To never move from my starter home?

[namechange59482]

We bought our house 6 years ago as a starter home. It's a 3 bedroom terrace with a garden. The third bedroom is a box room so is tiny. Since we have moved in we have had two DC a girl and boy.
It's in a good location for us very close to schools and reasonable distance to both our parents.
With it being an old house there have been a few issues and we have had to spend more than we wanted. We have now discovered another issue which is going to cost us.
I have looked at the market if we ever move we atleast would want 3 reasonable sized rooms and to stay within the area. The issue is whilst we could possibly afford the mortgage of a bigger house it would be our absolute maximum. At the moment we have managed to spend on this house because we have the equity to occasionally borrow abit and also have been able to save. We will definitely need to borrow for this latest issue.
I feel it has come to the point now we either move or spend. I do feel really we have no choice but to stay here. If we choose to sell the buyer would probably try to knock a lot off the price. I'm also concerned if we did move there is no guarantee the new house wouldn't have its own new set of issues.
The thought of how much we have may now spent on this house to move in a few years also seems ridiculous.
Would stay put in these circumstances?

In our case, dd lived in the box room until we converted the attic and she moved up there - we needed the larger room for visitors. She was very happy there and has her bed pushed into a tiny corner in the attic.

Our house is worth more than - but is less than half the size and less than 1/3 the size respectively, of DBIL and DSIL's houses in the countryside (were in the capital city). So I feel that pain.

I would try and look at either making the box room work better with tall storage, cabin bed with study desk under it, etc. Or else seeing if the house can be adapted through moving walls, converting the attic etc to get more space in individual rooms or more rooms in total.

I think I would move given that one child has the Box room.
Assuming box room is really small and only big enough for a bed and chest of drawers.
Box rooms aren't really suitable for bedrooms once DC hit school age.
Of course there maybe differ definitions of box rooms!
If you can't afford it it would be different but it does sound like moving is an option so I would look at moving unless you can go up into the loft.

We got stuck in our starter home during the housing crash a few years ago. I'm glad we stayed put tbh. Much cheaper to run, mortgage nearly paid off.

Exactly.

Ask yourself who benefits from the idea of the ‘starter home’ and the perceived obligation to move up the ‘housing ladder’ and then ‘downsize’ like it’s some kind of compulsory life process, like ageing and taxes?

Live where and how suits you. Move house because you want or need to, not because you think you’re ’supposed to’.

Stay put for now, if something changes in the future, you can always move then. There’s no law that says you have to move house every X amount of years/once you’ve had Y amount of children!
DPIL are still in the (2 double and a box room!) home they bought as their ‘starter home’ just before they married, over 35 years ago. It’s seen them have and raise three sons, who’ve now all moved out of course, and they’re still very happy there.

Attic extension?

@BeaRF75 This is exactly what we did, it’s not a teeny starter home it’s a 3 bed semi but we could have moved to a big detached. Been here for 25 years and paid the mortgage off about 15 years ago. Now we are looking at early retirement and should be able to by the time we are both 59, we could now at both 55 but seems a bit young. Four of us lived here, now three. Next door raised three children in their house. Our actual road is such a nice road. Longest resident has been here since 1932 as it was her parents house that’s exceptional but many people that are immediate neighbours have been here at least 20 years, next door are at 40 years.

It’s really who’s in a house that makes a home and not the bricks and mortar.

We stayed in our first place for a very long time. We only moved to be closer to where we were spending our lives, but that was more expensive. Hopefully we will only move once more when I retire.

Moving is expensive and pointless unless you are making a massive gain from doing it. I would have paid off the mortgage long ago if we hadn't moved and would have far more saved for retirement which becomes a much bigger focus as you get closer.

A 3 bed house isn't a starter home. For many people that's their long term family home. Starter houses are usually 1 or 2 beds.

Your issue is the small box room. Could a loft conversion be done at some point? Put a larger bedroom and wc in the loft. The box room could be an office/spare room/have the loft stairs in it - depending on your layout.

