How long should you plan to own a house if you buy it?

I bought my first home over 30 years ago.
My plan was to be mortgage free as soon as possible and I have never moved.

First home (London): I stayed there for almost 13 years.

Moved into my new house (Kent) about 10 months ago and it was so stressful that I am hoping I can stay here until I need to be wheeled into a care home...

We bought our first house knowing we would only be there for the 5 year mortgage, moved at the end and are now in a house that we plan on staying in.

3 years for a 250k flat yes

3 years for a 1.5m house ... no

Stamp duty is a real shag

Nobody can predict the future !
Each person will have their individual circumstances & finances

I have moved 3 times, in the last 10 years

The most recent 2 below

I was made redundant, so I relocated for a new job

After Covid, I moved closer to family & friends

If I move again, it will be to downsize again

Plans don't always work. We brought starter home (as we viewed it) to be in for 2/3 years then housing market crashed, negative equity, unemployment and years later we are still here

All options and more are valid

If you buy a house that needs a lot of work, and do most of it yourself then selling in 3 years would probably make you money that you could invest in a longer term home

If your house is a home then why would you ever want to move

First starter house - 5 years
Second - 2 years (divorce)
Third - 4 years
Fourth - 6 years
Fifth - 1 year (hated living there)
Sixth - 14 years and no plans to leave

You just need to consider the cost of selling that one added to the cost of the stamp duty on the next. You need to have covered that in the equity of your first house to make it financially viable. Unless you have money to burn.

For me it depends on the value of the property and therefore stamp duty.

We paid £30k stamp duty... and we'd expect to pay similar stamp duty on our next house. So I'd like this house to appreciate by £60k to cover that difference before we sell.

When we were actually house hunting (last year) our litmus test was "would we be happy living here in 5 years?".

We are about to move and it is going to cost us £30k with stamp duty, estate agency and solicitors fees, moving van which is a lot of money so i think the main thing to factor in is if you move in a year can you afford to lose that much money as you probably aren't going to make it on value increase over that time

I think the area just grew in price super quickly in the early 2000s and couldn’t be sustained. I’m in the north east and I know a lot of people bought at the peak and prices only really recovered when they started going up around 2020/21.

Because people bought with a small deposit they had negative equity and when their fixed rates ended they got stuck on relatively crappy standard variable rates.

I don’t think the south took as long to recover and I’m not sure if it was even as badly impacted to start with. I’m just relieved I listened to my dad’s advice and didn’t stretch myself to buy one of the bigger flats

I would say five yrs is a good benchmark. If you don't have to spend much on repairs and the market goes up it could be less, but I think that's a good # to plan for. Depends how much you'd have to spend on rent, too.

I generally think 5 years, although it's an arbitrary figure based on how much I hate the hassle of moving. Finance wise, it very much depends on the circumstances.

How did that happen? This was my exact situation; I bought my first place in 2006 and came off the fixed rate mortgage after three years onto a tracker, during which time interest rates had plummeted to somewhere below the centre of the earth. My monthly repayment dropped by about a third and didn't move between then and when I sold it for £30k more ten years later. Buying in 2006 could hardly have worked out better.

We move often, in the 10 years I’ve been married we have had 2 rentals and 3 purchases (2 sales).

There is no should about any of it. The last one we sold was because we were offered a fuckton more than we paid for it at the property peak post Covid. No regrets there, yes we spent a fair whack in doing so but we still made a lot of profit and were able to buy in a previously out of reach location.

The first house we bought together we told the vendors it would be a forever home, but we sold it inside 3 years. Shit happens.

I’m not moving again however. This one is a keeper.

First flat we stayed for 10 years. The house after that (that we live in now) planning to stay for 18+ years (till dcs finish secondary education). Stamp duty and selling costs get crazy expensive as we're in London, and moving costs are high too. But mainly it's because we hate the faff of moving. Packing boxes, decluttering, viewings, negotiations, waiting on searches. Plus I like the idea of dcs building memories in one home. We will have to move when we get older, because it has too many stairs, otherwise I'd stay here until we die.

Take the amount of stamp duty you paid on purchase and divide it by the number of months you’ve lived there. The longer you live there the less the monthly stamp duty is. This figure usually concentrates the mind.

I have only bought one house. I’m still in it nearly 25 years later and have no intention of ever moving.

It was bought to live in, not as an investment.

Your call

me;
house no 1 8 years
house number 2. 4 years
house number 3. 14 years
house number 4. 8 years ….still here
probably move again in next 3 years

1st house: 2 years
2nd house: 4 years
3rd house (self build): 15 years so far...Will probably keep for another 5 years before downsizing.

I would hate to be wedded to a building or location forever....which probably means I just haven't found my forever place yet.

In answer to your OP, I don't think there is a minimum time so long as you do your best not to lose money. Circumstances and needs change and you should be able to adjust with it (in an ideal world)

Depends on the situation. I've lived in my house 2/3 years now and I'm itching to move. But our house was always a stepping stone and never a forever home.

We stayed in the first house we bought for 17 years and sold it for just £10k more than we bought it. Prices dropped in the financial crisis in 2008 and didn't increase again until the pandemic (which was after we'd sold). Never assume you'll make money on a house, only buy if you think you'll live in it long enough for it to be cheaper than renting over the time you are there.

I totally get it. I was also a commitmentphobe and the thought of owning a house made me feel sick. It’s actually super easy because
a) you won’t have a tonne of stuff
b) you don’t NEED it to work and have recent experience renting

I bought my first ‘starter’ house 10 years ago and have just stayed because it has worked for me. Transport got better. Area got a bit gentrified. You don’t know what will happen even after a few years.

You’ll be fine. Do it!

I still sometimes wander round and just giggle that it’s actually mine (well technically mainly the bank’s, but a little bit mine.)

The hardest thing after 20 years of renting magnolia and white was there was so many colour choices to paint the rooms.