Is 60m2 too small for a family home?

[Ud72u2eye]

We are looking to move and have found a two bed place that ticks all the boxes but it's small (60m2). Dh thinks it ridiculous to even consider it but I think it could work. We have one DC and this ticks both the location and school boxes. Caveat - not sure whether we could afford to move again or assume we could. We are in SE so even 60m2 aren't cheap. Has anyone successfully lived in a small place indefinitely? Are we mad to consider it?

There are five of us in a 3 bed 65sqm home. 60sqm seems the standard size for two beds around here. We only have one reception room so no dining room which is our biggest issue.

No, I wouldn’t do it. Our kitchen diner is 59m2 and I can’t imagine that being the only space we had in the whole house.

suburban living is more common. People accept being 1 hour or even 1.5 hours away from work; or they find new jobs/work remotely/work part time to fit with the new home.And this was the case even pre covid. The difference covid made was that people on really high salaries who already had houses in London felt emboldened to find even bigger houses outside London. And even in london, there is huge differences between areas. For the price of my 52 square metre flat in north london, my friend bought a 3 bed house for the same price in east london. My area does have better schools though and is more central.

In my opinion that's too small. For 2 adults and a child I'd be looking for 80sqm at the very least.

i kinda agree. 52 square metres is great for me and DH and we would never move if we planned to be child free, i would stay here forever. so 52/2 multiplied by 3 is 78 square metres.

Everyone manages differently but my partner and I live in a 112sqm townhouse with a baby on the way. We are hoping to move in the next few years so that we have more space.

As other people have pointed out, considerations such as working from home, hobbies and storage should be taken into account. My partner does triathlon (trains for cycling inside in the winter) and we both work from home so need two separate offices. If we had different hobbies and jobs where neither of us worked from home we would be able to live in a smaller space.

Our downstairs is very small and we find it really hard having guests to stay or friends over as we only have one sofa - it ends up in a weird and awkward seating arrangement and some end up sitting at the dining table. In our next house it is a must that we can at least fit in a sofa and a large armchair or loveseat. I would move somewhere further out to get more space and find a job closer or that involves working from home more.

Could your children afford the same house? I hope you wouldn't tell them that in future. I grew up in a 464 square metre house but my flat i bought three years ago at the age of 27 was 52 square metres. But I love it as it is mine & DH and I saved up for it. Its just the two of us here, but before we bought it, it was occupied by a young couple, a child and a dog and then they moved to ireland and the landlord sold it to us.

I think we were lucky to buy in 2019 in hindsight; cos the prices went crazy during the pandemic during stamp duty holiday and also a lot of mortgages initially got pulled. Now mortgages are 6/7 % so they would be quite expensive for a first time buyer. And I do agree with Gary Stevenson, City trader (); house prices might drop for a year or two (which is why I am looking to upsize to a 3 bed flat now) but they would continue to be high relative to income for years to come. 600 billion pounds was given out during the pandemic and this would fuel asset appreciation for years to come.

We may be the last generation who can afford to buy anything, (60 square metre homes or otherwise) for years to come out of earned income. In future, home ownership would be for people who earn minimum £200k or with parents who give £500k deposits. I saved £60k by living at home but in future 60k would not be enough as a deposit anywhere in the UK except perhaps in very very deprived parts. If I was OP, I would wait a year or two to see how house prices perform, but I would not wait too long for the perfect home in your budget. The house prices might fall in real terms, but if you can't afford it cos your wages haven't gone up, thats a moot point.

@Ud72u2eye I would move to the 84 square metre flat tbh! unless you can build a home office in your back garden or something like that.

@socialmedia23 I’m a similar age to you. Yes, I imagine our children will have similar homes as we will be able to give them a lot of financial help in addition to whatever they can afford themselves.

@NCFT0922 I would assume that if I could buy a house with 59m2 kitchen dinner then I would. However, having just checked houses on the road are around 1.6mil and even if prices fall, I reckon it will still be out of my budget.

Just checked and we could get a small garden office - so that would give us a dedicated work space outside.

I love this YouTube channel - Never2Small. Here it shows a apartment with a family of 5 in 50sqm

So 60sqm is absolutely doable for 3. It just depends how much you value location of space .. therein lies the rub.

I am 30 years old so i am guessing your kids are very young? And I thought that i was the only one trying to keep a flat for an unborn child...I think its not really viable as DH is a higher rate taxpayer and our area in London has fairly low rental yields.

The housing crisis would be worse than I thought! People are setting aside deposit money for their babes. Your children are very lucky.

*location over space

What an insensitive thing to say

This sounds like the size of a 2 bed victorian terrace in my town. Lots of families living in them. Especially if a garden office is a possibility.

It is small but thats what people can afford and it works.

