To accept we will never move home due to the prices

Has anyone else ‘accepted their lot’ in terms of moving and tried to come to terms with the fact it’s just not affordable?

Yes. When I most needed to move I was in the middle of a hideous divorce.
Then it became an impossibility. Then the older son moved out so it's only an issue when he comes to visit. The youngest son is 16 so only has a few more years at home.

We could easily have bought a bigger house when we first bought, but we didn't want to max out on our mortgage and instead had £ for some amazing travelling. I'm glad I have those memories of when my marriage was happy.

Plenty of people muddle along, accept their lot and try and think of the positive things.

I think this is a sensible and realistic approach to take. CV osts are always higher with nursery aged DC. Cost then reduces through the school years but spike up again if DC go to university and if you have a 2 year gap in DC ages you get 2 at Uni and it's very tough to manage that.

@LioKa
It puzzles me why people think they need to move up the ladder.
I admit a love a bit of property porn and whenever I go on holiday devote an hour or so to looking at houses I couldn't possibly afford in places I would never move to.
My first house was a 2 up 2 down. My second is a three bedroom terrace. I've been here for a little over 30 years. I'm 60 and paid my mortgage off 4 years ago. I won't be moving again.
When I bought this house I dont know if I thought I'd be here forever, but I did think very carefully about where and what I bought, within the limits of what I could afford.
At 60 and looking at retirement it's interesting that what I need now is similar to what I wanted then. Walking distance to town, railway station, on main bus routes, local shops, cinema, theatre, GPs etc.
I've brought up my son here and I now foster.
I suppose there were opportunities to move in the past but that would have meant moving further away from local facilities, an amazing park, my son couldnt have cycled to school or got a Saturday job. And yes we like our holidays!
I think what Im saying is that overall our lifestyle has been better for staying put, not extending myself financially.
Now in sort of retirement Im not looking at a drastic change of lifestyle.

So it's about deciding what your priorities really are, finding contentment in those choices and not just going for the next thing

I think th additional cost associated with moving, stamp duty and removal cost along with solicitors fees make moving very difficult. Hopefully you can overpay on your mortgage to chop away at it and hope a new government lowers stamp duty.

I think most people have had the idea of ‘a housing ladder’. You can buy a bigger house as you build equity. It is how it was for their parents etc.

But it’s just not the same now - because of the very high cost of housing, buying so much later, and prices not growing at the same rate.

Moving areas ‘many times’ isn’t appealing when each transaction costs tens of thousands (or more) - and people would generally assume their fortunes would improve as they earned more, rather than have to move to a cheaper area.

The housing market for today’s young people is different to the housing market when you were their age.

We are trapped in our starter home too and don’t think we will ever be able to move. The difference in price between our house and the next step up home is huge so we will never move up the ladder. It’s hard because the house we live in is very impractical for our needs as we get older, but terraced houses like ours just don’t sell in our town anymore unless you practically give them away. So the gulf between our home value and the next step up gets even greater.

We can’t even side step the ladder because we would end up with exactly the same, or a very slightly bigger house in a very bad area of town.

Life is not fair! I’ve moved areas many times because of this very scenario.

@Groundhogday2025 my toddlers loved eating out and still do now they are adults 😂.

It’s no help to you now but we pushed ourselves that little bit more with our first purchase knowing we were going to start a family and also expecting (and not been disproved yet) that house price increases would continue to outstrip our pay rises. They’ve slumped a little now but now the children have started to arrive, my hours have dropped, and the cost of everything else has increased, so we are glad we did buy the family 3 bed rather than the starter 2 bed when we had the chance.
But no, we aren’t on the breadline by any means but there’s no money for holidays abroad and trips to nice restaurants etc. (or the opportunity with a toddler anyway…) but we also figure if we stay long term eventually childcare costs will go down, my hours will go back up and the mortgage is very slowing chipping away. We will have our chance for the nice things again at some point (I hope!)

I’m not sure this is fair.

Depending on where you live, and how much equity you have, the cost of the ‘next house’ can be a lot. I mean, 50% more.

Add to that higher interest rates and suddenly it all becomes unrealistic.

I feel the opposite, new builds are becoming smaller and smaller. I’ve seen new houses near me on the market for £700/800 k that have 2nd and 3rd bedrooms that barely measure into double figures. If I’m spending that sort of money I’d want a bedroom bigger than 12’x9’6” ! And as for the rediculous cost of stamp duty, makes moving totally unaffordable for many.

Not everyone can buy everything they want.

A lot of people who are relatively well off still want more stuff but can't afford it.

The best solution to affording more is to up your wages rather than try to save money.

We were fortunate to move from an expensive area to a much cheaper area. We didn't do this for the house it was just a happy coincidence but for better commutes and a more rural lifestyle
Our mortgage went from £600 to £750 a month switching from a semi to a detached house. We still kept with the bottom of what we technically could afford. I was made redundant in February and found out I was pregnant the same day and am facing a 2 year career break and I'm so glad that we didn't push our budget as we can happily manage on one salary for this time frame with my redundancy money. I'd take less money stress over a bigger house.

We bought a 2 bed quasi semi that ad the large front bedroom divided. Had 1 child then. Next had a baby 16 months later twins so did a double extension made another 2 bedrooms albeit small rooms.paid off mortgage when children were babies. Now we have an empty nest the two room in the extension are knocked through to create a big master bedroom and we have all the space we need

We used to live in the SE and really, the only way to manage this was to move to a cheaper area. But that was possible for us both as we could move jobs, and we were young enough to take it on. Obviously that's not possible or even desirable for everyone.

