To move because dh inherited property?

[bowmejen3]

So I'm born and bred in Hackney. Met my husband here who is originally from south Manchester in one of the largest council estates In Europe apparently.

We've been married 10 years and have two children. (4 and 2 months)

We rent privately and was looking forward to getting on the shared ownership scheme this year! 4 year old settled in nursery waiting for reception etc! However DH has been very stressed and with rising living costs. We have not got much to spare each month after saving for our deposit.

Now here is my aibu.
Dh father recently died and left his house (ex council but bought) to dh. It has no mortgage left.

Dh thinks this is the best thing ever as we could move there (3 bed semi detached, big garden, driveway, extra room for washing etc)
Be mortgage free, near his family and have essentially more disposable income to enjoy life, holidays, other ventures etc.

I know I know it sounds perfect on paper... but I always envisioned raising my children in London but dh claims we are actually being selfish because potentially they will never be able to afford to live near us in the future and we may only ever own 25 percent of a flat!
And the area he is from has not got a great reputation...

I believe he could sell the house for around £240,000 (from Rightmove) and put it down for a deposit on a house in London!

Dh thinks I'm being ridiculous to want to not be mortgage free just for the sake of "London" and being snobby towards his childhood area? (Which I'm not)

Aibu?

I'd sell the house and buy somewhere nice with the proceeds that's affordable. I wouldn't do a shared ownership scheme (it can be very hard to ever properly own that way) so London might be too expensive but there's loads of places in between.

If he has been stressed for so long about rising costs, this is his answer, I can totally see why he thinks how he is, and he isn't wrong, but neither are you, I live in London, but its not the same as when we were kids.

What's your support system like in London? And who relies on it more, you or your DH?

I am asking because, with two small children, it is often mum who is doing the day-to-day childcare etc., and in that situation it is such a gift if you have family and friends around to help. If that is your situation, your DH ought to be taking it into account.

Aside from that I think I'd be selling the Manchester house and buying somewhere else, not necessarily London. 240k is a massive chunk of money, there are going to be loads of areas where you could afford to buy with a mortgage and that as a deposit. There would also be quite a lot of places other than Manchester where 240k would buy a house outright.

I would use the money from the house and take a mortgage on a property in a nicer area of Manchester.

Incidentally, I also think Londoners can get into a bit of a bubble about London (which is totally natural, we all do it). My cousin has never lived anywhere but London, and I often find it quite hard to keep a straight face, as she'll say seriously how she couldn't do without her late night shopping, or supermarkets being open on the weekend, or whatever. I think she has confused 'outside London' with 'the 1970s'.

I'd go for mortgage free in Manchester!

Given that the DC are young, and assuming that you can both move jobs, why not go there for a year or two, live in the house, tart it up a bit using the money you were saving for a deposit and then save what you'd have been spending on rent/mortgage.

After that time you can reassess- you'll either have enough for a nice deposit in London or for a very nice deposit in an area you want to live in Manchester (which you will know a bit better by then).

London is great, but not if you're on the bones of your arse with no wiggle room in your budget at all.

No I would not live in and Chester. Especially not a deprived area of it.

Too grey. Grim. Depressing vibe. Noticeably more rain. Just not my thing at all.

Mortgage free house in a lower cost City is a no brained, surely? Or sell it and buy in another lower cost City.

I’d pick being mortgage free any day OP. It doesn’t mean you need to live there forever, you may stay 5/6 years and sell up and move on.

Manchester nor ‘and Chester.’ Sorry!

Chester is quite nice actually, but again, just feels too damp.

Team DH.

If you don’t want to live there, sell it and buy elsewhere in Manchester.

Nothing would make me want to raise my children in London.

Oh god I’m with you, I’d stay in london! You were already going to buy there anyway and now you have a hefty deposit so surely he doesn’t need to worry so much about cash?

while the kids are this young I think id say to dh that youre not convinced its where you want to live forever but youre willing to trial it for a year to see if you like Manchester

I find that people who were raised in London have an unrealistic view of what life is like outside London - eg you say you went to museums on weekends - we have those up north as well! Always something new to explore? Yeah - the north of England also has quite a lot going on! If you live in London and would happily spend an hour on the tube to go to a particular museum or play or whatever, have a look at where you could get to within one hour of the house in Manchester - you’ll prob find you could get to all sorts of nice places (city, country and coast) - there’s certainly no need to be bored.

I’d do it like a shot personally.

Has the house really been valued at 240k or is that your DH's guess? Because if the area is bad why is the house a decent price?

I think you should consider the compromise others have mentioned. Agree to move up to Manchester, but start fresh in a place of your own choosing, and with a nice small mortgage. London has changed quite a bit since you were a kid, there's no way I'd send any kid off to school on the tube unaccompanied. Manchester has culture equal to London, and arguably much more for children.

I'd add another £100k to the house value and buy outside London. I would never choose shared ownership if there was any other option, especially when you have kids. The whole money thing is constantly looming over your life.

Tbh I would pick Manchester any day over London.

^^^ this!

I wouldn't live in a rough bit of Manchester, even if it was free!
It's a great city in lots of ways, as is London.
This is an amazing opportunity for you as a family to change your lives for the better. If it really isn't a nice area, why not sell it and use the money as a deposit for somewhere else?

There is a huge difference between the current private rent/realistically only able to afford 25% of a shared ownership flat and moving to a completely different area being mortgage free. The house can be sold to buy you something in the middle which will still be a massive uplift in your current circumstances. What are your circumstances like work wise where you are? Presumably if paying high housing costs and saving for a deposit you have have decent jobs.

I think I would be looking at how a £220k ish deposit would change your buying power if you look at what you currently pay for housing if that was a mortgage. Would that mean a mortgage of £200k plus with a very healthy LTV? If you are still reasonably young it's good to stretch yourselves to an extent with property. Is living without mortgage/rent costs going to change your lives for the better long term or make life a bit too cushioned so career progression becomes unimportant etc etc. There's much more to the decision than meets the eye IMO. Do you want the DC to see you striving for a goal as they will probably need to do. The inheritance is a wonderful gift which gives you choices. It doesn't need to tie you to a house in a place you really don't want to raise your family.

I’d sell the house and use it as deposit. No way I’d move north from London.

Team DH for me too. You couldn't pay me to live in London. Tried it once and hated it

I wouldn't want to bring up children in London these days, unless it was in a really nice, low crime area (I'm told there are such things, I haven't been north of Streatham for 15 years!)

You're presumably paying rent now, so having a manageable mortgage wouldn't make you worse off. You don't have to choose just between Wythenshawe and London.

I would think carefully about what both areas have to offer in terms of work and career opportunities, access to good schools, leisure and cultural facilities, public transport, ease of getting into the countryside and the physical environment of the area itself.

Personally, I wouldn't want to live in an area that hasn't got much of an ethnic/cultural mix, either. When I moved from south London to a small Sussex town 30 years ago, the town was almost entirely white and it felt really weird, like I'd somehow wandered into a BNP enclave or something. It's much more diverse now, and all the better for it.

A lot of the NW is really lovely, there are some nice smaller towns and nice parts of Manchester. The city itself has loads going on. Maybe go and explore a bit and see what you think.

I certainly wouldn't want to reduce my options to 1 just because it meant being mortgage-free, not when you're young and have a young family. The quality of life can be so much better elsewhere.

Whatever area you decide don't bother with shared ownership- it's a con.

I wouldn't live in wythenshawe regardless of being mortgage free.
There are good bits of Manchester, that isn't one of them. Maybe consider somewhere else in Manchester.