Do you buy a house with the intention of paying off the mortgage, or using it as a stepping stone?

[mrstea301]

I was just curious about the madness of house prices at the moment and was thinking about the process of buying houses etc. (I also have watched lots of Selling Sunset, Grand Designs and Location Location Location!)

When you buy a house, do you do so planning to fully pay off the mortgage in due course? Or do you buy something as a stepping stone where you can manage the mortgage payments for the foreseeable and can sell it when necessary and move on to something larger or smaller?

It depends where you are in life. If you're planning on starting a family, then you might not be able to afford, right now, the house that would best suit you with a couple of pre-teens, in which case you buy the stepping stone.

I have owned 3 houses.
1 was a stepping stone
2 was a mistake- new build and we shouldn’t have bought it. We now rent it out and it rents well.
3 is our house now, maybe not forever but for the foreseeable future. We paid our mortgage off in 2020.

I don't know anyone who's managed to climb the housing 'ladder'. In London it's a one-shot thing. The only people I know that have moved have been divorcees and those leaving the capital to go home. The housing market is beyond broken here.

Our first place could with some work do for life if jobs etc allow.

We were fortunate to be able to afford something of that ilk as our first place though with reasonable salaries somewhere affordable.

I bought my house in 1990 and have never moved.
I've converted the loft but it's now only needed for storage.
It was more important for me to be mortgage free.

House 1 with each was our forever home until divorce, sold house. Remarried and bought new house with new husband. When we bought it we thought forever home and had loft extension with 2 enormous additional bedrooms and a shower room. Now eldest son left home and bought one house and youngest son probably move in another year. Then just me, DH and foster son in 6 bedroom house so might down size in 7-10 years.

Property 1: a flat in London. Bought cheap with a 90% mortgage, renovated it slowly ourselves over 4 years, sold it and pocketed 30% of the equity as we’d added value. Relatively cheap to buy as a FTB.

Property 2: a house, London/Surrey borders. Only moved because of the stamp duty holiday meaning we could do it for just a few grand. We knew this place was a stepping stone but basically the flat was too small, we couldn’t afford our forever home yet, it wasn’t costing us much to move and it was cheaper to move for a couple of years than to rent for a couple of years (also protected us in case prices rocketed in a couple of years, which they have).

About to sell and buy property 3 which will be the forever home. I don’t think we’ll pay off the mortgage much before retirement unless we inherit, but that’s ok. Unless care fees come into play we should be able to pay it off with inheritance, but I try not to plan financial future on that for obvious reasons! I don’t plan to move again - now we’re out of the stamp duty holiday window, it’s the first time we’re paying SDLT and it’s going to cost us an arm and a leg!

1st purchase - flat. Loved living there but it was never intended to be a forever home.
2nd purchase - small house in London. Loved it but had a tiny courtyard garden so moved out for more space when we had a baby.
3rd purchase (joint with husband) - detached family home with a big garden. Could have been a forever home but I just never felt settled there. Could have been mortgage free quickly if we had stayed here.
4th purchase (also joint with husband) - could be forever home. We've only been here six months so it's a bit early to say, but given the amount we are spending on it we need to stay here a while. We are mid-40s now and if career stuff goes to plan we would pay off the mortgage by our early 50s.

2 year house plan = 10 year house stay !

no, this one now isnt my forever home. Next one wont be either

Our first house was a means to get on the property ladder.

The second one was a trade up to a bigger house for our growing family.

The current one is our 'forever' home. It's a self-build, we've been here 20 years and the mortgage is paid off. We've no intention of moving unless we really feel the need to downsize for our old age. Right now we like having somewhere we can fit the whole family in.

I have never,ever done the "forever home" thing.
Currently mortgage free in a 4 bedder. Probably stay here another 4 years. Then maybe move to a slightly cheaper/bigger property (this move was restricted by school catchment).
But I've moved 8 times in my adult life.

House 1 was a stepping stone. Tiny 2 up, 2 down terrace.
House 2 was a bigger stepping stone. 3 bed semi.
Current house is the forever house (or home until we’re too old or infirm to maintain it).

Our current home is our 9th home (if you add up the homes owned when DH and I were single and then jointly purchased together). This is “probably “ our forever home although we have been here 7 years now and the longest anywhere is 4 years so I do feel twitchy 😬

It’s nice to plant things and see them establish and grow etc as we have never really owned long enough for that to happen.

Unfortunately mortgage won’t be paid off for ages !!

@LaWench

I hate moving house and other than our first home we have bought to stay long term and have made large overpayments on the mortgage. This has been beneficial as a stepping stone to move up to a bigger property with much more equity to reduce the mortgage repayments.

So I guess the answer is both really.

Same here

@BigGreen

I don't know anyone who's managed to climb the housing 'ladder'. In London it's a one-shot thing. The only people I know that have moved have been divorcees and those leaving the capital to go home. The housing market is beyond broken here.

All my London friends have climbed the ladder pretty successfully. My best friend bought a flat in Lewisham about 2 years out of uni with her boyfriend. They married, sold it and bought a flat in Greenwich. Value went up massively, they went up the career ladder, sold that house and bought a 3 bed terraced house in Dulwich. Now selling than and buying a 5 bed in the same area!

Bought 1 house age 33 plan to stay in it till kids are grown and then downsize to a tiny minimalist flat where I can live clutterfree!

1st purchase (flat) = stepping stone, we just wanted to get on the ladder.
2nd purchase (3 bed house) = bought for more space as wanted a second child. Nice area, not great for school catchments though and house had a tiny garden.
3rd purchase (5 bed house) = relocated out of London to a village. DH loves it and definitely sees it as a forever home, or at least until we retire. I like it but can see myself wanting to move to the next town in a few years. Time will tell!

buying our first home now.
in our 30's with dc so buying something we ideally want to be in 5-10 years (while DD1 is in primary school).

Had to compromise area / house state (it needs quite a lot of work) but we need the space. It's not a 'dream' home, or a 'forever home' but if needs be we can stay long term.

If we were pre-children we would have brought a stepping stone house (2-3 years) to just get out of renting.

People moving into houses later now means needing more space, and therefore staying longer term (I think).

People moving into houses later now means needing more space, and therefore staying longer term (I think)

Yes, we didn’t buy our first house until our early 30’s when we already had children (we spent most of our 20’s living abroad and had children there but wanted to come back before DC1 started school), so our first house was a 4 bed and we’ll have been in it for 8-10 years by the time we move.

We brought what was supposed to be our stater home. Then there was housing market crash, years of negative equity, change circumstances, no real increase in housing price and we got stuck.

Bought my house with the intention of staying in it forever. I have no desire to take on a bigger house with further mortgage payments, no desire to make as much money as possible. I want the security of a roof over my head that's fully paid for.

But I've only had one child so I only need 2 bedrooms, a bigger house isn't necessary.

Ours is the mid stage family home but we only have 50k left on the mortgage. We were going to move a couple of years ago but couldn’t find the dream home, we would have been increasing the mortgage to around 200k plus using current equity and getting a detached period property. I’m so glad we didn’t now!

We did extend ours though which turned out to be the best all round for us.