Best way to buy your dream house?

So_many_questions

Myself and my partner are looking to buy a property in the UK again but unsure of how big a mortgage to take on. As with a lot of people we would like the dream property but right now it is roughly 50k above our budget (budget of 350k). Would it be best to buy something slightly smaller but still very nice or buy, eg a small terraced property for 160k with a 50k deposit and clear the mortgage quickly. Could it result in us having the dream house in a quicker timeframe?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

sal_III

At the current mortgage rates, it makes little difference whether you are going to clear the mortgage quick or not. The only way to save more money faster is to increase your income or reduce your expenditure.

Buy a property you will be happy living in. Don't buy a heap, just to take smallest possible mortgage, If you can only afford 300k property - buy a 300k property and keep saving for the £350k "dream" home.

The dream home is a chimera, you are likely to always want a bit more and your needs are likely to change through life - growing family, then kids leaving the nest etc.

quantumlobster

I faffed about and was cautious, and regretted it. I'm now in my perfect house but could have been in it ten years earlier if I had just been a bit bolder.

So if your household has an secure income with a reasonable upward trajectory, I would suggest you do everything necessary to get you into the house you want as soon as possible. Other jobs, sell stuff, different lender, flutter your eyelashes at that wealthy aunt, whatever.

Other people will doubtless take a more conservative view, and at the end of the day it's all about your own appetite for risk and your specific answer to the ultimate question, which is: "what's the worst that could happen if it all goes pete tong?"

Owain_Moneysaver

You can do it if you can add value to a property for more than it costs and faster than the price for your dream home is rising.

I.e. buy a heap (worst house in the best street you can afford), do it up, sell at a profit. Buy a heap, do it up, sell at a profit. To get the profit you will at least have to project manage it yourself, and preferably do as much work as you can yourself.

If you can buy at £300k and add 10% value (after costs and fees), you only need to do that twice to have £60k spare cash.

It will be a lot harder (if not impossible) to add £30k value to a £160k terrace.

The other option is to buy a possibly-ideal home now, then extend and convert it into your dream home when you can afford to.

Gwendo40

quantumlobster wrote: »

I faffed about and was cautious, and regretted it. I'm now in my perfect house but could have been in it ten years earlier if I had just been a bit bolder.
"

It's only because the government and Bank of England have embarked in the last 10 years on a policy of ''protect homeowners and prop up/inflate house prices at ALL costs'' that your cautiousness didn't really pay off, whilst reckless and irresponsible over leveraged ''bold'' borrowers (and their equally irresponsible lenders) have been rewarded.

If the property market had been allowed to operate naturally as the ''free market'' that it's rather laughably supposed to be, then things could have been very different.

datlex

Define dream home. What is for you a dream location, would not necessarily be for others.

Hoploz

My view is its best to buy the best house you can, stretch as far as you can afford (obvs not more than you can afford) as in te long term prices tend to go up, so your dream home will cost more if you wait. If you can afford it now, it's likely to cost less than in 5 or 10 years time. (Look back at sold prices to check out the sort of numbers in your area houses sold for 5 or 10 years ago.)

getmore4less

Moving costs a lot of money so you need to consider other factors that influence the time scales.

If you expect incomes to rise in the shorter term to accommodate the bigger mortgage then that will be quicker than if you can only achieve it through savings.

There may be other strategies that could work,


like you can't afford the dream home now but there are properties at that value or more you can afford with HTB(20% interest free).

Then at some point a sideways move gets you into the dream home.

or

get a cheaper but bigger house and take on lodgers to build up a pot for the dream home.