Do you get less for your money, the more expensive the house?

[surreygirl1987]

Not sure if my title makes complete sense so I'll try to explain.

We are looking to buy a house. Our budget is £630k. We have found loads of nice ones for around £500k that would be do-able, with nice gardens, but we just want a little more space, an extra room, etc. But the ones for £600k ish are only marginally better than the ones for £500k! They do tend to have more space (maybe an extra 200-300 sq ft?) but inevitably don't have as big as a garden, and/or have rubbish parking. I feel like it's weird. I look at the £500k house and think, it's nice, but I wish it were an extra £100k and just a little bigger. But there is nothing on the market that seems like that; an extra £100k doesn't seem to get you much more. Is this just a sign of the times, or do you always tend to get less for your money as the price increases, or am I just being unrealistic about what I should get for an extra £100k? Genuinely curious. We don't really want to buy one of the 'good enough' £500k homes if we can get something nicer at the higher end of our budget (it will make very little difference to monthly repayments and this is supposed to be our forever home - or at least for the next 10-20 years, until the kids leave school.. plus surely better long term financial investment)... but I can't help thinking that there really isn't all that much difference between the houses advertised for £500k and the houses advertised for £600k right now!

Hope that made sense to someone!

[Livingintheclouds]

200-300sq ft is an extra bedroom, and that would command a premium. If it's the same layout just slightly bigger rooms then I don't see the justification.

[Persipan]

Would the 500k ones be extendable to get what you want internally?

[surreygirl1987]

@Livingintheclouds yes, I agree. Sometimes it is an extra bedroom, sometimes it is an extra bedroom through a converted garage, other times it might be a conservatory/utility room etc, and other times it's just simply slightly larger rooms.
More often than not it is thr same number of bedrooms but the typically smaller ones are less small.

[surreygirl1987]

@perispan some of them might be, especially as they often seem to have good gardens. However, we wouldn't be able to do that for many years. Our issue is that we may as well put all our money into the house as an extra £100k makes very little difference to both our deposit and mortgage. We have two kids in nursery at the moment so won't be able to build up spare cash until they are in school. We would therefore MUCH rather buy to the top of our budget but there doesn't seem to be anything decent available... whereas there are properties for around £500k that I'd almost definitely want if that was top of our budget.

[Findahouse21]

It will depend on area but around here the mid range houses are about 500-630ish, once you go above 630 it seems to step up another notch so you may need to push up just over the 600 and see what is available

[Bathshebahardy]

200 to 300 sq ft is quite a lot. It makes a difference between a fairly small, cramped house to a reasonable size house. £500 to £600 could be the difference between terrace and semi or semi and detached. It could be nice area or not so nice area. It could be main road or quiet area. Maybe you should wait until you see what you want on the market.

[Londonmummy66]

House prices often go in "steps" so there might well be a lot at 500K and then not much above that until you get to say 680K. It might be that the property you want just doesn't exist in your search area or not at your budget.

[surreygirl1987]

Thanks for your comments. I've just looked at SSTC properties again and can see that there were loads of great properties on for the sort or price we're after not massively long ago. So I'm wondering if it's simply that there's a shortage of properties in our specific price bracket at the moment which is causing people to chance a higher price. I agree it's worth waiting a while to see. If nothing comes up I suppose we will just have to lower our expectations- we don't have any more budget! Thanks for your help.

[LittleOverWhelmed]

I do think the higher up the property ladder you go - assuming you stay within an area - the bigger the step to something worth moving for.

I couldn’t see us moving unless we either needed to move area or got a substantial inheritance (like 400/500k). Not expecting either! Expect we will stay here until we eventually downsize.

[BackforGood]

I was going to say the same as LondonMummy - house prices have always gone in "bands" is you like, and when you get to the top of that band, there is little until you've made a BIG jump. then there are plenty in one band and then nothing again.
Sometimes it is linked to Stamp duty bands, but sometimes it just seems to be a quirk. House prices never seem to be evenly spread on a straight line.

[surreygirl1987]

Yea I think you're right. We are relocating, otherwise I'd not dream of moving in this crazy market! We are going from a very expensive pocket to a cheaper (though still expensive!) area and are able to upsize so I thought we'd be able to get something really nice but it seems we are limited! Oh well... who knows what will come up next week!

[Cocoaone]

I've found in our area that there were loads of decent 4 bed detached houses during 2020 that sold for £500-550k.

Now, the only ones left are either expensive and/or have weird things - layout, location etc. The new ones coming on the market are in worse condition that the nice £500-550 ones, but are put on for £600-680k. It's madness.

[surreygirl1987]

Yes absolutely this! I wish so much that we were buying last year but we didn't know we were relocating until a few months ago. Oh well can't turn back time!