Were you living in your forever home when you first had kids?

[CDloop]

I’m not pregnant yet but we only live in a small house at the moment and we’ll have to move at least once or twice. I love the idea of buying a forever home and having all your babies… but it feels unobtainable in this day and age what with interest rates! I would be interested to see whether most people do or don’t, at the point of having babies? Thanks.

Yes, although we don't own it (secure tenancy).

The concept of a forever home is a bit twee, isn't it? Your needs definitely change as you and your family gets older, or should change, I should say.

In our case, we owned a large family home when my son was born but ended up in rented accommodation between his 1st and 7th birthdays as we relocated for DH's work. We've owned our current home for almost 8 years, but I definitely cannot see us living here forever.

Firstly 'forever house' is a ridiculous term, how many people live in the same house their whole lives? I grew up on a farm, my family have owned it for nearly 200 years. But that doesn't mean we have ever had multiple generations living in a 'forever house', e.g. in my life my grandparents, then my parents and now my brother and his family have lived in the main farmhouse and the older generation has moved to a smaller house on the farm. Stately homes always have an associated dowager's house.

Secondly, it's absolutely fine for children to move house. Why wouldn't it be? DH's parents moved country several times during his childhood for FIL's career. He and his siblings appear to have survived despite having to learn a new language for one of the moves. Moving from a smaller house to a larger house while living in the same area, and going to the same school is nothing in comparison.

I perceive our house as our family 'forever' home but my DH has stated he would probably move again (which is a surprise to me, as he vowed never to move again before).

We moved before we TTC with our first, as knew it would otherwise impact affordability. We moved from a 3 bed terrace to a 3/4 bed semi.

Due to location and size I would be happy to stay here, especially as we would need an extra £100k+ to actually upsize and I'm not moving for the sake of moving. I love our area and walking distance to shops/schools, so would have to be exceptional for me to want to move.

Interest rates are also horrific so no way I want to lump another £100k on.

When we moved in, eldest was a year, didn't think so, but looks like we will be here until beyond a levels, so who knows.

We have had to extend mind to stay but that's done now.

No, our first property was too small. We’ve since moved somewhere a bit bigger and I found the buying and selling process so longwinded, costly and stressful that I can’t imagine choosing to go through it again.

That said, the thought of staying in one place for the rest of my life is very depressing, so I don’t like to think of our house as a “forever home”.

No, we lived in a 1 bedroom flat. It was absolutely fine, she slept in our room. We originally planned to add an extension to make it a 2 bedroom place, but instead sold it and lived in an Airbnb for a few weeks until our house purchase was completed. Again, fine. But we were financially stable and knew we would be able to upgrade (DH had not sold his place when I bought the first flat. Once he had, we had an extra £400k to help find a bigger place.)

No. It doesn't make sense to me, when you have very young children your costs are at their highest and income at its lowest. We waited until we were able to work more hours, a couple of promotions and no childcare costs. Kids were starting primary

No we were in a 2 bed rented flat when we had DD, bought a 2 bed house when she was 4 and now we have baby DS as well. Will hopefully move to a 3 bed at some point in the next 5-7 years and stay there til the kids are grown.

Me, dh & our 2 DDS (19 &14) still live in the house I bought when I was single, before I met dh!

It's a 3 bed terraced, which we extended when dd2 was a baby, and has a good sized garden so there's been enough room for us all and it's in an area I don't really want to move from. We had the village primary school across the lane from us, which was very handy during those years. Secondary school is in the closest town and is an easy 5-10 minute drive away in the mornings.

It's also not too big for just dh & I, once the girls move out, so I guess I can't see any reason that we might move at this point. I'll probably follow in the footsteps of my parents who also lived in the same house since getting married and in which they brought up me & my sister. Df still lives there on his own since dm died.

No, and I'm glad. I get restless and like to move 🙂

We're just moving into our 3rd home (dc 12 and 8) and will probably stay here for the foreseeable but intend to move again once we're able to (DC have left home)

The new house is big and in a great location so we can stay as long as we need to...well until I get restless again.

No. It’s a lovely house and we could easily stay here, but we chose it because it’s within reach of good schools and other things that kids need/want.

We’ll be moving once our youngest has finished college, we’ve already bought the house we’ll be moving to. If we stay in the UK, I doubt we’ll move again after that but we might leave.

Yes but i think we are unusual.

We are higher earners and die to delling previous property had a decent deposit so bought a 5 bed in a niceish part of london 5 years ago in early /mid30s.
We looked at 3 bed semis but with stamp duty and whatnot we thought it would be a waste of time as we would outgrow it in 5 years.
I was NOT in love with our house but its really grown on me and i dont think we would move now unless there was a compelling reason

No- in fact when we had kids we had no property at all and were living in an Asian city where everyone rents unless they’re v v rich and know they’re definitely going to stay there LT. Ds (12) has lived in 5 flats/ houses. I actually liked the flexibility of moving to make work/ school/ hobbies more convenient as our lives evolved. Moved back last year to a house we bought while overseas. I like it but I think we might move- keep telling Dh we need to hurry up as otherwise it’ll be time to start thinking about downsizing again.

Yes, partly because house prices shot up and we couldn't afford anywhere bigger. We bought our house as a "starter home" (2 bedroom terrace within walking distance of the city centre). When people living in my area had second babies, most of them moved to bigger rural/suburban houses, but we stayed, initially out of necessity, but now I love this home, and wouldn't swap it for anything other than a lottery-win fantasy house. We've extended it so it meets the needs of our family, and while it's a lot smaller than my friends' suburban homes, I love the location and the house itself, and the memories within it.

No. We had a nice, new build 3 bed semi when our first was born. Moved when she was 2.5 to a bigger house. I dont really believe in a forever house but now have DC2 we are looking at moving again to something akin to a "forever house".

No, currently buying our first home, DCs are 6 and 8.

We luckily have able to rent the same place since eldest was 6 weeks old though, so have had stability for them.