Having doubts after offer accepted

danlightbulb

Doozergirl said:

Let's go back to the beginning. 

What is your rent?  What do the payments equate to in mortgage lending?  With your £18k?  

Rent is £570 per month for a 1990 2 bed end terrace with seperate garage and small garden.

For this house I am borrowing £149400 at 2.08% over 29 years for payments of £572 per month and a 10% deposit of £16600.

orangecrush

Dan, looking at your list, the house you've offered on basically fits your criteria.  The ones on "not skint myself" and "vfm" are common sense, not criteria.  What more info do you need? 

This is kindly meant, but have you thought about looking into some counselling for your decision anxiety?  It seems to really play on your mind and it must be so stressful for you.  House buying is hard enough.  Your local Mind charity might have some counsellors available at reduced rate, definitely look into it.

danlightbulb

I have pulled out of the purchase today.

Dont know how I feel. Relieved at not having to immediately spend nearly £10k that would have wiped out my savings, relieved at not locking myself into months of refurb work, but sad that i had to let a fundamentally good house go.

I saw another at the weekend, 3 bed semi already done up reasonably well. A 'normal' house in terms of layout and typical of houses in this area. Went on market last week, mass block viewings on Saturday. Called agent today and they already have offers over asking. I dispair with this whole process i really do.

Davesnave

danlightbulb said:

I have pulled out of the purchase today.
I dispair with this whole process i really do.

I've not read it, but you've had 25 pages of advice here and some of it must be OK or good. It's also 25 more pages than I had!

Chill, in 6 months time houses are likely be cheaper. Whether you still have the wherewithal to buy them will matter most, of course, so look to shoring-up the foundations of your employment if that's possible.

danlightbulb

The advice was great and gave me alot to think about, I guess it just couldn't change my degree of reticence about the immediate costs that were necessary. I do genuinely think the house was priced well. But regardless of that, if I don't have the bandwidth to take it on then what can I do. Even a price renegotiation doesn't help a great deal because it gives me no extra cash in the bank to do the work with.

There is something to be said for waiting now, given how quickly things have moved in the past two weeks. Who knows what will happen. One would have thought everyone would be doing that, so why did another house shoot straight to offers above asking price in this climate. I just don't get it at all. All that may happen in 6 months is everyone sits on their cash and when this thing blows over everything goes for stupid money again due to pent up demand. 

orangecrush

Home ownership is a weird thing - in loads of countries nobody really cares that much; there's such an obsession here about "paying someone else's mortgage".  Maybe house ownership isn't right for you Dan... that's not a bad thing.  I know a few people who never want to own a house, and that's fair play to them.  They're happy.  Who cares if it's someone else's mortgage?  They're getting a great property to live in without any of the drama involved in buying and maintaining.  Why not search for a great rental? 

Davesnave

orangecrush said:

Home ownership is a weird thing - in loads of countries nobody really cares that much; there's such an obsession here about "paying someone else's mortgage". 

In this country, with the levels of 'security' common in renting here, it's maybe natural for people to desire a paid-for house by the time they retire or ease-down at work.

danlightbulb

@orangecrush I dont see how long term rental is sustainable. I rent a small 2 bed now, and its ok for my needs I suppose. I don't have to maintain it, I don't have to even really like it. Its quiet, safe and in reasonable condition. Its also reasonably priced - if I was to rent the same house now it would be £100 a month more, its only because I have been here 10 years and the landlord has not been greedy. If he chose to sell up I could lose all this in a couple of months.

The main problem though is how would I continue to afford to rent it once I retire and my income drops? Its the retirement issue that fundamentally means I'm under a bit of pressure now.

Finding a better rental is a non-starter, I would have to pay probably 25 to 50% more per month to get something very much better than this, which reduces my financial resilience even further.

My problem is not that I don't want a house, its that I have lingering uncertainties about my personal situation which makes it hard to know where to settle, and finding a good house amongst all the crap that isn't going to bankrupt me is also near impossible.

I know Ive said it before but all i really want is a normal, decent quality, affordable house with a reasonable amount of space. I should have enough money to get that in this area. I'm not after a 6 bed mansion, an acre of land with it or a £30k kitchen refit.

orangecrush

Davesnave said:

orangecrush said:

Home ownership is a weird thing - in loads of countries nobody really cares that much; there's such an obsession here about "paying someone else's mortgage". 

In this country, with the levels of 'security' common in renting here, it's maybe natural for people to desire a paid-for house by the time they retire or ease-down at work.

Completely agree.  I hated renting.  I was just trying to think pragmatically for Dan, given the struggles he's had thus far. 

danlightbulb said:

@orangecrush I dont see how long term rental is sustainable. I rent a small 2 bed now, and its ok for my needs I suppose. I don't have to maintain it, I don't have to even really like it. Its quiet, safe and in reasonable condition. Its also reasonably priced - if I was to rent the same house now it would be £100 a month more, its only because I have been here 10 years and the landlord has not been greedy. If he chose to sell up I could lose all this in a couple of months.

The main problem though is how would I continue to afford to rent it once I retire and my income drops? Its the retirement issue that fundamentally means I'm under a bit of pressure now.

Finding a better rental is a non-starter, I would have to pay probably 25 to 50% more per month to get something very much better than this, which reduces my financial resilience even further.

My problem is not that I don't want a house, its that I have lingering uncertainties about my personal situation which makes it hard to know where to settle, and finding a good house amongst all the crap that isn't going to bankrupt me is also near impossible.

I know Ive said it before but all i really want is a normal, decent quality, affordable house with a reasonable amount of space. I should have enough money to get that in this area. I'm not after a 6 bed mansion, an acre of land with it or a £30k kitchen refit.

There's the thing.  Long term rental doesn't seem sustainable to you, but neither does buying. 

I mentioned above looking for counselling - I think if you could maybe work on your self-esteem and decision anxiety, you may find it easier to reconcile the differences between what you expect the world to be like (the "should" part you mentioned) and what it actually is like.  Wish you lots of luck, it is a mean world, especially for people who aren't sure of themselves.

danlightbulb

@orangecrush i don't know if you know this area at all but if you have 20 minutes spare at some point have a look within a mile of DY4 and see what you'd buy if all you wanted was a normal 3 bed house with a driveway and garden. I pay £570 in rent right now which equates to a mortgage of £150k and I have £20k deposit so that means I can buy upto £170k ish.

I don't think my problem is only me. I know what the world is like, I don't like it much, and I don't like playing into it at the expense of my financial security, but I do know.

@Doozergirl said I was trying to get one over on the market. I can see what she meant but to me all I am trying to do is make a sensible house purchase that will meet my needs for the next X number of years, possibly all the way into retirement but I won't say that because who knows what will happen in 30 years time. So whilst I am not planning to sell it, I may need to sell it, hence the ability to resell it is a small factor. I don't see how there is anything unusual about this logic.

Fundamentally the problem is a lack of choice. So what am I meant to do, buy something I don't like? Buy something that is stretching me too far either financially or in refurbishment time (in this case the bungalow was both of those things). Wait and be priced out even more?