Would you take on a much bigger mortgage for a dream home

[Dreamhome2026]

This might not be the right place for this thread but hopefully you can all guide me.

We are looking for a bigger property with more space. We live in a tourist hot spot. With that comes fairly low incomes in comparison to other UK locations but very high property prices (for certain properties I.e those with a view/ land/ close to the sea, etc).

We have found our dream home. It’s perfect for us BUT it would mean taking on a huge mortgage! We are 30 so still loads of progression to do in our careers. I’m due a pay rise in October and husband will also get a substantial pay rise next year (he’s working through qualifications). It feels unnerving because we are almost mortgage free right now so the increase in bills would feel big (but I don’t think would be above what others might be used to).

I need some perspective. Would you do it? Have you done it? Do you regret it?

No, the dream home can quickly become a nightmare if you overstretch. Neither of you have actually received the pay rises yet

Yeah we are planning to do this. We have a five year plan and currently saving hard and overpaying the mortgage every chance we get so that we have a bigger deposit for the dream house.

for me since I had kids I am at home a lot, and both of us WFH quite a bit. So we decided to prioritise spending on the place where we’re spending a lot of time. We’ll have to cut back on holidays and won’t be buying a nice car any time soon but we decided it made more sense as we use the house so much more.

I'm grappling with similar, but slightly different issues.

Main question is - can you afford it?
Are you sacrificing anything to afford it? For example, reduced lifestyle, less into savings each year, delaying retirement.
Does the sacrifice feel worth it?
How long are you likely to be there?
Might you get the value back? Remember to factor interest in here.
Could you still afford it if one of you lost your job or had a vast reduction in pay?

It'd be helpful if you could give us some numbers to work with. Current salaries, potential future salaries, monthly outgoings, monthly cost of the new mortgage.

I haven't done what you're considering.
I'm going for a middle ground in a few years time - upgrading to a better house but not a dream house, so the mortgage will be small.

Nothing is ever guaranteed in life but my pay rise is based on length of service so unless I was sacked beforehand, it’s written into my contract. Same with husband, he qualifies next year so again, the likelihood of him staying on his very low wage is very very slim.

It isn’t so much that we would be overstretched as we can afford it on paper.

I think this is a big part of why my heart is leading to this decision. I work from home and my hobby is gardening. The new house would have all the space we need and then some.

No, we didn’t. Now we have paid off our mortgage we wouldn’t. There is nothing better than the security of owning our own appropriately sized home. A low mortgage saw us through illness, redundancy (twice), the unpaid part of maternity leave (twice), part time working, CoL crisis.

Almost mortgage free in your your thirties sounds like you are doing really well.

write up a budget, do a spreadsheet with all your ins and outs, bigger council tax etc. allow for interest rate rises - in the eighties, rates were 15%.

On paper, yes! Our mortgage advisor suggested we can comfortably afford it and then some. That doesn’t mean the shock of going from no mortgage to £1600pcm is “comfortable” per se.

Definitely would need to cut back on holidays. We go on maybe 5-6 abroad holidays, travel around the UK in addition our campervan and so many nice things like concerts etc.

That said, we could have a home gym (currently paying £60pcm). I could have a much larger veg plot and overall, have more of the lifestyle I want I.e. keep chickens/ bees.

No delay in retirement, I have a very good pension, I’ve got some money invested so compound interest on that over the next 30-40 years should do me well. It would be a forever home as it literally ticks every box.

My salary increases by 5% soon and husbands should double next year.

Given this, and what you said above about working from home and gardening, I wouldn't hesitate.

Go for it. Enjoy.

I need some perspective. Would you do it? Have you done it? Do you regret it?
Most people I know did it, back in the day. That's how us boomers got the big houses. They didn't fall into our laps, you know; we took a gamble.

Go for it! £1600 per month mortgage is probably average these days and you are only 30.

Yes, my parents had the nice big house. Got divorced and lost everything. That might play a big part in my risk averse nature.

That should make you wary about choosing the spouse, not the house!

I say go for it simply based on your age and future earning potential.

We chose not to. We paid off our house which is worth £800k now in our early 40s but decided not to move to a dream home. We have enough space although a bigger garden would be great, we are now early 50s and focusing on saving for the kids’ university/ first home deposit and our own retirement rather than asset building.

We’d pay over 100k on stamp duty to get our dream house and I cannot bear the idea!

Yes. That’s usually how it works.

Cutting back on non-essential luxuries like holidays to put money into a (hopefully) appreciating asset is a no-brainer.

Continue putting all you can into savings, so that if one of you is made redundant you have a cushion for several months.

Both these things mean a change in lifestyle to being more frugal and giving up things you enjoy, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Obviously depends on earnings but £1600 is pretty average these days based on people I know. I wouldn’t consider this a big mortgage and if you can afford it then I think do it. I’m jealous of you getting your dream home for this price (far more where we live).

We did, but because it made complete sense on paper as well as being a wish.

Mortgage went from £2k per month to just over £3k per month, but we also saved £750 per month between commuting, energy costs, gym fees, and home maintenance, so net cost was only £250 per month.

We are all home-bodies, and for that £250 per month we got MUCH more space, a garden, home gym, lovely walks near the house, great transport links, close to (free) leisure activities that we use most weekends, and an hours less commuting time each day for 3 people. AND there will be an extra £250k+ equity in the house when we eventually downsize.

Under normal circumstances yes, but in the current economic environment, definitely not.

Crazy! £1600pcm feels huge to me 😂

I do count us very very lucky that we bought a house so young. The equity in our current home is what will allow us to buy this new home.

I think I saw that our mortgage would now be £1600pcm and panicked in all honesty. All our bills combined are less than that and that is every expense (transport, insurance, bills, food, dining out etc).

That coupled with the fact our council tax would double, the size of the house is double so assume higher water, electricity etc too. We can still afford it but I will need to adjust my lifestyle to accommodate a higher cost of living.

Definitely not. I had the dream home and the mortgage to match. With cost of living etc it was such a burden. Sold it. Went smaller and have no mortgage - very freeing.

We’ve done it, moved in at the end of last year. Mortgage went from £800 to over £2k. Totally worth it for us. We‘ll live here forever. It’s pretty normal to get a mortgage that is a bit of a stretch when you’re young and have it ease as you refinance into lower LTV brackets and get pay rises throughout your career. Being almost mortgage free at 30 is very unusual.

We did it during COVID, for us the house facilitates the lifestyle we want to lead.
It was a stretch and became even more so when the main earner lost their job and had to take a lower paying one but we’ve made it work and still have no regrets.
We take fewer holidays now but that’s in a large part because we like our house and don’t want to escape like we used to.
We’ve not had to adjust our savings/pensions at all to afford the bigger mortgage, all changes have been around discretionary spending.
House should still be paid before we are both 60, at which point we’ll have an asset valued at £1 million plus, as well as the aforementioned pensions and savings

You must have decent incomes already to afford the lifestyle you mention and be mortgage free at 30 so it doesn't sound like a stretch as you can adjust disposable spending into the house.

Do you have/want children as that may change my view with nursery fees, dropping hours, mat leave making things more stretched for a few years. But I think 30 is an ideal age to up size as you still have years of working ahead to pay your mortgage and enjoy the time in a new longer term property.