Borrow More or aim to be Mortgage Free?

memecoughlin

This question is keeping me awake at night. I wondered if anybody else is or has been in a similar position? We have sold our house and plan to move to another county as our two up two down is no longer big enough for my two growing children (aged 6 and 4). For the past 10 years, we have battled to pay down our existing mortgage, injecting any excess cash when available. We now only have £10K left to pay off. We are now looking for house to move into and whilst there are some bargain 3 bedroom houses to be had they are in serious need of refurbishment, but could be lived in temporarily until we raised the extra cash a little further down the line. The other option is to borrow another £100K to get something that has already been refurbished. It's horrible being so near to being mortgage free, only for the loan to go right back up again. What have others done?

MallyGirl

I opted for the 'finished' house this time after doing up the previous one and then paying off the mortgage. I had a 4 yr old at the time and couldn't face any more work. Then we still ended up replacing the bathrooms and 8 years on have just finished a significant extension. Next move will be a downsize though so this house needed to be the one to build up the pot all we could.

Mrs_Soup

We were mortgage free for about 18 months and then took out a new mortgage of 135K to move to a bigger house when we were expecting a second child. Now hoping to get back to mortgage free in about 7 years by overpaying where possible.
I think if I could get the size house I needed that was livable and required no mortgage I would probably go for that and then use the money you spend on a mortgage to start doing it up. Like you I have young children and I would be looking at schools to make sure whatever I bought was in an area with a school I would be happy for my children to attend.

memecoughlin

Thank you for your replies. Mrs Soup, do you regret taking on £135K? (This is the same amount that we would be looking to lend). We are balancing on a fine line between going for a house that we can afford or a house that we love. Head over heart or heart over head? Both would need our sweat and tears, one in the form of hard labour to refurbish (as Mallygirl knows) and the other to service the £1K a month mortgage for another 15 years (over 7 years would cripple us). However building up the pot, as Mallygirl says, is another way of looking at it...