Savings vs Bigger House

[Ozanj]

This is a bit of a lighthearted one. DB and I were talking finances had a bit of a disagreement because he thinks I’m crazy to be sitting on large investments when I could use it to buy, in his words, an ‘amazing’ house just like him. Tbh I find the idea of a large house incredibly stressful.

So what would you rather have - a large amount in investments with a very comfortable lifestyle or a large house (in our area our savings would buy us a mansion with a pool in a millionaire state catchment so we wouldn’t need to pay for private school which I guess is good as we wouldn’t be able to afford one if we went this route ). DB has almost convinced DH (he’s weak willed lol) and he’s been crunching the numbers this morning but aibu that having a big house is more stress than it’s worth?

So what would you rather have? Large house? Or investments?

What a problem to have...
I'd rather have the money in savings and investments than a mansion, and just have a modest size house instead. But that's just me.

Same. I enjoy our lifestyle. We truly don’t need to worry about money. I guess if we picked the house I’d be reliant on the income we’re currently on which lives little room for manouvre if I wanted to change to a less ageist industry in my 50s.

It depends. Does your current house meet your needs? Is everyone in the house comfortably accommodated? Is there enough living space to do all the things you want to do in those areas? Is the garden and parking to your liking? I would never move house if my current house met my needs and certainly not just for the sake of spending some money. Too much faff! However if you're a growing family of 4 crammed into a 2 up 2 down, I'd definitely be inclined to upsize.

We've prioritised education, travel and savings over our house. We've been quite happy with this until now but we've acquired some ridiculously noisy new neighbours and I'm wishing we'd gone for a detached house. It really depends on circumstances.

I’d much rather be in your current position. You sound content, and you have the flexibility to make decisions that will improve your quality of life in years to come.

I moved from a more affordable to expensive part of the country earlier this year and went for a smaller house to enable me to keep more savings. I really regret that now. The location is perfect but I have no spare room (or space for a spare bed) and my daughter’s bedroom is tiny. If you are already comfortable, keep the savings, but if you are cramped for space it might be worth expanding. Don’t buy huge for the sake of it though.

I'm in a similar position of weighing up savings/investments or a large house. But I don't see it as an 'either/or' situation.

We can't move house at the minute because of life circumstances but when we can we'll go for something in the middle - a house which meets all our needs plus a few extra luxuries, but also keeping a good wedge back in savings and investments.

I would always prioritise savings if the house was adequate for my needs and I liked living there. We did similar but to a much lesser degree when we bought our current house. It is a 4 bed detached but not huge as it's a modern build. Garden pleasant but not huge, parking good, neighbours lovely, DDs both have their own bedroom plus we have a spare room/office for guests or working from home. All great. Our mortgage advisor was telling us we were being too cautious and could afford a much bigger house and as much as I'd love a second sitting room or a home gym or a bigger kitchen.....we don't need it. And I don't really want the hassle of the upkeep and cleaning either.

It's a balance but it sounds like I'd be the same in your situation. If you like your house and it ticks enough boxes for you then I'd rather have the investments and retire earlier plus have some lovely holidays.

It’s a small 4 bed. Lovely area. 5min drive to DS’ school. Lovely neighbours Meets our needs currently, just (we’re planning ivf next year to use up our last embryo before I turn 45. In the unlikely event it sticks we will need a 5 bed). We could do with a standalone office but we could achieve this by converting the garage. Garden’s small, there’s no denying that, but the downstairs is designed exactly how we like and we have an ‘indoor outdoor’ living style that means we don’t really need a large garden.

I think even if we upsized we wouldn’t be looking at the massive property type DB has. A 5 bed near us is approx £700-750kish which we could buy without affecting our savings. But DB and DH are looking at mansions worth 2m+

This is DH’s fear. We have a detached house but it’s small and heavily overlooked. We have okish neighbours rn but the area is changing - more rentals etc. so if we did get dodgy neighbours we would need to move.

I think everyone has an amazing wish list for a property, which these £2m properties might give you. I think most people actually aim for the necessities and a few of the nice to have boxes checked in a property. There’s a property in our town with a library and a wine cellar and it would be amazing to have those things but having those over clearing our mortgage earlier and hopefully retiring earlier? Not for us. If I win big on the lottery I’m probably buying it though!

It sounds like there are a few more nice to haves that you could get but I don’t think you need to use all your savings for that but potentially moving, regardless of the IVF outcome, might be a good step. Get some of those nice to haves, a bit more space and know you have the option to up the budget a little bit if you find something that is absolutely amazing and you absolutely cannot live without.