if you live in a big house, do you regret the size of your morgage

[Lardlizard]

Or are you glad ?

I massively regret it. Love this house but it’s big and old and damp and no matter how much money we through at it, it never seems to improve! I absolutely fell head over heels and talked my husband into buying it, even though we are mortgages to the hilt. :-(

*throw!

Not sure anyone is going to reply saying, No I love my mortgage

I regretted it til this year when we paid it off almost three years early.

No because it's all proportional to income, the deposit we had etc. I sometimes regret how many rooms I have to keep tidy, but generally love our big house!

We bought at a good time and recently increased our mortgage to upgrade and extend the back of the house and I love it!

We don’t have a massive massive mortgage but it’s still fairly hefty and the top up added about £350 a month to it. However daily I love my house and it’s comforts and I wouldn’t change it for a less comfy and smaller house and smaller mortgage.

Went to the limit. No regrets.

Not particularly, and on paper we massively stretched ourselves, but I live in the North East!

Echo what @goldpendant said about number of rooms to keep tidy though. The lady who sold the house to us said she was moving because her kids had moved out and she "didn't want to clean 3 toilets any more". Wish I'd listened to her!

My sister quite regularly says to me that she’s house poor.

She didn’t want a big house (more so because she didn’t want to do the cleaning and she’s extremely humble). But her husband really really wanted it and now it’s all he moans about. They live month to month because of the mortgage (not on beans but not the lifestyle you’d expect by their house).

One of the cons she’s realised is that everyone thinks they’re loaded and quite often come to them asking for contributions for funerals/weddings/unexpected costs as I’ve even heard our family say ‘well they can afford it’.

They live in a million pound house but really it’s just your normal house with a guest room/bathroom and an extra living room they never use. Their double garage is just full of junk.

They want to sell it but the market isn’t great so they’re literally stuck right now.

But on the other hand they have air con which is lush during the one week heat wave

Sometimes I regret it. We can't afford nice furniture for the whole house and it's a lot to keep clean and tidy. I think about holidays we've missed through not having the disposable income.

Otoh it's lovely to have plenty of space especially when friends and family come over.

I don't regret our mortgage (It's very affordable as we didn't overstretch ourselves) but I regret the property sometimes. It's not our forever home but we will be here for the next 5 years or so.

Years ago I had a big house with a big mortgage and I did love the house but nowadays I'm glad I don't have a big mortgage
it's just too much of a worry
(but then I am lazy and I don't like having to work🙈)

Well no but we are older and because it's not our first house our mortgage isn't huge compared to the value of the house.

We didn't regret it as such as I fell in love with it - 4 storey Georgian terrace. However, it turned into a complete money pit. We paid off the mortgage when DH took very early retirement.
House is currently SSTC and we've bought a modern house (about 20 years old) instead.

Slightly sad to be leaving our current home as I thought it was my dream house but in reality the amount of work we had to do was never ending and was very stressful and expensive.

@Lardlizard

Nope. I live in a modest 3 bed detached that has the mortgage paid off.

I do know a small handful of people who, (around 2011-2014,) sold their house they bought for £30K to £40K in the late 1980s, for £150K to £170K.

Then they took that entire amount (as it was clear profit because their mortgage had been paid off,) and who took out a mortgage of £130K too, to enable them to buy a property in the £280K to £300K range.

This was at the age of 48-52 y.o. They maxed themselves out with the mortgage, and got themselves another 20 years of paying out (when they were mortgage free at 50-ish,) JUST so they could say they live in a big 4 or 5 bed detached newbuild, with a double garage, and 4 toilets/2 bathrooms in a 'better' area than they lived before.

Biggest regret ever for all 4 or 5 of them. Just so they could say they live in a big fancy newbuild, in a 'better' area; they now have a mortgage that takes 40% of their salary, and they will be working (full time) til they're 70.

I imagine a lot of people who 'maxed out' on the mortgage, and upgraded and tied a ball and chain around their neck til they're 70, have regretted it. I can't imagine why you wouldn't. Getting yourself tied down for another 20 to 25 years, when you were mortgage free at 48, and living a perfectly decent property, in a perfectly decent area before is batshit IMO!

We used to have a massive old house and we loved it but it was actually cheaper than the tiny house we live in now as the area was considered to be dodgy! Wasnt that bad but we moved for schools.

I live in a huge lovely house. It’s so quiet here too big gardens, detached. Very sought after area.

However it’s DPs and in his name, and he is stingy with money. So I find it quite difficult really. Everyone around here assumes I’m loaded, but I hardly have money for a haircut or basic stuff with the kids. He criticises every penny. I find it very hard and feel awful not being able to give what others expect from me and have a huge personal debt.

So I find it very isolating too. I know when I leave him, I’ll never live in such a nice house again either. His next younger girlfriend will be like me and will fall for the whole ‘package’ while me and the kids will be in struggling.

I don’t regret it but it’s fairly sizeable and costs £3k per month to service, albeit principal and interest. The house is beautiful, when we bought it, we took it back to brick and renovated it to within an inch of its life, but it’s too big for our requirements and I think we will downsize in the next 4 years.

I would probably regret the mortgage if the only reason it was high was due to its size, I will never ever regret the areas I have chosen to live though, they were all expensive but worth it.

I have never regretted it for a second. Its amazing and I still get that rush when I come home. For the first six months it felt like we were house sitting and waiting for the real owners to turn up.

We are not flashy people at all, but some people's reactions when we moved here were upsetting. I don't like to think I've changed but I actually lost a couple of friends over it. Strange but meh.

I still cannot believe my luck.

Our house is big - though relatively inexpensive for its size because a lot of people don't like having a train line at the back and a busy road at the front.
It was absolutely the right decision for us though and we've loved having the space as the family have been growing up.

Just saying big and expensive don't always go together. I'd quite like to move house, but, looking on line, we'd lose SO much space to spend the same money in other places we're looking at, we're going to have to wait until it is time to downsize.

Our house is big, but the mortgage isn't, so no regrets. We've never overstretched ourselves, always made sure we can afford the repayments on one income, and have gradually traded up over the years. We know we are fortunate. We've been in this house nearly 20 years and the mortgage will be paid off in a few months.

Warmfirechocolate that sounds awful.

How long have things been like this? Are you planning to leave your husband?

Nope I don't regret it!

It's massive, but there are seven of us. I love it, and its location, but I do sometimes wonder how it will feel when the kids have all left home, and we're rattling around in it.