AIBU to think about moving when I don’t absolutely HAVE to.

[Homer28]

Posted in Money Matters during the week but reposting for some more opinions..if that’s okay 🙂

Hi - hoping for some advice from people who have taken the plunge and regretted it.. or not!
My husband and I are currently early 30's, 2 kids (9 & 1), no real childcare costs and living in a 4 bed semi that costs us £600pcm with gross salaries combined at £82K.

We are in our home around 7 years so at that stage where it really needs a bit of investment/TLC. We bought when we were earning much less and interest rates were much less with the thought of eventually moving but now that we are at the stage of having that conversation we are running scared!

We have good bedroom space but our downstairs isn't big. It works for the 4 of us day to day just about but when it comes to entertaining or birthdays or even having family round at Christmas things are cramped.

We have been looking at houses at around £1,000pcm + increased rates & light and heat, furnishings and can't seem to decide whether its worth moving.

Anyone else made the move to a bigger house and regretted no longer having that £500 per month that they used to be able to use for other things?

We do like our weekends away/holidays/ability to go for a meal out spontaneously without having to worry/budget too rightly and wonder if we will regret moving.

YABU - Don’t move, you are overstretching yourself with that mortgage/gross income ratio
YANBU - Move to the bigger “forever home”/good investment long term.

I've not voted as assuming you have no other debt then looks like you could afford it but...
What would happen if your circumstances change? And perhaps you had to pay for childcare etc? How much of an extra stretch is it really for you would be my advice to really think hard about.

Hard to say but could you just save the extra money for now and then after a while you know you can afford to lose that money? We're very luckily at the moment that our mortgage is at a very low rate for another couple of years so we're putting what it will go up by into savings - that way when we do have to renew we know we're can afford that excess. The extra money just put aside for a year then have a think - you sound in a good position to do this.

I’m a single parent on less than half your combined income.

My newly divorced solo mortgage is £900pm on a tiny tiny house in the north (and that’s with nearly £100k equity) and thanks to my ex being my ex I’ll be paying until beyond retirement. I’m guessing you have a great legacy mortgage rate?

You can afford it.

However: moving is hell so you have to really want to.

Do you love the area? What about an extension?

I moved in my early 40s and it was hideous. But I went from a 2 bed flat to a 4 bed house and then almost immediately Covid hit and I'm still wfh so hugely value having an office. Having a mortgage again isn't fun (albeit a reasonable one)

In your shoes I wouldn't move - I'd improve

Is there room for improvement? Extension or renovating to make downstairs more usable? If the house is solid and location good it could be worth making it work for you

Thanks everyone. I don’t think I’d given enough headspace to the hell of moving so that’s definitely put that on my radar 😅
Both houses are in the same area which we love. We could extend this house but our living room is double doors into our kitchen so extending the kitchen would still have the downstairs feel like one big room and our already small back garden would maybe reduce too much.
I would also need to weigh up the cost of the extension vs the cost of moving as the bigger house really is much more spacious.