Living space wise and kid's bedroom plus garden look livable to me. You'd just have to be on top of tidying and storage and not having too much clutter, but it's do'able. My old flat was a 1 bedroom and I've just calculated it was 28.5m2 and it was more than enough space for one person and two would have been comfortable too.

It's the main bedroom that would really be a squeeze at 3.5m x 2m. A regular double bed is 1.9m x 1.35m which would leave you with only 32.5cm each side of the bed, unless you put it against the wall.

You'd have to place the bed in a position where it doesn't hinder the door opening, which could be a challenge, and then figure out how the storage would work.

How is it currently set up? Can you see it working with 2 people sharing the space and storage? Ultimately you'll only use the room for sleeping as it is small, so can the living room/kitchen cope with everything else?

Based on the floorplan, I'm guessing this is some sort of Victorian or Georgian conversion, so hopefully you'd have ceiling height to go for some sort of very tall storage options, but again it depends on the layout of the rooms.

I think it is possibly do'able, but it sounds like you're not going to be able to convince your DH.

@WorrieaboutFIL Thanks for posting that link, that apartment was so beautiful.

I felt OK in my small house, it was a great place to live.

I don’t think 60sqm in other countries are comparable. The 60sqm in itself isn’t an issue. In other countries they are designed to be that way. Here they are brick and windows/ utilities all over meant to be part of a two storey house. In other countries I assume they are like big boxes, with paper thin walls you can move around and reconfigure. Doors go in to bedrooms rather than out. Here you lose a lot of space to circulation, windows. If you could take out the wall between the bedrooms and do a two sided wardrobe stealing a bit from each side then that would help. If it’s a brick wall more of a problem.

I think the layout will be the kicker.

Our old house was 98m2, but was poorly laid out- the upstairs was bigger than the downstairs (it was a new build and the upstairs went over an archway which was an access road to the estate).

Downstairs, was a very small kitchen- teeny, two people in it and you couldn’t move. No room for dishwasher, only washing machine, and one small usable side for kitchen prep. Then an open plan living dinner. That was fairly big- 5x5m BUT it’s not that big when you have to do EVERYTHING in that one room.

Upstairs was two double bedrooms, a single room and small-ish but perfectly fine bathroom.

It was just about ok with two adults two young kids, but by the time the youngest was 6 it was difficult if they wanted to watch different things on tv etc/had friends over.

There was no space downstairs to do their own thing. (I didn’t want them having tvs or games consoles in their rooms).

We moved because of the lack of space downstairs. Our new house is more balanced. 120m2, but feels much bigger as there are two living spaces downstairs. The bedrooms are smaller (or at least they feel smaller as two are not square but long and thin).

Good luck with your decision.

Just checked and our room is actually 4x3 so would definitely fit a bed, wardrobe and a small desk.

@WorrieaboutFIL loved that flat. I'd dread to think how much it cost them but it looks lovely

The house I grew up in was 70sq m. That was two adults, two teenagers, and a small child (me) who wasn't born when they moved in, plus a dog and two cats. We had a loft for storage as well. The flat I live in now is about 55sq m (one double bedroom, one single) and there are others in the block who have kids - though we have lots of parks nearby for outdoor space.

I would not recommend having one bathroom between five people, but space-wise it worked. The one thing I wish I had growing up was a garden big enough to run around in.

Your kitchen diner is bigger than our two-bed flat and all it contains? How much dining can one possibly do?

Yes, that would be too small for me. I hate feeling claustrophobic or the feeling of living on top of each other with no personal space to breathe.

Our guest room is 2.7x 3.7m. We’ve had two mid 20s cousins sharing it for past 6 months without issues. It’s arranged so that as you go in there are 1.5m of wardrobes down the left side (highest pax ones you can get with 50cm full length & 2m half length hanging space plus 3 shelves in each) plus a chest of drawers with a mirror and some shelving above it and a folding chair tucked in the corner. You could have a desk there instead with some small drawers.
On right side of the room you can just fit 2 x single divans (with drawers) with a 50cm gap in the middle for a bedside table with lamp and a small gap between the bed and the window which has a radiator underneath.
We did consider loft beds in there when getting the space organised and think that’s definitely a viable option for using a small space efficiently. Our kids both have raised beds and love climbing the ladder at night and the den created under them

How efficiently you can use the space makes a massive difference. We had a 5 x 3.5 kitchen in the past and new one is 3.2 x 3.6 space but it’s got more storage and more open workspaces to use as the design is better. Our old kitchen I think you could have fit the equivalent units in a kitchen half the size

@YouHaveAnArse it’s the ground floor there’s the kitchen bit then one side has our big dining table and the other side has 2 large sofas and the fire. It’s kind of an all in one room that we use most of the time but then have a separate lounge for the evening. We have a big family so it does get used 😂