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

[Lardlizard]

Or are you glad ?

Slight regret

Love where we live & kids have great street yo play on but the mortgage is big so kids won’t be getting cars when they’re teenagers.

I lust after beautiful , large homes with well tended gardens. I imagine the lives of the occupants. Wondering how they’ve made their money to afford such opulence ( selling carpets and household furniture has been a nice little earner for a couple of families in my town).

In reality, I live in a modest semi detached bungalow with almost no garden, just decking and patio. It was two bedroom but we extended it to 4 bedroom and made a big lounge and dining room and the bathroom and kitchen also increased considerably. I love it and by not over stretching ourselves we’ve had a lovely life.
Loads of holidays, Florida, Europe, Uk all with three kids In tow, theatres, loads of meals out. We had a holiday caravan, holiday home I. The country, house in Florida, place in France
I would’ve had none of that with a huge mortgage around our necks and the good news is ..when exh cheated left I got the house.
If it had been a big house, I would’ve had to sell For him to get his share and maybe not live somewhere as nice as I live now as I was 56 when he divorced me.
Bills for our home are modest. Probably about £300-350 so plenty of money to enjoy living a nice life style as pensioners.

As much as I would’ve loved being lady of the manor with hindsight, this has worked so much better for me and I don’t feel like me and dh are rattling around in something too massive.

Ours is fairly big but the right size for us as our adult daughters are still living with us and will be for a few years yet. They have large bedrooms big enough for sofas and TVs as well as their beds so we each have our own space and my husband has a big office. It’s a lot of work to maintain though especially as we have an acre of gardens. Luckily we don’t live in an expensive area so we don’t have a mortgage anymore. I don’t regret buying it and it was the right choice for us.

This is interesting as we are about to make a huge jump to a Victorian detached house. The mortgage terrifies me, but we’ve budgeted for it and the heating. Plus have a fair amount of equity that will give us a cash inject into getting bathrooms / kitchen sorted when we get there.

The main thing is garden for the kids to play in, we have a yard / terrace now but will be going to a big garden and DH has been pining for a proper garden for years, he’s an avid gardener.

For us, the hidden cost in buying a large house has not been the mortgage, bills, renovating etc, but the garden(!) We didnt even own a spade before we moved here (as had a courtyard garden in our last house). Now we have virtually every piece of gardening machinery known to man.....including a ride on mower (whose annual service is more than my car 😏), push mower, chain saws, hedge cutters...the list goes on.

Whilst I’m pleased we have the indoor space, I know that I wouldn’t want a larger garden than the one we have (an acre). It’s just about manageable, but we do a lot ourselves, plus get a couple of people in once a year to blitz the trees/hedging that we can’t reach. On the plus side having the outdoor space comes into its own in the summer with a LO. And right now I wouldn’t change that 😊.

I had a big house and after my divorce I ended up with a rental property, a home with dp and a holiday cottage all mortgage free as well as some savings out of my share so no regets.

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. :-(

Are you me?

Interesting to read this thread. I'm buying my first house next year, likely to be a 2 up 2 down semi or terrace. Just DS and I so only need 2 bedrooms.

I've never lusted after big houses at all, I look at them as being money pits, and loads of extra cleaning that I can't be arsed with.

I can't wait to have a small mortgage (less than what I'm paying in rent) and have more disposable income to do things I enjoy, not just going on bills.

Mortgage is the least of our worries, it's the heating bills.

Never regretted it and in fact still get excited every single time I drive up the lane to go home. Still feels like it isn’t really ours. It was a stretch at first but our salaries have gone up considerably since we first bought it and so we could over pay and we hopefully will be mortgage free in 5 years (bought house 10 years ago) DH’s second house, my first. It’s our forever home. As others have sadly commented some people have been very odd about the house and SIL who has always been very hard work has barely spoken to us since we bought the house.

