DH refuses to buy anything more expensive

[Frustratedand]

I feel like I am banging my head against a wall. I am exhausted from endlessly looking at houses and not getting anywhere. DP wants a fucking unicorn which doesn't exist. At this point I don't even want a house. I don't want anything.

He has a budget in mind and refuses to reconsider it, or even look at anything which is marketed at a higher price. Most houses we've seen are tiny and depressing, terraced, in dodgy areas with sofas and smack heads in one driveway but a brand new BMW in the next.

I feel like for even £25k more we would get a better property or the same sized property in a nicer location, but OH NO he wants as small a mortgage as possible to pay it off quickly ... but we're still looking at 15-20 years! So what bloody difference does it make!

He also refuses to consider flats. I don't want a flat either to be fair, but if the goal is to spend less money then I'd rather buy a maisonette with a garden and be done with it.

Anything that comes up which is even remotely suitable gets snapped up quickly and we're just going round in circles. I cry on a weekly basis from sheer frustration and I don't know what to do. I suggested renting for another year to save up for a bigger deposit and I get "rent money is dead money." Sometimes I worry that I am not married to a man but to a collection of catchphrases cleverly arranged into a human form!

He is 10 years older than me, neither of us have owned a home before... I understand wanting to be mortgage-free quickly, but SURELY the house should be worth it? He previously lived in a campervan (by himself) so I think every house he sees feels like a large luxury to him.

Sorry about this long, rambling post, but I am at my wits end!!

There's not necessarily any advantage to paying off your mortgage early. We have a small mortgage in our 60s. Our house has an annex which we rent out, and the rent we get is 3x the cost of the mortgage. Win win!

I think you should be very wary of just having got your maximum mortgage from a single bank, rather than via a broker.

When I was buying my first house, the difference between the lowest offer from a lender and the highest was an entire multiple of my income. London and Country are a free whole of market broker recommended by money saving expert, so I would probably use them.

Op, I would recommend finding out if there is a really good building firm locally and look at their new builds to see if you can do H2B on your own. It was the only way DH & I could buy, as we barely had 5%.

We love our house, it's well built with good materials and fittings. We would have chosen an older house if we could have, but it's saved us a lot of money in maintenance and improvements that an older property would have required.

How old are you both? I’m Wondering if he is much older than you hence why he wants a shorter mortgage term.

When you buy your first home it can be confusing but he sounds as if he doesn’t have a clue and isn’t prepared to listen to anyone else or find out, just stuck with his entrenched views which he has completely made up. Can an estate agent have a word with him about how it works making an offer on a more expensive property?

frustratedand

re your comment:-
"He said previous girlfriends described him as controlling, but mostly I can stand up for myself and don't allow him to 'control' me"

That's a red flag re him right there. He is controlling you over this and I daresay in other areas of your life too. And why is he looking at houses over 300 miles away?. He is time wasting and you need to complete reevaluate this relationship.

Why are you and he together at all, what are you getting out of this relationship?.

He’s being really silly. Unless you’re living in a hot spot you can easily find a buyer somewhere to agree to 25k off on a 350k house.

I suggest you look at properties, find one or two you like, find out about the vendors situation and start negotiating. You’re in such a strong position with nothing to sell.

As for the mortgage, you should use an independent broker. They may be able to get a far better deal than the local bank. In the past I used ones affiliated with or recommended by the estate agents. Twice I’ve had them making stupid mistakes and having to come up with massive short falls.

It's South London. Prices go up by £25k, the prices I gave are just examples.

If these are just hypothetical examples, then maybe you could look at cheaper areas that are also nice but will get you the house you aspire too on the budget he envisages?

Also, when the bank told you the max you could borrow, what percentage of that do you want to borrow? If you'd like to borrow the max amount, then I can see his reluctance.

Is he like this with everything, or just houses?

If it’s everything, then take a step back. Reconsider whether you want to stay in this marriage.

You don’t have to stay married to him. Don’t feel you’ve gone too far along life’s path to change it, because you haven’t. It’s an easy mistake to make. But you’ll have decades of this crap if you stay. He’s uncompromising, irrational and selfish.

I’d have buried him under the rental property patio by now!

