Has lockdown made you want to move house/area?

[Wondermule]

Just curious whether it’s only me that feels this way!

Yes and no. I don't particularly love my house, but I love the life we’ve built around it. It’s convenient for everything- work, school, community, green space, exercise. It’s been a long year at home though and we really have our grown it with me wfh permanently now. The youngest has a box room and we’d love to give her more space. We have started the ball rolling on the move process!

No. I've got a couple of good friends in the block and I've really appreciated having people around to chat to.
DH wants to move but that's because he's a miserable git who seems irritated by the mere presence of other humans.
He's rather do lockdown alone in a barren field I think. I can't imagine anything worse!

Yes definitely! Our house is going on the market next week and we are moving to the coast and close to family

I moved from a 1 bed flat to a 3 bed “project” house in lockdown 1. Move had been on the cards way before covid was a thing.

Grateful for the extra space and renovating has given us something to do but it’s exhausting living in a mess all the time.

Also now that working remotely on a more permanent basis is on the cards I do sort of wish we’d moved out of the city and bought somewhere cheaper and finished.

Worse problems to have, I guess.

Not lockdown specifically; we live in a very big city with a toddler and I’ve wanted to leave for somewhere semi-rural with better schools for a long time.

The advantage of lockdown for us has been that DH has seen we can WFH 2/3 days a week, which means he’s willing to live further out (we’ll still need to commute a few days a week).

The only problem is the place we want to move to, while lovely, is very expensive, so sadly our move is unlikely to come with a decent garden and lots of rooms, but it’s a compromise I’m willing to make for great school catchments and being closer to my family.

We rent at the moment so unfortunately don’t have a house to sell, so our first time home will need to be a small starter property, but I just hope we’ll have nice neighbours and am aiming to get an allotment.

It had the opposite effect on us. We wanted to move as we lived in a remote place, didn't know anyone, and had a commute. Our house was on the market when lockdown 1 happened. Then my little, local community, who I once thought nosy and a bit old fashioned, rallied around each other and pulled together to make sure every person was OK and shared resources and information. I was moved to tears over it. When we were all terrified back in March 2020 I felt safe that if needed, they would help me out.

During L1 we went out and about and discovered our village had beautiful walks, friendly people and we fell in love with it.

No, but it made us decide to have our garden done up. And helped me to decide against compromising on having what I want.

We moved last month!!
We were always going to at some point but the gift of a deposit from MIL combined with nightmare noisy neighbours just hastened the fact!
We have gone from 3 bed 1 bathroom to a 4 bed 2 bathroom which has been amazing and the boys no longer have to share which is great for them to get some personal space.
Downstairs hasnt changed much ( we had loyunge/diner, kitchen, study and conservatory) and we still have those rooms but they are better laid out and the conservatory is twice as big, modern and much more usable!
I think that moving combined with having a big sort out, some new furniture and decorating has helped us get out of our lockdown slump.

We already have!

No but I have fallen in love with my garden and the "visitors" we have there every day, I have become a real twitcher and learnt so much about our native wildlife.

Yes. It has made me realised my neighbours are annoying as hell. Our estate is a new build, the houses are so close together, you feel like you're living in each other's pockets.
Don't even get me started on the neighbourhood kids... they may as well be running around in my house they're that loud.

It did and we did move. Couldn't bare the house we lived in 24 hours a day. Cramped and needed so much work doing. Issues with damp, mice and a many others.

So much happier now.

Yes 💯 in fact I’ve sold my house and am in the process of moving to a new one.

We moved last month!

From a two-bed mid-terrace with shared yard where the neighbour’s dog pissed up the shared fence thrice a day, and husband was wfh in the kitchen...

This possibly explains why we busted the budget and bought a veritable mansion of a four-bed detached, with garden and soon-to-be-converted to an office shed.

It’s such a relief to have some space, and I am so excited for a garden I can enjoy this summer. (Without a pissy dog in it).

Yes and no. Where we live is quite urban but we've grown closer to our immediate neighbours during lockdown and feel very supported. We don't have family living nearby but it has been lovely having friends nearby to go for a walk with, given everything else is shut. I think that's been better for my mental health than lovely views and a large garden would have been.

But I am bored of it now...as are most of my friends! We're fed up of playgrounds and urban parks and just want to get out of the city and have a decent walk somewhere. But I and quite a few of my friends grew up in the countryside and one thing we're seemingly all agreed on is that we have no desire to move back permanently. When cities reopen, we'll be first in line to enjoy everything .

Yes and no.

Our location was never meant to be our forever location but what we could afford, so it’s already starting at a disadvantage. I’m so fed up of my home, all it’s big and small flaws. I don’t get that feeling of being ‘home’ when I walk through the door. I’m fed up of walking on the fields at the back, I’m fed up of walking round the village. I wasn’t overly inspired by village walks to begin with. So all of that has worsened.

However, I’m grateful that we’ve got our house. We’ve got an old (knackered) house but there is plenty of space. I’m so grateful that we both have spaces to work from home in without being on top of each other, sharing the dining table or one of us having to be in our bedroom. We can both keep our bedroom, our living room work free (I work in the living room but our living room is long and thin and effectively two rooms and I’m in one part with the living room in the other half). I’m grateful for our garden, even though it needs so much work doing to it. We’ve been able to get stuff on our house done which is making me like our house more. I know I’d be bored in any other house so at least here I have the space to survive the pandemic, which I wouldn’t if I moved. I’m hoping that as we can go further afield, that feeling of ‘home’ will come back.

Still love our area but really want a 3 bed flat/house. Also less fussed about being close to the tube. I used to think that a family of 3 would be good in a 2 bed but I think 1 room for each person is really ideal even if the third bedroom doubles as home office.

We've been looking at houses online. We live in an estate and would love to have our own plot. Have done a few bits in the house for now but I do foresee us moving at some stage in the future. Teen dd was horrified when we went to view a house less than a mile away 🙄 If we'd had enough money we'd have bought it but it would have stretched our budget and needed work to tidy it up.

We're in the process of moving, hopefully.

We were already considering it a bit before all this, in a it'll be nice to do someday sort of way. At the start of last year I was thinking we'd wait a couple more years until my oldest is out of college which is a short walk from where we are now, but lockdown has definitely heightened how much this house is frustrating us and no longer suits our needs (and from the increased amount of shouting from the neighbours and their crazy complaints, I think they feel the same way) and we were lucky enough to find a house that ticked all the boxes and DS1, having gone and seen the area and the house from the outside, he's happy with the longer commute for that though there is still some disagreement on who is getting which bedroom

No, it's made me incredibly glad that we moved area a few years ago, to a more rural area with much lower population density and endless lovely places to walk easily without rubbing shoulders with people.

I'd like to move house but not area. The problem is I don't have half a million to spend on what i'd want (3 bedrooms, house not flat & small outdoor space, it's not a big ask!) in this area.

I wish we had more space, but can't afford it!!

@emmathedilemma

I'd like to move house but not area. The problem is I don't have half a million to spend on what i'd want (3 bedrooms, house not flat & small outdoor space, it's not a big ask!) in this area.

Crikey Emma, where do you live?!

Yes, good god yes - ditto on the need a tad more money to get what I want/need - remote/detached - no neighbours ever again

We wanted to anyway before lockdown, can't cope having a family of 4 in a small 2 bed anymore. But lockdown has made us happier to look further from home as it means a bigger home, and space to wfh too.

Hopefully we'll be out of here by the end of the year.