You can pay self storage to store stuff like seasonal camping or bikes.
Kids can share in bunk beds.
Extending even a little will help with space.
You do not need a big house if your life style is to enjoy holidays etc

If you want it, go without holidays for a few years until your salaries grow a little.

Or look at a doer-upper. There is always a way.

Or accept 'your level'.

Your ‘a bit shit’ was perfect for this family. It’s not all about having the biggest something, the newest something, the shiniest something etc.

They both had modest incomes in professional jobs but were able to have great family holidays, pay for not so cheap hobbies, drive a reliable car etc. Now the kids have flown the nest they’re not rattling around in a huge house and are having a wonderful retirement.

Yes it’s difficult to accept that life has changed so much so fast. So many of us were born into one economy and social culture, inducted into a world where if you played by the rules and worked there would be a reward. Instead… well I’m a late gen Xer born into poverty and so with the life experience of a millennial. I’ve spent my whole life in the shadow of the baby boomers, working for them, and there will never now be any of the rewards I was promised. In some ways I’ve improved on my parents, thanks to education I have better food and thanks to various factors in combination I can grow a little. It’ll have to be enough. Financially I’m worse off, in a country that is collapsing around me, with women’s rights going backwards and men as worthless as they ever were. But I’ve done what I could with the hand I was dealt.

The worst bit is the lies and gaslighting, the shit about change positivity and change management, imposed by the boomer generation. They will go down in history as liars, effectively abusers on the whole.

Anyone else thinking of the collapse of Rome??!?

We are having this exact debacle now. I love my house (terraced cottage) we have been here 13 years, when we wanted one dog and zero children. Now we have one child and two big dogs 😂 and it really is too small. Gone round in circles having storage experts come in to give ideas, have looked at ground floor extensions but they cost a fortune too and won’t solve all the problems, we don’t have tons of clothes or toys and are always declutterring but we still don’t have enough room and moving makes sense. We can never have any family to stay which is really sad, and when DD is older and wants friends round I have no idea where they’ll play as it’s all one room downstairs, we have no hallway and it’s so hard with a kid and muddy dogs…I know it’s time to move but omg the jump up is eye watering. Good thing we love camping (hopefully we can get a house with a garage this time so we can actually store the tent etc properly 😂😂😂😂) as there will be no holidays for a while! At least the end of our nursery fees is on the horizon…

The only thing you have to accept is your mindset. That’s the only obstacle I can see. My parents are like you. No risk. No flexibility. Just stay with the status quo. As you’ve probably guessed I’ve rebelled against this mindset in my life! If you are happy that’s fine.

I don't think we'll ever buy...we are in our fifties!

We're in a similar boat. Mid 40s, both earn a decent wage for the area we live in. We're looking to move on from our first home but to actually move up the ladder we'd be more than doubling our borrowing, which in itself is much more expensive than it was when we bought this place 12 years ago.

Almost in a state of paralysis with it really. It feels like there should be something in between where we are and what we've seen, but there just isn't.

Appreciate it's very much a first world problem. I grew up in council houses on estates that weren't very nice and our place already feels a world away from that, but at the same time it feels like the hopes and aspirations we had of moving up the ladder are quite far away too.

We had a similar situation when we lived in London. We had a 2 bed flat, which whilst lovely, was too small for a growing family. Trying to find a 3 bed was costing an additional £100k which we just couldn't afford.

So we moved out of the city, leaving friends/family behind. However, we bought a 5 bed detached for less than the value of our London flat.

We made the sacrifice of being further away from our support network and had to commute. However, even with added travel costs we had a better quality of life, more space, and (after 3 miscarriages in London) I was relaxed enough to get pregnant.

Would moving further afield be an option for you?

The other option is to relocate to a cheaper area, which obviously involves jobs, family issues etc. But potentially is there anywhere else in the country you wouldn’t mind living that you could feasibly find jobs and could afford a bigger property?

I think we are reverting back to the way it used to be where people just lived in 'normal' houses with box rooms and siblings sharing. There has been abit of a thing in the past couple of decades that we must all be upgrading to something bigger and flashier over and over again to prove to everyone how well we are doing. I think things are swinging the other way now.

We rented for years and had 3 children in a 3 bed semi. We then were able to get the deposit together through saving through the pandemic and MIL gifting us a 15% deposit after inheritance.
We started looking and there were sacrifices to be made. We could not afford a 4 bed detached in the nice side of town where lots of our friends lived as they bought 20 years ago. Instead for nearly half the price we got a 4 bed end terrace ex-council with on street parking in the (historically) rough part of town. Now our street is lovely and quiet, no issues at all from anyone and is getting full of people moving over from bristol, house is great, affordable bills and although DS1 is in the box room it still is big enough for bed, desk, triple wardrobe and shelves. We are in the process in creating parking spaces at the end of the back garden which solves the parking issue.
We could look at moving to a bigger detached but the costs of moving plus the increased mortage are just not worth it. Kids are now about to start moving out to uni and in 5-6 years we will be empty nesters (although prepared for kids to maybe come back to live if needed) and I would rather use extra mooney to travel and have fun (plus maintain the property we have) rather than a bigger house which we don't really need.