Do his parents have odd ideas about how house sales work? When DH and I were originally looking, he took every word his dad said as gospel. Since his parents have been in their house since the 70's that information was a tad outdated. Fortunately he did eventually listen to reason and didn't tell them the next time we moved.

He does seem unreasonable
Take a step back from house buying and let him do all the searching. Is he controlling about other things too? Tbh saying previous girlfriends thought he was controlling is a huge red flag. When did he tell you that?

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for your helpful feedback last night.

To answer some questions in no particular order:

We are late-20s and -30s, sorry I don't want to give exact ages, I feel like this thread is outing enough as it is. We get on fine in other areas of life.

He grew up with parents who flipped houses. They always maxed out the mortgage and he was moving every couple of years. He says they were always in debt and couldn't afford anything because they were fiddling with incomes etc. Everything was fine until it wasn't and they all had to live with their grandparents.

He reads a lot of self-help/get rich type books, usually written by Americans who say a lot but nothing of substance. One of the things he read was to pay off a mortgage ASAP, which seems to have stuck. He goes on about how people earn more money and take on more debt so it never feels as though they have money and working to live etc etc. Interestingly, useful advice such as having multiple streams of income, seems to have fallen by the wayside

I think he's also struggling to reconcile house prices where we live. Yes, you can get a bloody mansion in the arse end of Scotland/Cornwall/whatever, but in south London, where we need to be for work, it's a different story. He flip flops between "let's move out of London!" and "there are no jobs/schools/opportunities in [insert random place he has found a detached house for £120k]".

When we went to the bank last year that was the max amount we could borrow, but as I said, that was with a shorter term, and a slightly lower income for the both of us as we've since had small raises. I think with a normal 25 year term and our new salaries we could afford slightly more.

We are already looking in the cheapest areas. It's fucking grim. Doesn't help that we live in a very naice area now, albeit renting, so the contrast feels even worse.

I think going forward I am going to arrange a meeting with a mortgage broker and view some houses by myself and get a feel for what kind of "discount" we could get. Then say I want this house, are you in or out?

I have to say, I feel incredibly resentful having to arrange everything. I sorted out our rental accommodation on my own as well, and we had a similar issue with him refusing to pay more than X. I ended up negotiating and we literally pay £50 per month more than he had in mind but I got very, very lucky and have not seen anything like our flat on the market since. He was very grateful at the time, but the good will hasn't lingered.

He is merely reflecting his parents own attitudes to spending and such does not change readily if at all.

Why are you and he together at all, what are you getting out of this relationship?. It sounds utterly miserable for you.

I know it's a generalisation, but men so often do leave it to their wives to do all the arranging. You sorting out the rental etc. The upside is that you know what's going on, what's happening, and you've got control. I'd rather have it that way than be presented with a fait accompli.

AttilaTheMeerkat

We get on well, we have a laugh together, he is supportive, understanding and wonderful in a crisis. He adores me and makes me feel good about myself.

Everything is fine until it comes to large scale purchases. It took him TWO YEARS to buy a car because he was faffing around and couldn't decide what to get! I stayed out of that as I don't mind public transport, but the house obviously affects us both.

He does sound like hard work... It's very difficult that he had his upbringing as that clearly affects him a lot.

Would he see an independent financial advisor? Perhaps they could talk sense into him with some numbers? In reality, mortgage rates are so low that paying off your mortgage early makes emotional but not financial sense. It also makes sense to take your mortgage out over a long term but then make overpayments if you do decide to pay it off early.

Perhaps if he hears stuff from a professional, he'd give his head a wobble? Or counselling? You're clearly at your wits end so that probably makes him even more defensive.

Go and look at ones £25k over at least because you may get that money off if you haggle .

"He said previous girlfriends described him as controlling, but mostly I can stand up for myself and don't allow him to 'control' me."

This is astoundingly ignorant and naive. "I can stand up for myself" - do you think the others couldn't? Do you think you're better than them? Controlling men are perfectly capable of controlling women who can stand up for themselves, they just grind them down. Like your husband is doing to you.

I'm surprised no one else has picked up on that comment tbh.

Oh and if you want children you should not have them with this man.

I wrote earlier he is controlling you over this and I daresay in other areas of your life too. My opinion has not changed.

Re your comment:-
"We get on well, we have a laugh together, he is supportive, understanding and wonderful in a crisis. He adores me and makes me feel good about myself".

