How much would you sacrifice for a bigger home?

[Faith50]

We have long outgrown our tiny home - under 800 square foot. To move to a larger house we would have to stretch ourselves to the hilt. We would have no family holidays/breaks, no take aways, no extra curricular activities for dc, no savings. Dh and I have decided it is not worth the risk and have accepted unless our salaries double, we receive an inheritance or a miracle happens we will be unable to move.

I was depressed for a number of years and our marriage almost ended due to my desire for more space. This was a starter home and 15 years later we are still here.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

I think loads of people have this dilemma, most people probably.

We've been in our house for 15 years and we also thought it was a step along the way but price rises put the next step up beyond us unless we were willing to sacrifice everything for a house.

We have made a conscious choice that we prefer having disposable income, it enhances our life much more than space would. But if space would enhance your life more than disposable income, then that's also a valid decision.

In your situation I think I'd consider moving to a cheaper area, because I wouldn't want to give up my disposable income, but I'd hate to all be crammed into a house that was far too small. Would that be an option for you?

Isabelle As much as I feel we need more space, living to the penny would be stressful and put even more of a strain on us.

Can you extend your current home? We looked at going bigger but would be an extra 80-90k for a bigger house. We were quoted 10k for an extension - it'll make a huge difference to how we view our home.

zaffarana We already live in a cheap area and commute hours each day. For three decent bedrooms and 2nd reception we would need to double our mortgage.

I think we'll be in this situation in a few years. We live in a tiny two bed terrace (that I do love) and when we moved here we naively said it would be for 5 years max before we moved to a bigger place. It'll be 5 years in November and we're nowhere ready or able to move and DH is very unwilling to with the effects of Brexit looming.
Realistically we could massively cut back and save every penny and move in the next two years but we've just had DC2 and I'd like to enjoy life for a bit so we're just making the most of the small space we have for now.

We currently live in a very small two bedroom with two kids.

This was the only house we could afford to buy due to my partner who is the higher earner not having great credit for a mortgage (my fault, not his). We’ve had plans drawn up to extend but now, a few years down the line we could potentially just buy a bigger house. We could really stretch ourselves and have a beautiful house that would last us forever BUT we have so far chosen not to do that and will probably continue to choose not to do that because we do want to be able to have holidays, a really nice car in the future, activities for the kids, meals out etc. I couldn’t sacrifice those things.

Faith50 you put it much better than I did.

That's exactly it, fitting into a smaller space is as nothing compared with living on a knife edge financially.

Qforcucumber we have considered an extension. We do not particularly like the road we live on and were not planning/hoping to stay indefinitely.

Okay, well in that case would you be able to create more space within your current home - create a dormer in the roof to give you another room, expand your ground-floor living space, install a garden office/playroom/whatever? If the answer is no, then I think you're out of options really and accepting your home as it is, maybe trying to improve storage solutions, etc might be the most positive way of dealing with it. It is shit, but it's a situation that many families are facing. House prices have sky-rocketed in the past 20 years, stranding people at the bottom of the ladder, when before they'd have been able to move on up.

Nor do we, we will move - but having the extension built will give us another 7-10 years here comfortably and improve our lives enough to be worth it - even if the cost doesn't come back in resale. For us the extension is to make a small kitchen diner bigger, to allow for a family area, deepen the kitchen space and allow for a decent dining table instead of being cramped around a tiny one.

If you can't afford to move, there are other ways to improve your home.

• Restructure your current home with an architect/interior designer.
• Is it possible to convert your attic/build an extension/build an outdoor space?
• Declutter any areas where possible.
• Look at compact storage ideas/living spaces.

I grew up in a household where those compromises had been made for a bigger house. As you say; no hols for almost a decade, no clubs or activities for anyone, thin pickings at birthdays and Christmas, my parents had no savings. This was in the late 80s/early 90s too, so they had bonkers mortgage interest rates to contend with as well.

It wasn't fun for anyone. Kids pick up on stress and misery vibes from parents; even as a young child, I knew my parents were unhappy. If I saw my mother break down in tears over (seemingly) nothing once, I saw it a hundred times. I absorbed that unhappiness because I was eight and I couldn't do anything about it and I thought it was my fault.

I know that they wish they'd never moved from their smaller house.

Can you rent out your home and rent another one more suitable to your needs? Depending on your local market, you can often rent a place much nicer than what you could afford to buy. Even if your rent goes up a bit, it’s loads cheaper than extending or the fees involved in selling and buying again. You also have a fallback if you find the new place does stretch your budget too much.

I've been watching videos on YouTube of people living in tiny spaces, really tiny spaces. It's weirdly fascinating but actually whilst they are extreme there are loads of good ideas about making good use of space.

You might be able to optimise the space you have much more efficiently if you really give it a lot of thought.

We took a while to move as one of us was always in a fixed term contract. We tried overpaying every month on the mortgage we had (we didn't pay as much as the new mortgage ended up being but halfway between). This meant by the time we were in a position to move we had a decent chunk of equity in the old house, which served as a deposit on the new one. You could try living on peanuts and see how it feels. If you like the idea of saving towards the new house, great, if you hate it, you have your answer, so also great!

We have faced exactly the same issue.

Bought our house 12 years ago always assuming we'd move on. We never did due to rising and ridiculous house prices.

It's a small 3 bed terrace. Was really getting me down as we were just bursting out. So we did some sums...to get on the next rung would mean a minimum additional £100k on the mortgage. Not incl fees & stamp duty. So we decided to max our space instead.

Extended mortgage by £40k and so far we have converted the loft, built a large single storey extension, installed lovely new kitchen and landscaped the garden.

Basically we did all the things that we were never going to do as we were always 'going to move on'

I love my house now. Yes, it's still small but we use it so much better. I'm much, much happier.

And the value of this house has gone up significantly too

Also helped that we ruthlessly decluttered and got decent storage. Thanks Marie Kondo...

It is truly crap. I naively thought we would move to a bigger home after five or so years. The jump from a two to a three bed is ridiculous. Years ago it was possible even with one adult working or two working on modest incomes. Now, if you are not both hitting six figures there are little options.

I am a minimalist and cannot stand clutter. House does not look cramped but feels it.

Everything has a home and DC do not have big toys as there is no space.

Extending really is the way forward even if I do not much like my road.

Extending doesn’t mean you have to live there forever. It means your life is better now and for the next X amount of years and your house will hopefully be easier to sell/worth more when you do go to sell.

No, I’d just ensure what we owned fitted and we didn’t extend the family too much so that they were cramped, had no own space etc.

It’s absolutely no fun living on a financial knife edge and the children would grow resentful watching their peers have and enjoy things and they can’t.

I’d certainly never take on a mortgage that meant no savings as that’s just a recipe for disaster should something go wrong. If you could barely afford the larger mortgage on two salaries what happens if you should split?

We bought a 2 bed starter home 30 years ago as it was all we could afford.
2 adult children ( one has moved out) and a cat and we are still here!

We could of moved but we were local enough for the kids schools, they could walk to and from town and we had lovely neighbours.

We became ruthless with clutter and everything has its place.

We are going to move when Dd2 moves out.
We are going to downsize to a 1 bedroom flat.

How many bedrooms and children do you have?

What sort of prices and salaries are we talking about. It sounds odd that you think that you both need to be 'on six figures' in order to afford a 3 bed semi, while being hours away from work.

Do your jobs pay a good salary that justifies being in such a high cost area?

Is there any chance that you could move somewhere else in the country where a 3 bed semi is more than affordable for two full time workers, even on normal salaries.