Surely the real question would be “do you regret your big mortgage” because we all know a large mortgage is likely to buy you fack all nowadays 🤷🏼‍♀️

We bought a smaller cheaper house and although I don't really regret it as we've since had a baby and I haven't gone back to work, I wish we'd spent more and gotten something just a little bit bigger. The mortgage we took out was about half of what the bank would have lent based on our income at the time. Wish we'd spent maybe 25% more.

We had a smallish house but now much bigger after two extensions. We have a huge garden in comparison to others in the area due to its position so could do this. Our mortgage is much less than if we bought a house the same size.

This is a unashamedly boasty post because Iv lived on a building site for nearly two years with two small kids and we did the final touches last month just in time for Christmas.

It has been stressful doing it this way but don’t regret it.

@HarryRug this is my concern when we move, and we haven’t told anyone we’ve sold yet as I know we’ll get narky comments about it. Espesh from DHs side. It’s all about priorities - they like new cars, big holidays / city breaks and travelling, we barely leave home and pay back the mortgage. But it’s us who’ll be seen as flashy.

What's a big mortgage? If I wanted a good sized property in my area it would cost 3-4k a month.

I grew up in a fairly large house for London standards (6 bedrooms, 3 reception rooms, etc) & there is a lot of maintenance involved & general upkeep.

No I'm not unhappy re the large mortgage because the extra room we have makes so much difference (for the better) to all our lives. Enough sofa space, enough bathrooms for everyone to have a shower/use the loo, kitchen where I can actually cook. Bloody marvellous!!

No love mine, the mortgage payment seemed huge when we moved in but luckily our wages have increased a bit.

People are surprised that we own it though, not sure why.

The only thing I didn’t really think about was the amount of upkeep it requires so we had to get a cleaner cos it was too much when working full time and you know anytime you need anything doing - new carpets/decorating etc it’s going to be more money than your mates are paying just due to the size.

It’s increased in value by loads which again surprised me, if it all went tits up we could sell and buy an ex council house (like our first house) cash which is a comforting thought.

I did read an interesting article that in the next decade or 2 a large % of baby boomers will die & the larger houses generally owned by them in London & SE will all by on sale at the same time.

Yes I regret it. Don’t miss noisy neighbours though.

Can we all elaborate on house sizes, for extra information?

Ours is 4,000 sq feet, 6 beds, 4 baths, 6 receps, 2 acres

3000 sq ft, grade II listed here, suburbia though so not much land

Our house is one of the best things dh and I ever bought. We have to pinch ourselves to be able to afford a house in the size and location in London and do it up to our specification (not luxury but comfortable) within budget. Having paid off the previous mortgage, we then took on a new mortgage which was double what the previous one was.

Yes, I live in fear of losing our jobs but dh and I both work ft to reduce the risk and also pay off the mortgage as fast as we can. There has also been massive price appreciation as we bought long enough ago. Dh and I would no longer be able to afford this house on the open market.

The house is the perfect size for our family of 2 teenagers with enough storage space to keep things tidy and easy to clean. I am well aware of maintenance costs and will not go for a house that is any bigger as that is expensive to maintain. Also, I don't want to have to walk miles in my own house just to get a drink or go to a particular room or spend hours cleaning.

Our mortgage will be paid off in 3 years and we will be getting a new mortgage for dcs' accommodation when they are in university. Being a mortgage slave is good financial discipline.

Our house is small but the mortgage is big because we bought a small farm. I do occasionally have a sleepless night worrying about how we are going to pay the loan off but we have no regrets. The free range lifestyle is perfect for us and our DC.

We had an extension. It’s not massive but it’s bigger than all the houses where We live. Everyone else goes out for meals and goes on holiday and buys nice things. We don’t. I don’t regret it at all but have to keep reminding myself why we dont have spare money. We can’t even finish it properly. Also I like to think that one we can sell it get somewhere smaller and help our children our

@Allmyarseandpeggymartin Yes! People are always surprised when I answer the door. When I met my new neighbour for the first time she told me she thought I'd be posher

Mine is 2800sq ft. 5 bed, 2 acres of land.