Hi mumsnetters
I feel like I can't see the wood for the trees at the moment so some outside perspectives and opinions/reality check would really help as I feel like im going in circles. There is no perfect answer to our issues but just trying to work out what is for the best. We need to move as quickly as possible and there's not many options right now.
We are in a bit of a pickle. After a hellish and unfortunate 2 years with selling our property (and an unplanned pregnancy) we desperately need out of our current situation. The hike in house prices has effectively priced us out between selling our property and buying a new one. Currently iving with my inlaws, 3 young children, 2 boys in year 2 and year R, and a baby. Weve been here a while now and we simply cannot stay any longer for many reasons.
We live in a part of the country we cannot really afford with ridiculous prices. Ive lived here about 15y and husband born here. Husband doesn't want to relocate to a cheaper part of the country. He loves his job (but its not a brilliant salary vs the area) which is very niche and tricky to find elsewhere. I don't want to push this as he has had MH troubles in the past and I'm not sure how a whole new job and location would impact him. His whole family live here. I'm not currently working and won't be able to for another 3 years or so salary wise we are struggling to find what we need. I'm happy to live anywhere really.
We can't afford to rent in this area or anywhere reasonably local for commuting purposes on one salary.
We have a good deposit just not much in the way of what we could borrow on a mortgage.
We have 2 options at the moment and have had offers accepted for 2 properties;
Option A) buy a percentage of a 3 bed flat in our current area on Shared Ownership but buy the share outright so just playing the rent and no mortgage. The flat has a communal garden and is the lower ground/basement level in a big victorian conversion (which may reveal its own problems). Its a reasonably sized flat but realistically the living/kitchen/dining area is very small and this concerns me. Also not having a private garden to play in really makes me feel sad for the boys. By the time we move on to a house eventually I'm worried they will have lived their whole childhood without private outdoor space.
As soon as I can go back to work in a few years we'd have to be moving on so would look to buy a house the regular way and move further out then. Also I know that following the ews1 cladding nightmare there is set to be a PAS 9980 which may affect all flats, even conversions and make it difficult to sell. This and being Leasehold scares me. However the sacrifice in space would mean our y2 and yR boys can stay in their school which they love and is around half a mile away. The area we live in is really amazing and has so much to offer in so many ways. Amazing school. People are great and low crime levels. Lots for children to do, lots of clubs for children. Plenty of job opportunities for me in time. Hubby works locally so is often there to help with the kids if I ever need it, or its pissing it down with rain on the school run etc.
Option B) buy a percentage of a shared ownership new build, 3 bedroom detached house for around the same price as the flat. It is around a 35 min drive away from where we currently are(without traffic) or 39 mins on the train so DH would need to drove everyday. The area is also lovely but a lot more leafy and spread out. The house is on a new development plot towards the edge of the town (1.6 mile walk to town centre) so isn't in the most ideal location but there are plenty of buses and a supermarket about half a mile walk away. The house itself is detached and has a really big garden. The town has everything but maybe not as easily accessible as our current area. There are jobs but not as broad or as many opportunities in our current area. The big problem with this house is schools. There are plenty of them but only 2 primaries within a mile. The rest are between 1 and 2 miles away and we'd have to do school runs on foot as I still can't drive (was doing my lessons till covid hit, now I can't get lessons or a test as there is such a high demand). One of the closest schools has a 14 children on the waiting list for yR! The other school has 2 on the waiting list for yR but space in Y2. So it's all a bit of a gamble with schooling, the next cloesest school with availability is 1.4m away so potentially I'd be dragging 2 kids and a toddler back and forth until I can get my driving sorted. Theres loads of other schools but all between 1.5 and 2 miles away. So it would be a big gamble with what school we were allocated for the 2 boys. But would this be worth it if it meant the children would have their own garden and we would be in a spacious detached house with no time limit on moving out to somewhere bigger? There would be no ews1 worries and we would look to eventually staircase when I could work and own the property the regular way, or just sell and buy on the regular housing market in this area. The service charge is basically nothing on the house either vs the flat. This house is due to be ready mid Jan and we would exchange by end of Nov- mid December and then be able to put the kids on the school waiting lists whilst we waited it out in current location. At a push we could even keep the kids at their current school until spaces came up reasonably close if nothing was available.
Our current area where the potential flat is holds so much personally to it and we love this place so much, but the thought of being stuck in a flat makes me very worried. However uprooting the kids makes me extremely worried as they both love their school life. Dh has basically washed his hands of it all and just says its up to me to decide. He would find the flat the easiest at the moment and says he will miss seeing the kids as much as he currently gets to if we moved further out. Even if we stayed in this current area we couldn't afford a house here with a regular mortgage when I started working again, we would have to move out of the area, so it feels a bit like delaying the inevitable anyway.
I just dont know what to do for the best and I don't know how to think unbiased and objectively about it all. Ideally we'd just relocate back up north to my hometown and buy a house the regular way buy DH really doesn't want this.
I'm not sure what I'm expecting anyone to tell me but it's been cathartic writing it all down. Life has been pretty crap these past few years, I just dont know what the right thing to do is. We just can't stay with the inlaws much longer.