bit flustered. DP has buggered off out so I’m home alone with no-one to talk this through with.

Here’s the situation: We bought our current house 7 years ago and completely renovated to our exact tastes. We finished renovations 2 years ago and have just been enjoying living here. It’s a terrace house. We’ve always known that we wanted to eventually move to a bigger and detached house but envisaged that being in 5+ years. There’s a nice street not far from us that we’ve always said we’d like to move to eventually with big/detached houses.

But DP has itchy feet so has been regularly checking RightMove. DP isn’t as ‘embedded’ in the house/neighbourhood as me - I have lots of friends on our street, I work at home a lot more than DP.
I’ve avoided RightMove because I feel very emotionally attached to our current house. I hate the idea of putting it on the market which is what we’d have to do to think about moving (be in a position proceed because it’s a sellers market where we are).

Now a house has come up on our desired street. It’s smaller than some of the others but its detached with a wrap-around garden, with space to extend, bigger rooms all round, a garage, original features. And we could buy it without selling our house first (because its one of the smaller ones and it’s a do-er upper).

I feel really apprehensive about it. He showed me on RM this morning and we’ve moved quickly to book and viewing and get a mortgage in principle arranged. But now he’s buggered off out and I’m all alone with loads of thoughts going round my head. Is now the right time to buy? Am I being too emotional about our current house? Would I be mad to let this one go given its where we want to be eventually?

I’m excited at the prospect of a new challenge, and moving to an area we really like. But I feel emotionally apprehensive about eventually selling our current house and ‘handing it over’ to someone else, leaving our lovely neighbours, starting over. I also feel apprehensive about the practical things – we’re entering a recession, the cost of living is going up, the house is a do-er upper which I want but restarting building work makes me feel tired.

I’m all of a flutter. Sorry, not sure what I’m after from this thread but wanted to get some perspectives on this. Just to talk to someone!

Deep breath . You won’t have to live in the building work, but it’s near enough to keep an eye on the builders.

if you really don’t like the house and don’t want to move, you can always sell it on. Plus it sounds like DP is on fire. What’s to lose?

You're totally right. I haven't really breathed today yet.

You're right too that there's not really too much to lose! Yikes.

DP has now engaged an independent mortgage advisor because his work contract is very strange. I think I'm just freaked out at how fast things are moving even though I know this is totally necessary in our market. This time yesterday I was blissfully planning my autumn garden activities and today we're knee-deep in deposit and mortgage bollocks.

I think I would just go with it, if DP is taking control of the mortgage then let him roll with it and see if you can get approved for what you need, sounds like your house would sell easily if its been completely renovated, and its a big plus that you dont need to sell in order to buy so you can go at your own pace.

I guess it just depends if you can deal with a new project?

Don't give DP too much credit 😅We've both been tinkering with various mortgage-related activities this morning!

A new project is super-exciting in theory - bringing an old house back to its former glory and making it our perfect home. But I remember very well the stresses and agonies involved. I'd hope that me and DP would both be a bit more sensible/rational about renovating this new house - we lost our heads a bit when we were doing up our current house 😬

We're the same. Bought five years ago and have just finished a huge extension. Now we're looking at a house to do it all again but with land.
DH got itchy feet too.
Exciting but so nervous about regrets!

It sounds like a great opportunity op, the only thing I would question is you say you can afford to buy it without selling your current house - can you also afford the renovations without selling your current house? I know you've done it before so have an idea of costs etc but remember the price of materials has gone through the roof in the last couple of years and labour costs have also increased. I'd be very sure of your renovation budget before proceeding

Thanks for pointing that out about the increased costs of materials and labour, it's definitely something to bear in mind.

I should've been clearer in my OP, sorry. I meant that we wouldn't have to sell our current house first, before we bought the new one. We would eventually sell our current house and use that money towards renovations and the mortgage on the new property. But we wouldn't be in a huge rush to do so.

In the meantime, we could afford to start renovations room-by-room. Tradespeople in our area are in short supply so by the time we had people lined up, we should've saved enough to start tackling the project.

We're waiting to hear back from the mortgage adviser/broker. Stupid DP has a really weird contract at work which lots of lenders don't take into account when calculating a loan amount. So, we're waiting for confirmation of how much we could borrow. We'd been proceeding on the assumption that all of DP's income would be taken into account but it might not be.

Oh wow, that does sound exciting. How far along the process are you?

The problem I'm finding is splitting the emotional issues from the practical issues. I know this new house is perfect and, rationally/financially/practically we should absolutely pounce on it. But then I get all emotional about my lovely current house and garden and leaving it all behind - it feels like leaving a long-term partner that you're still in love with