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

[Lardlizard]

Or are you glad ?

Not the mortgage no as we could and can still afford it. Regret the size of the house. I know it’s I sound like a massive dick saying that but like others said it’s a money trap, costing a fortune to renovate as everything’s on such a big scale, costs a fucking fortune to try and get warm and is just do overwhelming. And not to mention the cleaning 😱. Looking for something a bit more manageable next year.

And yes @Xmasbaby11we’re the same some parts just look crap still even after 7 years as it’s just so exit dive to furnish it all nicely!

Absolutely not. Bought a large house in Surrey by mortgaging to the hilt and then some but we looked upon it as an investment.

As it happens both of us were made redundant a few years later and I was re employed by a sister company 200 miles away. We sold the Surrey house for enough to buy an even bigger property outright near Bristol and I was mortgage free with a 6 bedroom house by 42.

We had a few tight years but it was so worth it although it would make me cry if I looked up what the Surrey house would now be worth!

It's not so much the size of the mortgage but the fact we only use 2/3 of the house. I guess we'll make more of the space once the kids are older.

It's not the mortgage. Mortgage is reasonable and do-able because this is house number 3 or 4 for us and we worked our way up.

It's the sodding bills. And the money pit that we pour all our cash into trying to fix the damp, and the dodgy electrics and the roof that leaks. We've a big Victorian house that I adore - but I'm beginning to think about selling up and downsizing as soon as all offspring have buggered off because it's so expensive to run.

Gas/electric/council tax/water rates - these are all the things that cripple us. Mostly trying to heat it. I do love it, and we've been here 20 years, and have very happy memories.

Sometimes I feel sad at the thought of leaving, but the older I get the more than maintenance becomes stressful - and frankly we'll never be able to afford to live here as pensioners.

Yes, we do. It was fine when our boys were growing as we have a big old farmhouse with property. But now that they're grown & gone and we're older the upkeep is a real pain. We'd love to downsize but the real estate market where we are in the US really sucks for properties like ours. Because of the mortgage we can't 'sell cheap'.

Adding: we both agree that if we had to do it over again, we would NEVER have bought the place. We would have bought a somewhat smaller (3 bed/2 bath) house in a nice suburban neighbourhood.

How big is big? Ours is stupidly big for the two of us but it wouldn’t be if we still had three kids living with us.

No ours is big but we never had a big mortgage.

However we had four kids and with only one still at home, we rattle around a little bit. There are rooms I don’t go into for weeks on end. We keep talking about downsizing, but then all the kids will be home for Christmas and people are coming to stay and we are hosting a really big crowd for lunch one day so [shrug]

@thehorseandhisboy yes planning to leave. Thanks for your kind words! Unfortunately not married so will have no claim on said house. However I can truly state I’ll be happier with a genuine loving relationship on a tiny house compared to not being cared about in a huge wealthy house.

I downsized a couple of years ago (when DC still young). I lived in a huge 4 story Georgian house that cost me £1500pcm in bills to keep just above freezing.

I was permanently cold, dreaded the evenings and often went to bed early just to be warm.

I still have a big mortgage but my bills are lower and I see it as a massive investment so no regrets.

House is epic! Very happy with our big mortgage

Very happy with our large mortgage here too. Stretched as much as possible a few years back; renovated it and will do more work to it next year too. It’s an investment and won’t be our forever home but love it for now and love coming home to it.

I remember having sleepless nights when we bought our house. But we hung in there and kept on making the payments every month, and DH got payrises, while I went from being a SAHM to a working parent, and now the mortgage/property tax is about 8-10% of our take-home income.

For a while the property didn't rise in value at all, but I reckon now it's gained about $100k over what we paid for it 12 years ago.

And it's been a great school district for my children.

So now I don't regret it, but 10 years ago I wasn't so sure.

We did the opposite and bought a smaller/cheaper house then we could have done.

I haven't regretted it once and at times when things have been tight I've been very grateful because it's one less thing to worry about.