You probably get on well with work colleagues and have a laugh with them too. How is he wonderful in a crisis; can you cite an example of this?. How does he adore (that bloody word again) you?. He is certainly not making you feel good about yourself now nor is he being at all supportive or understanding. And its ridiculous that he took two years to buy a car so necessitating the use of public transport because he could not decide what to get.

He is not your project to rescue or save nor is he your fixer upper here; this is who he is and he is not for changing. You are basically carrying him, he cannot - or equally refuses - to do any adulting at all.

He seems to cause a lot of crises, or certainly an ongoing sense of crisis, for someone who's good in them. Frankly he sounds exhausting to live with.

If you can stand up for yourself why haven’t you bought a house.

Or does he allow you to stand up to him as long as you don’t get what you want

This would drive me bananas.

Where I live massively impacts my mental health. For £100 pm it’s worth the investment.

Honestly go and view the more expensive houses on your own.
London places are selling ON AVERAGE at 10% under asking meaning some are selling at 15%

Find a house you like and speak to the EA. they are gagging to sell and I found they will tell you almost to the pound what a vendor will accept.

We are keen to overpay our mortgage but still took a 30 year with a 10% annual overpayment option. Limiting what you can buy by insisting on a short term mortgage is weird especially in London.

He sounds like he has some issues around it though so you prob need to treat a bit softly

Here's my take on this.

Buying a house is one of the most important decisions you make in your lifetime.

It's a huge investment, not just financially but emotionally as well.

The property you buy has the potential to shape your life for the better or worse.

He's seeing this as a purely financial decision and it isn't.

Buying a property only on a financial basis isn't sensible for a number of reasons.

• this might not be a forever home, but it is somewhere you'll live for the next 5/10 years. A house that fits the budget but is too small/in a poor neighbourhood/not in a good school catchment area is going to impact your mental wellbeing and lifestyle for a long time. It's all well and good paying off the mortgage but that's cold comfort if you're living next door to a drug dealer and feel unsafe in your own home or feel cramped and claustrophobic because you don't have enough space to swing a cat.

You may be forced to move sooner than you otherwise should. This will mean you incur additional costs (stamp duty/removal and estate agent fees etc) that you would not have had to spend if you'd bought more wisely in the first place and will likely be in excess of what you'd gain by paying the mortgage off in 15 years rather than 20.

• Most buyers do not think like your DH. They won't buy a house they don't like just because it costs x amount. All the downsides he seems happy to put up with to meet his budget will impact the value of the property in the longer term. If the market goes down it will lose relatively more value and in an upwards market will gain less.

The saying "better to buy the smallest house in an expensive street rather than the biggest in an undesirable street" is true - it really is all about location.

So whilst you may pay off the mortgage in 15 years there's a very real risk of you failing to maximise on your investment, which is not a good financial decision.

• I wonder if he reluctance to view property that's above his threshold is simply down to being a first time buyer.

Most buyers tend to look at properties 20% or more either side of their budget.

A lot of sellers are unrealistic about the value of their home - it's only every worth what someone will pay and as a first time buyer you're in a strong position.

You won't know what offer someone might accept until you try. If you refuse to look/low bid on a property you may well miss out on your "unicorn". Sometimes seller needs to sell urgently (for example to get children into a school before a new term starts, or due to a job move or because they'll lose the dream house they are trying to buy if they don't move quickly). If your in the right place at the right time they may well take a much bigger hit on price than you would anticipate.

It is a good thing to try and pay off your mortgage ASAP (I've done this myself).

However it's not a good thing to prioritise above all else if the compromises you're making ultimately lead you to make both a poor financial and emotional investment overall.

Personally I wouldn’t be buying as it is in this country at the moment unless I could buy outright it very small mortgage. it’s all very well people saying rent is dead money, but so is losing 50k value virtually overnight if things crash somewhat. It may not be a popular option but I would wait 18 months and see what transpires, it may be you could then buy a better house a fair bit cheaper , not good for many but a reality if markets crash/decline.

He does sound very indecisive which would drive me mad.
Maybe he's waiting for you to take control of the situation, ie, step in and tell him he needs to do this, this and that, etc.
Fannying about for 2 years over a car is just madness.