AIBU telling DB to carefully consider his first house purchase

[madnessIsay]

DB & SIL are finally in a position to buy, great news. They are looking at 2 bed new build apartments or 2 bed ground maisonettes in south London. Budget of 580-600k which is approx 30% of their income. They are looking at TTC in 3 years & I have pointed out to them that whilst what they are looking at gives them good transport links, high street etc they need to look at school catchments & think about where any children may sleep. They think they will sell in 3-4 years so it won’t be a problem. I suggested that they should perhaps buy a 3 bed or small house further out so they can stay put if needs be or if not buy elsewhere & rent it out & continue renting here. Am I raining on their parade?

Are you the big sister by any chance ?

They asked my opinion, I gave it & I won’t say anymore
In that case you can’t reasonably be accused of raining on their parade. There’s nothing wrong with expressing your opinion if you were actually asked what you thought. Personally I think your advice was sound. It can be very hard to sell properties that are only 3-4 years old and, while none of us knows what is going to happen to the housing market, a post-Brexit downturn is entirely plausible.
I don’t think you should harp on about it though. They’ve heard your advice. They don’t have to take it & it’s probably just your job as sister to be excited for them now. Unless they ask again, it’s probably best not to reiterate your (sensible) views.

600k for a 2bed maisonette?!
Fuck me!
(missing point of thread entirely)

Smallplant your comparing 2 different things. I’m not comparing any profit they could make. My point was simply that if they buy a bigger place (which has to be further out for affordability) they can stay put & not need to sell for more space if there are any interest rate rises or the market keeps sliding like it is at the moment. My property in zone 3 has not changed in value in 4 years & considering anyone who bought during that time will have paid 25-30k stamp duty if the prices start falling they won’t have made lots of profit!! Stamp duty costs in London make it very difficult to move every few years.

I don’t know much about the rental market but 2 neighbours who can’t sell have moved to Kent & Bristol & they are renting their London property out & then renting in the new locations. I also have 3 friends who couldn’t afford London property so bought in Milton Keynes, Essex & Margate & rent these properties out & rent themselves in London hence why I suggested it.

I mean tell them by all means but don’t press the issue if they ignore you.

My sister moved into her first house recently, my dad was getting wound up about it because it’s only two beds and what if she has more than one kid etc.

Felt a bit insulted tbh as I live in a 3 bed with three kids so there is sharing, plus he obviously forgets that people (including us when I was a child!) often plan to move as the family expands.

Funkyfunkybeat12 yep mortgage is 30% ish of their income.

KurriKurri is it that obvious! 😵

GetOffTheTableMabel thank you.

To be honest, a two-bed flat, in the area they actually want to live, when they won't TTC for another three years basically sounds like the dream. Part of the reason I chose to move out of London was because if we'd bought there it would have had to be in some random zone 4-5 suburb that I didn't know, didn't have friends in, was not my home, and was far enough out of London to feel distant and inconvenient. None of that makes London worth it, for me.

I personally don't understand why they should make such a location compromise for something that hasn't happened yet, and may not ever. If their childfree days are numbered, this is the perfect time for them to enjoy living how and where THEY want. A two-bed even gives them enough space that they won't have to move for a few years after having a kid. Good for them.

DianaPrincessOfThemyscira it’s not the fact it’s a 2 bed my concern was if they have to sell for more space when it’s a bad time to sell if that makes sense. Nothing wrong with sharing, I grew up in a 5 bed & shared out of choice for years (I have other siblings)

So with ttc in about 3 years, plus time to actually conceive, plus 9 months pregnant plus early years, it will be a decade easily before they may need to move for a school.
A whole shed load of things can happen in 10+ years.
They will be 10 years through a mortgage and interest rates will be up or down who knows,
House prices could fall massively or have risen exponentially. They will at least have lived where they wanted to for a good chunk of time though.

Mythologies tell me about it, hence why i’m doing the loft.

I do think it's worth pointing out to people who have no kids yet, that school catchments can be a total nightmare and have to be considered because they will affect ability to sell a property, even if they never have children themselves.

Fair enough OP, I have to admit that my London property is just below the stamp duty threshold, so that's something I hadn't taken into consideration. We're talking about completely different playing fields, my bad.

If I was lucky enough to have a £600k budget, I would admittedly be looking to buy a house. You can get some gorgeous 3/4 bed character houses for that money in my SE London borough, zone 3.

But I do agree that living where you want to live is important. I could buy a four bedroom detached house outside of London, but I don't want to live there so it's moot. They want to live where they want to live. Even if they have two opposite sex children, they can share until 10ish, so they could be in this two bed in the area they like for 14 years potentially. I think ultimately it's what they want to do with their money.

Flooffloof I guess I didn’t think of it being so long. We have been in our home 7 years & in the last 4 years we have 2 dcs with 1 in the school system & I took my time compared to some of my friends!

smallplant

Advice to move up the ladder every few years is terrible advice in London when every move comes with a £20-30k stamp duty bill

But equally, stretching yourself to buy the next house now is risky against a backdrop of unknown interest rate changes for the foreseeable

I get where you are coming from with respect to buying a bigger property/further out, however, it's really down to them and your opinions valid, but really you should not get over-invested in this one.

