The stresses of buying a first house....

Ah what a pain. Best you can do really is offer what you can and then walk away. If it's meant to be they'll come after you, if not, then you can't afford more anyway so this house isn't the one for you.

We lost a flat we really liked when we were searching for our first home (put in an offer close to asking price and were negotiating, when all of a sudden another buyer offered asking price and they accepted without coming back to us), turned out to be a major blessing as we're now very happy in a much bigger, better flat.

What a shame, sure you'll find the perfect house for you at the right price

Its annoying because I've worked out we can just about afford it if we go up to £225,000 (if he'd accept that it is) but its difficult to decide whether to do that or just keep looking (we've looked at 9 so far and have like 2, 1 we liked but it sold the same day we went for a 2nd viewing and now this one). We could picture us living in this one so it just felt right, and knowing we could afford it if we cut back on a few luxuries is making it even more frustrating! Thanks for listening all x

Awww... you poor thing. I have some idea as to what you're going through. When we were searching for a new home earlier this year, we had one like this. It was way out of our price league and, if we really pushed it, we could have managed but to be honest, it would have meant we'd have been on the breadline with no wriggle room financially for ages! It was a bit soul destroying to leave it behind but I'm glad we continued looking and we got a really nice place, within our budget & we've just started renovations now & I couldn't be happier! Best of luck & I hope things work out for you!

I've bought and sold a few houses and all I'll say is - although it doesn't seem that way at the time - there's ALWAYS more options. Something that suits you just as much, but in a different way. I would say go for the house you want at the price you say you can manage, but if it doesn't come off, just keep looking. House shopping is fun

When we bought this house we looked at nearly 100 houses. My Ex was very particular about what he wanted and we ended up with this one and changing it to meet our needs IYSWIM?

Have you put an offer in? How longs it been on the market?

We're selling at the moment and its hard work! I do think if its meant to be it will happen!

Thanks for the replies all. If we did go for £225,000 and it was accepted then our mortgage would be £917 p/month (serves us right for only having a 10% deposit and for living in Surrey I guess....but we rent a little one bed flat now and pay £700 p/month so although its crazy money it doesn't seem that bad for the extra we'll be getting!). Atm we also both put £250 p/month straight into a savings account so really we can afford the extra money each month for the mortgage. If one of us lost our jobs we'd still be able to pay the mortgage, but money for everything else would be tight (but I'm hoping that wouldn't happen any time soon as we've both just been promoted, so we'd have time to have saved some more money if that ever did happen). Over £900 each month for a house just seems crazy, although i hate giving our landlord £700 every month for our tiny flat, its such empty money!

The other thing we have in our favour is my OH's parents own two houses outright, they are going to sell the second one when the market picks up again and give us half the money (and the other half to OH's brother), so although its not guaranteed exactly my parents in law have told me numerous times that they are planning to do this and have always said they bought that second house as an investment for their two boys. All things to consider I guess!

Thanks again for the replies x

Doesn't hurt to put an offer in! He can say no, but he might also say yes!

Dont forget all the extra costs of running a house, higher insurances, higher bills etc. don't stretch yourselves too much now, if the interest rates go up (which they will) you will need to increase your mortgage repayments. You will still need savings, what if your roof leaks or your boiler packs up?

Good Luck!

Jeez this is nerve wracking, offer of £220,000 rejected, just gone up to £222,000. Absolute max we can do comfortably is £225,000! x

Eeek, I hope he agrees to 222. If not, then I hope you get it for 225. House buying is stressful, no two ways about it. Getting an offer accepted isn't even the start of the stress!

Mrs Imp that is what worries me, if I feel this anxious now I don't even know how I'll feel when an offer is one day accepted and the ball starts rolling, eeeek!! We are just so fed up of throwing £700 a month away each month on rent.

Fingers crossed for you!

Fingers crossed! It is all stressful, as Mrs_Imp says getting the offer accepted isn't even the start of the stress.

Best of luck - fingers crossed for you also!

Ooh, I hope you get it!

Please don't worry about the stress. a) it's all worth it, and b) it's what I think of as 'positive stress'. You're fighting for something you want rather than against something you don't want to happen. It makes even the worst situations tolerable.

