would this be worth doing?

maria6259

twirlypinky wrote: »

I consider myself to be reasonably financially savvy, but you guys really seem to know your stuff so i thought I'd ask...

I'm currently living with my boyfriend in his house. He is in negative equity so we're saving to pay that off, and then saving again to put down a deposit on a bigger house so we can start a family. Obviously this is going to take rather a long time - but he really doesn't want to rent, home ownership is really important to him so we're going to try that route.

However, i was just thinking this morning of an alternative to that. What if we didn't pay off his negative equity but instead stuck it out. We save up a deposit to buy another house but in my name (and hopefully house prices will be nice and low by that point) and then just ride the storm with both houses until prices go back up a bit and we can clear the loss?

Or am I simply grasping at straws because I'm so broody:rotfl:, and that's a really stupid idea because prices aren't going to go up enough to make that worth bothering with (esp considering all the one off costs involved with buying a house).:question:

Do you really need a bigger house before starting a family? And would you be able to afford it if you do, what with you having maternity leave etc.

If you stick it out, you will come out of negative equity eventually.

I would be inclined to stay in current house (get your name put on it) and get cracking with that baby idea, babies don't need a lot of room to start with, just a lot of equipment!

twirlypinky

Thanks for all the advice, i've only just seen all the additional replies.

BF and i have discussed all this at length, in great detail and we're just stuck where were are and it's as simple as that. The me buying a house idea would only work if house prices went up after I bought it, and I've got no guarantee of that at all.

He bought his house for £95k in 2007 and repo round the corner (but almost identical house) sold for £67k earlier in the year. He went to the EA last month who said the most we could expect to get now would be £87 - tops. So we need to save £10k really just to get out, then another £20kish for a deposit for the next place. That will take us a very very long time.

We can't start a family before we move, the house is simply too small. It's one bedroom and has one open plan living area - just wouldn't be fair on the child and would be nightmarish for us. We're squashed enough as it is.

Thanks for all the advice, in a way it's good to know we're already doing the right thing, but on the other hand it's a shame no one could say "Oh, you need to do xyz and it'll solve everything!"