Help us decide whether we should move or stay!

[noodleangel]

We’ve been in our family home for 27 years. Brought our children up here. They’ve moved out now and it’s just DH and I.

The house was built in 1977. In the past 5 years we’ve spent £40k on a new kitchen, bathrooms, cloaks, new double glazing, plastering all downstairs. New carpets and decor.
It has 4 bedrooms, 3 doubles and a single. 2 bathrooms and a cloakroom. 2 reception rooms and a very large kitchen diner. Boiler is 10 years old so will need changing again in the next few years.
We estimate it’s worth about £340k.

So, we have come to the realisation it will soon need a new roof, it hasn’t been done since the house was built. At the very least we need the guttering and fascia’s done. Guttering and fascia’s / soffit is £4.5k and full roof and plastics £13k.
The front garden needs a new wall, the back garden could do with a spruce up. The house is hard to heat, always cold in the winter, we live around the corner from a primary school and parking coming into the street can be an issue but great if you live here and have kids as you can just walk round. We have condensation issues in a built in wardrobe in a bedroom, the front garden is always wet. Place is built on boggy ground so the ground is always wet.

But, the good points - the garden faces south, we have lovely sunshine out the garden. We have very good, quiet neighbours. Parking is fine. The house is spacious and decorated to our taste. We have woodland walks nearby and we are a few minutes walk to the local shop, pub etc. Perfect location for train, motorway etc.

So, we are thinking should we bite the bullet and move now (both 60) should we go before it all gets too much for us. Move to something a little smaller. The problem is that we are surrounded by houses that are either the same age as ours with all the inherent problems of a 50+ year old house or tiny new builds. I don’t want to be in a semi with a noisy family, I don’t want to be on an estate where you sit in the garden to lots of noise.

I feel I don’t want to put out another large sum to spend on this house but at the same time don’t want to jump to something we’ll be unhappy in, we’ve loved and have been so happy here.

Head or heart! What should we do? Feels like the wrong time to put the house on the market anyway with the interest rates the way they are.

Move though with all that work needed be prepared not get as much as you think for it

Stay. It costs a fair amount to move. We looked into it and decided we would spend the money on the house we have. Average cost of moving is about £13k then you may need new carpets, curtains, furniture, and unless it's a new build, you may have to do building work at the new place too.

Can you afford to heat the house, when you are on a pension?.we did downsize..I was 60,DH 7 years younger. We didn't have a house as big as yours,it was a 3 bedroom cottage, difficult to heat.. built in the 30s, roof would need replacing. You obviously don't live in the SE,my cousin has a little 2 bed bungalow, just had a new roof,cost him £23k, his ds is in the building trade, and that was a cheeky deal.we wanted somewhere quieter,near countryside and sea. We were on the cusp of Surrey, moved to east Sussex, just 35 miles, property. I had just taken a local position,DH was happy to commute till retirement, but company liquidated just 3 days after I gave my notice,so.i rescinded my notice, stayed put, with a long commute (London weighting,high cost living allowance) for almost 5 years,till I retired. We bought a detached, open plan 2 bedroom bungalow, built in 1965,10 minutes from the sea. Countryside 2 roads away. Edge of a village, local shops,bus stop in the next road,if required.. nearest town,10 minutes by car.. DH out of work exactly a year,then we future proofed,new doors, windows, heating,used pension lump sum on 12 solar panels and 2 batteries.

Might be a good idea to try to project your needs 10-15 years into the future. Sounds like the good points of your house for that time are the south-facing garden, the quiet, the proximity to shops without a car, the memories.
BUT - heating costs, condensation issues, a lot of space you won't be using and having spent a good bit of savings on renovations for a house you might need to leave are definite downsides.
I would look around a bit - who knows - you might find something that suits you and is more practical going forward.
Good luck!

We like our house and where it is. We have replaced the kitchen and bathrooms and we would probably have to do that anywhere else we moved to. We have chosen to spend now, on futureproofing it for later. New double glazing, insulation, solar panels, that kind of thing. The house was built in the 1990s and the roof etc. are still fine, but we have enough in our savings to deal with that if we need to.

My personal opinion, which I know a lot of people do not agree with, is that you need a BIGGER house when your children become adults, not a smaller one, unless they live close enough to pop over for short visits easily. One of my children lives 6 hours away and has a child, so they need 2 bedrooms when they come to stay. DH and I are at the stage where we sleep much better apart, so we need a bedroom each. My other child lives 5 miles away but does not drive. They have 2 children. It means that if we ever have a family gathering we don't have room for them all to stay, which means that one of us needs to be their designated driver - which isn't much fun at Christmas!

So - I would spend the money on making the house you have warm, waterproof and safe for the future. Get something done about your boggy garden - maybe a pond? If you move, there will be solicitors fees, moving costs and stress, plus you will need to spend money on making it how you want it. All that adds up - and you might as well spend it on the house you already have.

My advice would be to have a look around. I het the urge to move every now and again and I view houses and realise nothing would actually be better than what we already have. We'd have to add a gym/office/build more parking/a fence....so I end up staying where I am and either redecorating or extending

A house built in 1977 should not be needing a new roof.

So what you don’t like about moving is:

the garden being noisy (estate or similar)
the house being too small.

(that’s what I got from your post but you may be able to write out others).

so in your shoes what I would do is write out a list of what your perfect house would look like.
then if your current house beats all the others you’d consider then you stay.

for what it’s worth the downsides of big houses as you get older are generally - can’t cope with the garden, can’t cope with cleaning or can’t do the stairs and no downstairs bathroom.

i’m disabled and spend a lot of time socialising with other disabled people and as long as you can afford it then it’s usually possible to get a gardener and a cleaner to sort problem 1 and problem 2.

the bathroom issue tends to be more of a problem in the event of ill health but your house may already have a downstairs bathroom?

