Would you move 150-200 miles away to be able to afford your dream home?

[bigdecsions]

Hi everyone,
As the title suggests, we live in London (not the best place in London either ) that's where I've always lived and grown up its my comfort zone. All my family and friends are here too. We have 4dc and live in a 3 bed, which we can extend to make a 4 bed. It's on a main road so parking is available on the side roads. By no means is this our dream home, but it is what it is. We've done work to it and made it in to our home which we love. Kids are at a good school too.
2 miles away would be our ideal location but it's far too expensive, anywhere around here is, is have to extend our mortgage and still only get a 3 bed but in a nicer location and most houses only have 1 reception too making it feel smaller as we have 2.

Anyway we have thought about moving further north, we've looked at a few places but all are between 150-200 miles north of us 3-4 hour drive. We are able to afford our dream home in those areas and schools are good too. But I'm so worried about loving as I've always lived here. What if we don't like it after the novelty has worn off? Has anyone loved that far just to be able to afford their dream home? I just can't decide if it's right for us to do, also if we move we definitely won't be able to come back if we don't like it as we'd be priced out. I don't want to keep changing kids schools either. I think the main fear comes from always living here.
Really struggling to decide but can't get the dream house we saw out of my head .
Any suggestions? Sorry this post is so long xx

I have done. In my opinion, if you’re not willing to move, don’t complain about the house prices.

I have been mulling over this thread. I have a colleague who moved from the south coast to Leeds (where I am) 2 or 4 years ago. It was an internal promotion and he thought that the promotion + lower house prices in Leeds would allow him to buy a house. Except he’s discovered that this is massively outweighed by paying for childcare and travelling “home” at least once a month for his partner and children (and himself) to visit family. His children are not in his preferred schools at all, because they cane in at Y1 and Y3 rather than YR. His partner hasn’t settled and wants to move back since they are still renting. I think there is more to life than dream houses.

@ilovemytumbledryer good point 👍🏻

@BikeRunSki hmm, not getting into preferred schools is definitely the worst part. It's a tough one really but yes you're right there is more to life

I think @BikeRunSki has said what I said earlier but more clearly. Several of my best friends are ex pats, so don’t have local family and friends they’ve known since playgroup. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but be aware of the hidden costs.

@Taswama yes you're right . Thanks you so much a

There are costs in time as well as money. I don’t know if the DC are old enough to realise that visiting GPs most half terms is time that we could be going elsewhere, but it won’t be long before “Do we have to go to Granny’s, why do we can’t we go to Spain?”.

@BikeRunSki that's a good point. Although I did plan on visits once a month but you just never know.

Both mine and DP’s families are spread far and wide. Mine is mostly abroad and DP’s parents were both from forces families and all siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins etc are now in different towns, cities and continents. I think that helps as no-one grew up with granny around the corner.

20 odd years ago we had the chance to move to another city but we decided not to because of leaving friends, family etc. Ironically, our DS lives there now and it's fantastic and we visit a lot! Now I think we were just scaredy cats and should have been more adventurous. The prices of houses have risen dramatically too so we'd be quids in. But hey ho, that's life.

Hi OP,

Yes, I would. As long as the city you are moving to is safe with good amenities, I'd say go for it.

We've actually just done something similar (but haven't moved as far) moving semi-rural to city centre living.

For 10 years, we've been living in a really desirable (=overpriced) county in the North East. The house was lovely, but our mortgage was high and we hated having to compromise our lifestyle despite working hard and earning well. We've just moved to another far less desirable city (but to an absolutely gorgeous part of the city), into a bigger/better/grander house, and are now completely debt free, have halved our mortgage and have, for the first time, got a lump sum in the bank. We've booked a holiday, lots of activities over Christmas, bought gorgeous new furniture... Things we couldn't do in our old house as all of our earnings went into that.

We were fortunate enough to make a fair bit of equity in the old house (about £180,000) to fund this change.

Go for it. If you hate it, you can always move back. Would you rent first to test the water?

@MrsPworkingmummy that's sound like us , working hard but little left at the end which is why we are considering it. But we won't be able to move Back due to being priced out. Also didn't want to rent due to kids schooling but not sure.

I'd just say go for it then! You'll make new friends, family and existing friends are always only the end of a car ride away, and making memories with your family without being stressed about money is priceless. We wish we'd done it earlier. I wouldn't move back to the posh place we've been just moved from.

@MrsPworkingmummy thank you, there's a lot too think about but thanks for help