this is a bit of a "what would you do".
we ve sold our home up North, in a fairly post part of our city, and will be noving south, to a commuter town, for work reasons
we have three choices, limited by the school catchment (getting secondary age DC in education was tough, and we are renting at the moment - they like the new school, so we ll stick to this area). We were bidding on a home and had to walk away as owners would not negociate further despite issues.
choice 1 - buy higher: port our mortgage, invest our equity, plus extend mortgage a bit further (50%) not quite to the top of our borrowing capacity but "further" to buy a really fancy house with genuine kerb appeal and fully finished. Enough space. Stunning. 20 more years of chunky but not insane mortgage
choice 2 - port mortgage and invest equity and borrow a bit more (20%) to buy a doer upper - less kerb appeal, but we could do something nice there. Loads of space for kids, family, friends. We d be ok financially, with 15ish more years of reasonable mortgage.
choice 3 - buy a cheaper new build type home on a development site. Zero work to be done, but it looks a bit like the trueman show. Just enough room for our family. Smaller garden and kitchen
We d be mortgage free in 2 years (port and repay) with a bit of spare cash from our sale.
work is going really well, kids are 12 and 17, we ve always bought wrecks that we ve done up, so we are skilled, but also a bit tired. Older parents x4 still alive needing further support as getting older.
what would you do?