We (DH and I, DS1 2.5 and DS2 9 months) live in a large 3 bed semi on the periphery of the small town DH works in. We are mortgage free and looking to buy our 'forever home' but nothing has come up.
The town we live in is pretty dire and the primary schools are terrible. There is not a lot to do in the town, it's run down and has some crime issues and there is no way on earth the boys will go to either of the primary schools here. We might stand a chance of getting them in to one of the local village schools which isn't oversubscribed.
A house has come up in a lovely village ten minutes away where DS1 goes to pre school. It's the village we'd most like to live in and the primary school is great. We've got quite a few friends there already and we could afford to buy this house mortgage free without selling the other house (been saving like mad, plus a bit of help from parents). We'd then rent the other house out.
We have to make DS1's primary school application by January 2020. This particular village school is always oversubscribed so not much hope of getting in unless we live there. We were thinking of buying the house in the village as a stop gap until we find the 'forever home'. We'd have to sell one of the houses at that point, so will pay legal fees and the higher rate of stamp duty twice (about £10k on the village house). We'd also pay tax on the rental income of this house, but we accept that.
Trouble is the village house is quite a lot smaller than what we're in now. There's no room for a table in the kitchen so we would be eating in the lounge and that room is all carpeted so worried about mess with baby and toddler eating in there. No place to store toys, dry washing, things like that:
What would you do? Moving there would take the pressure off buying the 'forever home' and reduce the risk of us jumping at the wrong thing. It would also give the boys the opportunity to go to school where they live, so good for making friends etc. I really dislike the town we live in but love this village.
Or would we be mad, with two small children and all the stuff that comes with them, to be downsizing? I'm usually quite good at making the most of space with storage etc but I'm struggling a bit with this one. It's tricky because we could be there for 12 months (manageable) or 5 years (potentially hard work), it just depends when the mythical forever home turns up.
Would love some perspective and thoughts from others!