Got married last year and the wife moved into my (now our) one bedroom flat*. It's nowhere big enough for the two of us (or three/four of us in the future)... so we're thinking of buying a house. We've got a fair sized deposit saved up and we could afford a 3/4 bedroom family home in a nice area (and next to good mtbing). My current thoughts are:
Pros
*Prices are probably bumping along at the bottom of the cycle so now is a good time to buy if we're happy to stay put for a few years
*Cheeky offers will probably be at least considered
*Decided on affordability based on me taking a 40% pay cut (at some point I intend on leaving the overpaid industry i'm currently in so don't want to be stuck with a massive mortgage we can't afford)
*We can get 3.6% mortgage rate with our LTV which seems quite good
Negatives
*Could be a second housing crash precipitated by euro zone crash
*Hard to work out what properties are actually worth as so few are selling
What does the collective mind of STW think – good or bad time to buy?
*Not planning on selling the flat at the moment. I brought it in 2008 (epic fail) so it makes more sense to rent it out (which would more than cover a repayment mortgage) rather than crystallise our losses. My affordability calcs assume the worst case (i.e. I can't rent it out at all for some reason)