We are in the process of buying a 2 bed ground floor maisonette (with garden) in zone 5 SE London...plus we have 2 DC under 5.

We totally would have gone for a 3 bed house- if we could have afforded it!

Unfortunately, houses round here are totally out of our price range and we do not wish to move further out/down to Kent and then do the whole big commute etc.

My DSis and DM have both waded into things and given their (unsolicited) opinions and it is so very irritating.

DSis has a very well off husband so has no real concept of saving for a deposit, applying for a mortgage etc. I am sick to death of listening to her go at me, saying how we should 'bite the bullet' and go for a bigger property.

She doesn't seem to get the point that we cannot afford it, not that we simply do not want to.

I would respectfully suggest that you share your opinion once, but do not go about it as that will only grate on them during what should be, an exciting time.

But if they don't TTC for three years, it will then take at least a few months if not longer to conceive, then pregnancy, so say another eighteen months before they actually have a baby (maybe a lot longer), they're buying a two bed not one, they'd have no need for extra space at that point, they could stay there forever if they wanted with one child. If they choose to have a second child they might want a bit more space or separate rooms for the children but you're probably talking two or three years after the first child before there's a second baby and they'd be ok sharing for a couple of years at least. You're looking almost a decade into the future!
Also if the market drops the price of any property they would be moving too would also have dropped.
You can't really plan property moves that far in the future with everything as a hypothetical.

IWannaSeeHowItEnds Admittedly I live in NappyValley but I had to secure a nursery place whilst still pregnant & the catchments are tiny, no idea until I lived it. They are people I know who paid 1m for a property thinking it was in the “catchment” but it’s not, nightmare.

I guess I didn’t think of it being so long. We have been in our home 7 years & in the last 4 years we have 2 dcs with 1 in the school system

Yeah, I had two children close together and schools were important to me, but you are assuming that ttc will just happen as forecast. It took me iirc 4 years to conceive.
So if you add up your brothers timetable and add another 4 years to it. That's not far off 15 years, living where they want, more than half way through a mortgage, more chance of house prices increasing ( and therefore more to buy new house with) etc etc. Plus schools that are excellent right now won't necessarily be the same in 10 years or more.

We bought 2 bed end of terrace in SW London and had dd1 and dd2 there, only sold as we moved back to Aus. Lived there for 7.5 years.

It was fine! I'd encourage them to buy a house and EOT are generally better lay out but a 2 bed ground floor flat would be fine. EOT was great with bikes and outside toys not needing to be dragged through the house. Defo to outdoor space if possible.

Smallplant No worries :) & I agree about moving too far out of London. We ideally need more space but I love where I live plus my mum is a 15 min walk so staying put.

TurquoiseDress I don’t want to move out of London or commute either so will forever be cramped. We all have my mother to contend with who doesn’t understand why none of us have 5beds 🙄 & goes on about interest rates in the 90s.

Flooffloof good point I conceived both times in the first month so you can forget it can take so long. Plus I had a 3 year gap but some of my friends were not even pregnant when I had DC1 & then they had 2 kids before my second arrived. I think there is a trend around here to bash them out!

RollerJed i’m trying to push them towards a garden as opposed to a swanky apartment block with a concierge

Yes, DH and I have accepted that if we want to stay in SE London, we will not be able to afford the space that we would like.

However, that is ok and on reflection, I would prefer to live where we are rather than go further out for a bigger place.

We are ok with that and that is the most important thing.

Your DM sounds like mine.

Except my DSis does have a beautiful 5 bed detached home- she "married well" as my DM reminds me from time to time, but that's really for another thread!

YANBU.

When our first was 1yo, we wanted to move to a bigger house and so looked at some lovely houses all around the (fairly trendy) area we lived in.

It was chance that we ended up buying a house that happened to be in a good catchment area. Had we known about catchment areas when our DC was 1yo? No! We hadn't given it a flying thought.The most beautiful house we'd nearly gone for was not in catchment to the 2 good schools, but was in catchment to a school that had had lots of difficulties.

So for us it was chance because we just didn't think about it.

All you can do is tell them how it works and then they'll make their own decision mistakes. Selling isn't really a viable plan. Stamp duty? Not being able to sell? Not finding anywhere they like in time? Maybe the house market will have stalled? Who knows.

I read somewhere that the less moves you can make to your dream/ultimate house, the better, money-wise. It doesn't make sense to keep moving around.

We gd the same discussion with my MIL when we brought. She was determined for us to buy a 3 bed fixer upper. The only ones we could afford where in terrible areas. We ended up buying a 2 bed mid terrace that doesn't need a lot of work. In a fantastic area and are really really happy. We would love for an extra bedroom and driveway but we wouldn't trade the safety, good schools and lovely area for it.