I think you should move to somewhere that will need less ongoing maintenance and care , be cheaper to run so that as you get older you some less energy on housework and maintenance and more in fun stuff , and when you get older again you can keep yourself warm

it is a bad time to move though

but some of your other points

if you are to move you should be downsizing and that will mean anything will seem stupid small for a few years. You are used to seeing space. But think about how you use the space. Our bedroom feels unnecessarily big ( suspect it’s designed for a superking bed ) . There is floor space that just is. Serves no purpose.

we live in a new build semi and you can’t hear the neighbours because it’s a decent build quality with sound insulation. The gardens are small but that’s just less work. It’s an end of an estate so it’s much quieter than many places as there is no traffic. The people are ordinary people not party junkies. We have storage - it’s well designed basically.

being in a good location - walking to shops and pub and countryside is good- we have that too. So it is possible

I don’t believe in hanging onto a big house because a few times a year you can host family in a luxury style - but I grew up with people bunking on a sofa , head to toe in single beds , and I miss the chaos and comaradarie of those visits. And if that doesn’t work for you 50k saved is a lot of premier inns.

Good neighbours are worth a lot.
We have one set who have been trying to intimidate us and another family.Wish they would move !!!!

Depends on roofing material - expensive slate would be ok, cheaper materials - will 1977 is nearly 50 years

I'd stay.

Lots & lots of good points, no serious bad ones. 60's is still plenty of time to not be leaving it until it's not too late.

Nice to have enough space for visiting children & grandchildren.

a 70's built house, I wouldn't be thinking it needs a new roof. I coukd go through all of your comments but bottom line is I'd stay, can't see any good reason to move.

Good neighbours are worth their weight in gold. Moving is risky!!

Don’t want to derail your thread but I could have written your post . We are in a similar predicament but we have no problems with our roof, but we will probably need to replace the boiler soon. Our house is large 5 double bedrooms and a very large secluded back garden which overlooks a wooded area. We are in our mid to late 60,s and the house now is much too big for us but I absolutely love it.
My husband thinks it’s time to move on and get somewhere smaller with a smaller more manageable garden. He does love gardening tho and takes great pride in it and I wonder what he will do without it.
its very hard as I really don’t want to live in a small bungalow on an estate ( which we did before we moved here).
I can understand exactly how you feel, my head says yes we should go but my heart says otherwise .

We are in our 70’s so faced this predicament a few years ago: the bungalow conversation as we called it. It was an easy decision to stay put and enjoy the space we have waited for all our lives, and we don’t regret it. Who knows what the future will bring, but we don’t want to be cooped up in a smaller home just waiting for life’s problems.

I’d expected to be shutting off a couple of spare bedrooms by now, but we have a hobby room each and a snore escape room.

There’s a shower room and a room for a hospital bed downstairs, and we could install a stairlift if needed.

Friends have regretted downsizing, bungalow legs is a commonly mentioned issue.

I used to work in the gardens of elderly people who had become unable to tend their huge plot. They had the same problems with their house and needed a small army of maintenance people, gardeners, cleaners, window cleaners etc just to stay in a house that had become a burden to them. I vowed then I would move to something smaller before it became a problem.

On the subject of bungalow legs I strongly feel it is better to have a bungalow and stay fit through exercise, walking, go up hills than to stay in a house where you use the stairs once or twice a day.

When the stairs eventually become too much you can't switch them off.

My advice to you OP would be to consider how you would feel if you found a smaller house/bungalow near where you live. Small plot but a little garden to enjoy. A new house - no big jobs to do, little maintenance, lower energy costs. The truth is it might be a blessed relief and enable you to enjoy your time and money on fun rather than finding workmen to do a range of expensive, messy and time consuming tasks.

"He does love gardening tho and takes great pride in it and I wonder what he will do without it."

I'd also add that enjoying a big garden is like having stairs. You can't just switch it off when it gets too much. An allotment or volunteering for the local In Bloom group might scratch the itch to garden and is 100% turn 'offable' when the time is right.

I saw my clients suffer agonies after watching their gardens become too much and then become a mess. Sometimes the non-gardening spouse had to watch their partner's beloved garden fall into disrepair after they'd died. Sorry to be gloomy, but this is the reality of keeping a big house and garden.

What is the ceiling price for your street? In other words, if you get all the work done that you say needs to be done, will the house be worth it if you do subsequently decide to sell?

Also, you can always get a gardener if the garden becomes too much.

Have you looked on Rightmove or Zoopla to see what is available in your preferred area for your budget? Anything that takes your fancy?

Thanks all! Our garden won’t be an issue, it’s all paved and very easy to look after. We will just have too many rooms but I do like the idea of a snore room and a hobby room / place to dress and do hair etc.

im leaning towards staying to be honest and future proofing here. The only issue is our neighbours now are elderly and as this street is right by the school I have no doubt families will move in either side at some point. I love kids but don’t want to spend my latter years with noisy children in the gardens or families BBQ’ing and music later into the night.

We’ve a downstairs loo and a wide large staircase so could have a stairlift later on if needs be I guess.

I’d start looking and researching roads/areas you like. That will help you get excited or not.

most places will need some work and yours sounds nice so that’s probably not the main factor here. It’s where would be most fun and where are your friends?

I have no doubt families will move in either side at some point. I love kids but don’t want to spend my latter years with noisy children in the gardens or families BBQ’ing and music later into the night.

You're right - families will almost certainly move into those homes when your elderly neighbours move/die. Whether they'll be noisy or quiet depends, but no families are completely silent. Unless you move into a retirement community though or somewhere rural with no neighbours you may well get this elsewhere too. There are never any guarantees who you will get for neighbours!