Wow, what an interesting thread. Its been really interesting reading all the posts here.
I dont know anything about buying a house. My parents were always in a council house, and my mum still lives in the council house where she raised me and my siblings.
My partner and I, have a mortgage. Our little house is an ex council house on a small estate that was council but i think its all mortgaged houses now.
I have always always always wanted to live in a new build! But my partner who is an electrician said no because he has worked on enough of them to know how they are thrown together and normally have loads of issues a year down the line. But i cant lie, i love New Builds. I dont know if its because im shallow and dont know about houses, or what. But at the time, in my head i thought if we got a new build then we really would have 'made it'. I hope that makes sense, i know i probably come across as a right vain witch here! But i had nothing growing up, i am the first person in my family to go to uni and get a mortgage and have a 'professional' career, so it was probably more of a status thing caused by me not knowing anything about houses. I am very proud of our house though, i mean its nothing special- just your average 3 bedroom, semi detached house. But it needed loads of work doing to it, luckily my partner is an electrician and just generally very good with everything so between him, his plumber friends and his builder friends, we were able to do it up to a really high standard. But i think this is our forever home, im almost 35 and he is 46. We have a friend who has moved houses 3 times during the past 10 years and now lives in a huge beautiful house, but the mortgage is sky high. He is the same age as my partner and i know he is absolutely skint now and he said he wishes he was still in the first house he got.