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Advice on potential purchase

Sorry for the long post, I’m struggling with this decision so I added a bunch of details.

Our current house payment is 11% of our monthly income but it’s getting too small for us (3 bedroom, 1 bath for a family of 4 with hobbies that require a lot of indoor space). We have been looking at adding on (we have a double lot with a big back yard) but the estimate came in pretty high so we’re considering moving. The local market is crazy here (houses pending within 24 hours). I’m in a growing town 30-45 minutes away from a rapidly growing city center. We’ve been keeping an eye on the local houses for a few years, just in case, and we’ve never seen anything we like (not a fan of new construction but don’t want multiple story living areas, prefer certain areas).

But... there’s this house I absolutely love. It’s only a 5 minute walk from my house so I’ve walked by it so many times, I’ve had the old realtor.com listing bookmarked on my phone for years. It’s not on the market but the lady is willing to sell to us (old and in declining health). It’s basically my dream house and shouldn’t require any updating even though it’s old.

The problem is I have a hard time imagining having a house payment at 22% of our income and the owner is unwilling to budge on price, and while she’s probably over valuing a bit, I’m sure the house will sell at her asking price even if it takes a few weeks.

Both of our jobs are secure and we can ‘afford’ it... Is that a crazy amount? It’s more than we’ve ever paid (it would be our fourth house). I’d definitely need to buy furniture as it’s quite a bit bigger. We put roughly 15% of our income into various methods of savings and childcare and auto payments take another 22% combined (childcare costs will exist for at least a few more years). Insurance and food are our only other ‘big’ expenses as our student loans are almost paid off.

Would you pay 22% of your income for your dream house? For your ‘forever’ house? Would you go over your intended budget (but still within what you can afford) for your dream house? Is it stupid and I should just keep the cost down and settle? We’ve never had to struggle with a budget - does anyone have experience going from an attitude of ‘well, I’ve spent more on dumber stuff...’ to a strict budget?

submitted by /u/katiopeia
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/i1k8qh/advice_on_potential_purchase/
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