I had the house move from hell earlier this year, really was nasty, and we were at risk of losing our buyer (and wouldn't be possible to get another for a very long time as there were other legal wranglings attached) and at risk of losing the one we were buying (and due to losing mortgage offers (my ex's fault) we had nowhere to turn to to borrow money if this one didn't go through), plus a period of homelessness in between. Additional costs of £2.5k. It was horrible. But we laugh about it now, because it was all worth it and we were in it together! You're doing the right thing in buying now, if recent house market reports are to be believed. Good luck!!

Thanks for the positivity KentishGal, that's just what I needed as most people are a bit doom and gloom about it all!

I'll keep you all posted!

Just to keep you updated, we put an offer in last night for £225,000 and told the estate agent its as far as we can possibly go and we still haven't found out. It wont be until tomorrow now, apparently they want full asking price but are seriously considering it. *fingers crossed*

How annoying that you won't find out until tomorrow. I suppose at least it shows they're thinking about it.

Best of luck, I hope you get it.

Update - the sellers of that house we wanted decided they couldnt afford to move so took their house off the market. BUT about a week after that a house that we had originally really liked (but sold before we put an offer in) came back on the market as the buyers chain had fallen through, as the seller didnt want his chain to fall through he reduced the price of the house and we put in an offer the same day it went back on the market. OFFER ACCEPTED! Now to get the ball rolling....

What's for you won't go by you...so true!

We bought our first place this year so I understand your pain. Hope you have a quick moving solicitor!

We now have the offer accepted and a solicitor BUT we are struggling to get a mortgage (we had 1 in principle with HSBC but they rejected us a few hours after submitting the application, I cant see a credit check on my Experian report so I'm not sure if we even got that far with them and what the rejection was based on - they wouldnt tell me). I have a mortgage appointment with Santander tomorrow (I've had 2 bank accounts with them since I was little, and have never had to use my overdraft) but I've read on forums that they have ridiculous affordability checks so I'm not holding out much hope with them either. Oh the joys! ?

If Santander don't work out, it's definitely worth trying a broker (I can reccommend https://www.landc.co.uk/ - they were very honest with us when we found a mortgage using Martin Lewis' 'Broker Plus' theory that was better than what they could find for us, and they didn't try to persuade us to go with them anyway).

I've struggled with this stuff for yours thanks to my bloody ex.

My advice (which is cautious, I admit) would be to stop approaching mainstream lenders, to prevent increasing the number of checks. Go through your credit check with a fine-toothed comb. Look for anything late, anything over-limit. Anything not perfect. Ignore the credit score they give you, mine's at 999 yet I was turned down.

Find an IFA who has access to more deals than you would have. Show him/her the full details of your credit report and explain anything at all you think might go against you in any way. An independent can get borrowings at just as competitive a rate but broker-only deals. I've dealt with Birmingham Midshires, Mortgage Express, Yorkshire and GE Capital in this way when no 'normal' bank would touch me.

I was charged £200 for my last mortgage by the IFA, most of his earnings came from the provider. It was well worth it for us to get a mortgage and have him have the conversations with the providers. Also, we got told each time why we were turned down, which sometimes enabled us to offer additional info or supporting documents, I have never ever had that opportunity with a high street lender.

It can be so stressful! We lost our mortgage offer 4 weeks in, last time. Had to quickly find an alternative without the seller writing us off and putting the house back on the market and it was no fun! If I can help at all feel free to message me. Hopefully it'll all go smoothly from here for you!

Go to a broker! We're in the process of moving and we just used a broker, no problem! X

Our broker was awesome, and we didn't have to give him a penny!*

His advice was brilliant, he was always on the end of an email to answer my often stupid questions, and got our offers pushed through quickly due to his good relationships with the lenders.

We waited 5 months for our buyer #2 to get his mortgage sorted... his broker was awful!

*I am well aware that by him receiving commission from certain lenders could skew his advice but we were more than happy with what he found for us.

I'm in with the broker advice, makes things so much easier and opens up alternative doors that you didn't even know about to get you absolutely the best rate.

Buying houses is v stressful but without a doubt buying our 2nd house is miles more stressful than buying our 1st house!!

I've used London & Country twice now and can recommend them too. I'm pretty sure that they don't charge anything and they are whole of market so I will use them next time too.