To think a two bedroom house is big enough if you only have one DC?

[unlucky83]

Listening to Radio 4 You and Yours today talking about the new government help to buy scheme...and how hard it is to get approved.

(Was a bit distracted - but pretty sure these fact are right)

Heard something that the more I think about it -the less it makes financial sense to me...

They had someone saying they have a 2 bedroom house and have had a baby - their DC's nursery has 'to double as a spare room'...ideally they need a bigger house so DC can have their 'own room'

• but can't get approved for the scheme...

(They bought with 100% mortgage, were in neg equity for a while but now could make a 5% deposit from the equity in their house)

So AIBU to think that 2 bedrooms should be enough - if money is tight - and if they can afford to pay a bigger mortgage they would be better off paying more into their current mortgage for a couple of years to increase their equity/reduce their interest (or even a savings account)! rather than borrowing more money and taking on a bigger mortgage/debt for something that (IMO) is not essential?
(Or am I missing something here? )

The new scheme isn't giving or loaning any additional money - it's just the government (or the taxpayer if you like) acting as guarantor on 15% of it.

It wasn't that long ago that you could get 100% (heck, 125%!) mortgages, which obviously weren't great but plenty of people took advantage of that.

With house prices as high as they are now, raising the minimum 10% often 15% or 20% for a deposit on a mortgage for a family home is a huge undertaking. I wonder how many of the people judging bought their homes when prices were not as high, or had initial 95 or 100% mortgages, or had help with deposits in the form of windfalls or gifts from family?

Plenty of people can easily afford the mortgage payments, and are often paying more in rent - it's just raising the deposit that is the issue especially when renting. How many homeowners can honestly say they could easily save, say, ten thousand pounds a year on top of their mortgage payments? Which is why this scheme is good in many ways - it is giving new homebuyers similar chances to those who bought in the past when circumstances were different.

Having said that, we were a family of five in a tiny two bedroom terrace for quite some time, so yep, a spare room is a luxury in my eyes. But if they can afford the mortgage payments (I am not talking about the deposit) then why shouldn't they?

I heard the interview and wondered if the woman had realised after agreeing to do it that she would have to share her plans for another baby, so talked a load of cobblers about spare rooms instead. I may be wrong, but I bet their family will expand very soon.

We don't have "guests" as such - not ones who stay over anyway. I would love a small office/study space though, as I currently have my PC in one corner of the lounge & boxes of papers & work related items around about. Ideally, I would be able to have all that somewhere else & shut the door on it!

Apart from that, no, no one NEEDS a spare bedroom or guest room.

If rents weren't so ridiculously high, people would be in a better position to save for a deposit. The mortgage on my three bed house is the same as the rent on my tiny one bed flat was. That is not uncommon, in fact it's normally the mortgage that is cheaper.

I agree that the size of a house is about more than number of bedrooms - when we were selling our 2-bed flat we had a lot of downsizers viewing complaining that the kitchen wasn't as big as in their 4-bed house, or the bathroom, etc. Well obviously not

Moving to a house, we knew we needed at least three bedrooms and preferably four (often work from home, wanted 3DC, etc). But we soon realised that we needed to be looking at 4-5 bedrooms in newbuild, because the rooms are counted rather than measured and there would be no chance of fitting one full single in a third bedroom, let alone two or a double. Fortunately round here you can get a not-new house with three doubles and a single, plus garden, drive and garage, for under £250k.

We also noticed that the typical three-storey townhouse has an integral garage on the ground floor and at least one bedroom on the middle floor, leaving nearly no living space at all, and wasting lots of space on stairs and landings that can't be lived in.

It doesn't sound like the family given as an example were a good example to explain "need" over "want/nice to have". But the difference in useable space (hall cupboards, dining/play room, second loo, front garden big enough for all your bins, parking) seems to increase hugely when you go from two to three bedrooms, so I am sympathetic.

If I didn't have a "spare" room, I would have had to limit my working possibilities, and probably give up my job.

I doesn't feel that "spare"! I would use "need" to describe anything I feel is essential to me actually going out to work, and being able to pay my bills. You CANNOT judge what other people need for their lives!

Only skimmed but made me remember something.
I'm friends with an über rich and famous couple. I live in a 2 bed house, there are 5 of us . After the birth of their second baby we were together and they started telling me their plans to build a new house as their 10bed 40 acre pile wasn't big enough 'with the new baby' How the husband died of shame and the wife rapidly changed subject when they realized it was me they were talking to!