I went to see some friends who bought a huge house that I really thought I would love, in a style that if I could have afforded it I would have loved to buy.

Weirdly once I was in it, I didn't actually like it. It felt too big, like the family were lost in it and it was somehow oddly oppressive at the same time. It wasn't like it wasn't nicely done up or anything, it was lovely, it just felt odd.

We have a small flat (In London so all we could afford) but my brother has a lovely big house in the north, when he and the family came to stay with us and we were all squished on the sofa my niece, prob about 14 then, could not believe the flat was worth a lot more than their house.

Dunno what point I am trying to make but just sometimes it’s not a big house v small houses debate but how I couldn’t afford a big house no matter how big my mortgage was because you would just never ever pay it back.

Some lovely friends moved out of London, they had quite a nice sized place here, but their place now is enormous!!! Sometimes a big gang of us go up and they can accommodate like 22 people, sometime we joke we will all move in when we are old and hire carers to look after us. They have really been able to indulge their love of junk shop/shabby chic living and I love nosing around, I think in winter they close loads of rooms off. I don’t think they are sorry about the big house even though it’s only them and two kids and somewhere cheaper would take the pressure off financially. I’d rather be cosy yet stylishly minimalist but I do like it there!

We did the opposite and bought a smaller/cheaper house then we could have done.

We did the same and I think I would also find it oppressive living in a huge house with lots of rooms I never used.

My mum lives in a large house, it's always cold. We chose a small house with smaller mortgage, even though we could have afforded alot more. Good job we did because I ended up leaving work to become a sahm.

We have a big house but an insanely cheap mortgage which we are overpaying as much as possible.

We bought it as a blank canvas, but didn’t appreciate how much more it would cost to renovate than it would have in the UK, so it’s not finished. I also regret the cleaning!

Overall though I like the house and it’s in a beautiful, peaceful area, and if I ignore the dust I’m quite happy with it!

Big house without overstretching at all here and I love it. I would prefer a smaller property, though, if I struggled with mortgage/bills or cleaned it myself.

What's a big house?
Our house is huge compared to the one I grew up in but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as big as some of the houses mentioned on here.
We have never been overstretched though. We seem to have been lucky with the houses we have owned as we have made good amounts of money each time, apart from when we sold our first place. But even then we broke even at a time when there had been a huge slump in the market and most people were making major losses. We have sold at much higher prices than we have bought since then though so have managed to bigger houses with fairly small increases in our mortgage. We paid it all off just after I turned 50.
We are fairly risk averse. I always felt happier knowing we could afford the mortgage at least for a while if one of us lost our job. I would rather have a smaller house that I could afford fairly comfortably than be worrying all the time. If we move again it will be to downsize when the children are grown up, so I don't envisage needing a mortgage again now.

On the plus side we have over £1m of equity and it’s been a good family home. The mortgage is interest only so only £400 a month but the bills are high: £400pcm on elec and gas, £300+ on council tax and the same on buildings insurance. the running costs are ridiculous. The people who have benefited the most have been numerous friends and family who have stayed or been hosted at events over the years but as a PP said, they have also sometimes been envious and unkind and taken the piss. we’re also sometimes charged a big house premium by trades people as well, they see the house and add 30% to their quote. We will downsize in a year or two and hope the increase in value means we’ll be mortgage free so from that pov it will have been worth it. The children have loved living here but we won’t miss the running costs when we move.

I’ve paid off my ‘big house’ and I still regret it!

It’s expensive to maintain, and a PIA to clean. The layout worked when we bought it, but so much less now and for the next 10 years (it’s not teen friendly). We’re trapped here for school zone reasons, but after that we’ll be looking for an easier, smaller place.

Life is stressful enough these days without giving yourself a ‘lifestyle straightjacket’ of a big house.

Don’t regret the mortgage but the cleaning, the gardens and bills are a pain. We should downsize now there are no DC’s at home, plus visitors always assume they are welcome to stay as we have more room than anyone else.

But we live in an a really good spot and I can’t find a smaller house that ticks the boxes.