To buy or not to buy

This is a tricky one. Last year (2014) both of wife's favourite grandparents passed away. Their house is up for sale now. This is the house that wife had many childhood birthday parties in, and has many other childhood memories in. But at the same time we're both aware of the old 'you can never go back' idea.

Its on the market at about the price our current house is worth, but we know that if we put in a bid we'd get 'family rates'. The house is smaller than ours, with less garden space, but in a more popular area. I've made no secret of the fact that I'd like to go for it. Wife is in two minds, and its important to me that she is happy. On one hand, she wants it, but on the other, she feels it would be weird. I can understand that

It may well turn out that I can't raise the finances to move right now, but financial matters aside, any thoughts?

 

Take out the emotion , and look at it just as house nothing else.

And list the good the bad and the ugly and then compare to what you have now , and what the benefits it would be.

And see how your wife feels then and not forgetting you , but I know with houses if your heart not set on it you wont be in it very long after you move in .

Spruce

 

We were in the same position a couple of years ago, when my parents died i sold the house and cleared our mortgage.
Last year it came on the market i was really tempted to buy it, we went and looked at it, i was going to buy it and rent it out.
We didnt in the end has when i went round i got upset and angry has it was a right tip and a mess, as it wasnt how i rememdered it.

 

I agree with Spruce, take out the emotional attachment and ask yourself if you would buy this house under normal circumstances. If you are considering moving anyway I'd be inclined to compare the house to other property on the market and look at different areas that would suit you. To my mind a house has to feel right as soon as you walk into it, if it doesn't then you won't be comfortable there in the future.

 

Would buying it with other family members as a rental investment be an option? Family rates based on a realistic market value and if large enough may negate the need for a deposit.

 

possibly if you take a tonne of pictures of the house in order to keep the memories intact, even if you sell the house you will have your memories.

 

Thanks all. I've decided to drop the idea. The answer came to me in a dream. In the dream, I had just moved to a different house. It had virtually no garden, but it had excellent views over the coast to one side and hills to the other. But there was nowhere safe for the kids to play out. In my dream I wanted my old (current) house back, and somehow I could have it. There were three roads I could take. One road creeped me out because it was the street I lived on as a kid, and the people that lived on it were the people that lived on it when I was a kid. That's creepy because almost all of the original people have moved away, and/or grown up, grown old or died. The second road was a road near to where I grew up. I didn't like that way because it was too busy and dangerous. Symbolically it probably represented the road at the end of my street when I was little, that was strictly off limits when playing out on account of being busy.

So I chose the third road. A nice scenic route between two rock faces. But as I set off down it I realised that the rock faces were not natural rock formations at all, but giant gravestones. Its easy to work out what that aspect of my dream represented.

So I concluded that if we went ahead with it, the wife's grandparents' house would never really feel like ours. It would always feel like we'd jumped into 'dead man's boots', and I'd always regret giving up something that felt like mine in order to switch to something that felt like I'd taken it from dead relatives. And as that part of town is closer to where I grew up than where I am now, perhaps my judgement was clouded by some desire to go back to something that no longer exists.

Of course none of this takes wife's feelings into account, but she doesn't seem that bothered, and in any case I'll do most things for the missus but I wont condemn myself to a lifetime of not being entirely happy.

 

well people say (sleep on it)

 

What did you do with them poppies you grew last year Clueless ?

 

I've been nursing a number of minor injuries lately. Rosemary is good for such things. A side effect of rosemary oil fumes is you get the most crazy dreams.

 

However it came about, I think you've made a wise decision Clueless.

 

I was always told by my mother Never to eat cheese for supper...

 

Very sound advice. It is very difficult to digest, requiring a significant increases in stomach acid to break it down. Most people sleep laying down. Lots of stomach acid while laying down can cause acid reflux, heartburn, and esophagitis.