To just stay in this house forever?

[unicormb]

I hate moving, HATE it. When we rented in London in our late twenties and thirties it was a constant cycle of being out priced from certain areas and having to hop around the capital to the next not-quite-so-nice place that we could afford. We did this until our second child was born, then moved out of London and bought our three bed semi, in a nice SE coastal town.

It's in a great area, v close to our DS's special school, which is Outstanding, and DD's local primary is round the corner. It's a lovely street. We have great neighbours. DH has a big garden office. We have good transport links. And we love our back garden which is bigger than the avg around here.

But our third bedroom is quite small, it's hard imagining a teenager in there. But we could go up into our loft and create a big master suite up there, as many neighbours have done (I snoop at improvements on Rightmove a lot!). We would also want to extend our kitchen out by about 2m and add a downstairs loo, as many of our neighbours have also done.

We can afford our mortgage, which is fixed for three more years. We could borrow more around remortgaging time and get some of the work done.

DH says extending and finding funds for it all is a huge hassle and maybe we should just consider moving in a few years. But I cannot get my head around moving again, it drove me insane. I love living here.

Has anybody else just stuck with the place they love and improved it? I have family nearby and we could stay with them for a while when works happen. We also have a few caravan parks around locally and could probably just hire one of them out of season for a month or two reasonably cheaply.

Like you, we've moved too many times. NEVER, EVER AGAIN. As you can improve, I think you should definitely stay put.

We did a double storey extension on ours. The cost was far less than the cost of stamp duty, surveys, solicitor fees, increased mortgage costs etc.

I'm the same as you, OP. The thought of moving house fills me with dread. I'm quite happy staying here until DP and I are old and wrinkly.

Love it or list it? One of my fave property programmes.

I think op if I was you I’d look at some houses in your next price bracket. And then draw a comparison. Yes it’s a pain, but it’s a short lived one.

We were in a similar position - kids were becoming teens, bedrooms too small, I was adamant that I didn't want to move - spent the best part of 30k on a loft extension and then moved 6 months later. It gave us extra space but didn't put it in the right part of the house and all the other problems were still there.

Plenty of teenagers over the years have managed perfectly well in the small bedroom. Extend if you want to and can afford to, but it’s also fine not to.

I see someone has already said it...you should go on Love it or List it

I want to do the same. Just love it and extend where we need to. The biggest hassle has been trying to find a good builder to do it. They all have waiting lists as long as our arms and costs went up exponentially after brexit. We first looked at a kitchen extension in 2019 and couldn't get anyone to even come round. By 2020 we all know what happened. DH is currently looking at new properties but a big part of me thinks we should just use what we've got and pounce as soon as a recession hits and builders are scrabbling for work.

Someone said to me the other day it's worth thinking of houses as if they cost £100K per bedroom to move. So I'd be extending as everything else you've said sounds lovely.

We'd love to be detached and have a driveway. We are on street parking with 4 doubles and a single with decent living space and a great garden: I can't bring myself to move just for a driveway, I just can't 🙈