Your home sounds fine to me particularly as you like the location.

We're still in the 2-bed starter home we bought 18 years ago. One child, it suits us.

3-bed is not really a starter home, seeing as the average family have 2 kids.

I hope this is me in 15 years!

Snap! ^^This post, word for word. 😀

We have followed my parents who bought their first house in the 70’s and are still living there.
We too have no intention of moving from our first time buyers house as it means that we can now afford to live comfortably in an area that is relatively central with good primary and secondary schools, buy whatever we want within reason, and even save a bit. Coupled with our disinterest in moving up the property ladder is our disinterest in huge fancy cars so outgoings on the cars we run - bought with economy in mind is minimal.
There’s someone on instagram Aliceinscandiland who has done amazing things with her first time buyers house in Cornwall. What she’s done is not for the faint hearted and has been work in progress for a number of years but the article she wrote about why they decided to stay there rather than move is well worth a read.

@LightSwerve

Not really, no.

shes said this work needs doing now & they'd need to borrow to do it.

so they're looking at either borrowing to do the work or move.

@namechange59482

what is the work that needs doing??

Yes, I'd stay. Can one of your DC have the boxroom as their bedroom? If not you can do what many of us do and give the Dc the bedrooms and sleep downstairs. I only have 2 bedrooms and can't afford to move so I have done that.

I wish I had kept my 'starter home'! 2 beds, nice garden, lovely neighbours, all I need really.

@cadburyegg it may not be desirable for a teenager, but it IS big enough, they just have to declutter (or have storage elsewhere). My Aunty's house is 2 large doubles & one box room. Due to the layout walls couldn't be moves to spread the space over 3 rooms. My 2 male cousins grew up there & I had the box room (as a young adult) for a couple of years. Perfectly doable.

The house i ended up buying is a 3 bed with garden, pure luck it came on the market when it did as I was really only looking at 2beds I got it because it was only slightly more as in £30k more but being its in London and I'm on my own i figured its a house I could grow into if need be, near schools etc. Or it would be my forever home cos I definitely can't afford to move on just my income alone unless I'm downsizing or moving out of London.

Been over 10yrs now and I still consider it my forever home, id love to have a detached house but can't afford one unless I move way far out but I have great commute times where I am now.

I figure the money I'd have to spend on stamp duty etc I can use to sound proof my house instead. In fact its far cheaper to just adapt my house e.g. sound proofing, extension if need be than to move

Still in our “starter home “
we bought it 1998
was 2 beds now it’s 3 with bathroom extension conservatory!
Had 2 children both have flown the nest ! And it’s our home ! Mortgage paid off a while ago so more surplus cash makes life more enjoyable ! No worries about money !
it’s a shame more people don’t do it !

Similar here, albeit only 25 years into our 2 bed starter home and I wouldn't trade a fancier home or additional bedroom for any amount of money. While the additional space would be nice, it's just not worth it, for me anyway.

There's peace of mind not being tied to a huge mortgage and being able to do things in life, as well as meet all the other challenges that life throws at us without having to worry about rising rates. People will view this differently depending on the other demands they have in life though.

I think people want the big forever home these days as their starting position. And I suppose in some cases, depending on where people are based, these days bigger homes might not actually be all that much more expensive compared to flats/smaller houses plus moving expenses. Different times, different expectations too.

We still live in our end terrace "starter home".

It was a 2up/2down and we bought very young (18&19) with the intention of upsizing when we were ready to start a family.

House prices pretty much immediately skyrocketed and although we had a lot of equity, a bigger house was still out of our affordability for a long time because house prices had doubled but our earnings hadn't!

We released some equity and built an extension to mean we now have 3 double bedrooms and a box office.

By the time we were in a position to afford bigger we just thought sod it, there's hardly anything left on our mortgage, our house is big enough for us so why restart another 25+ year mortgage when we can use our spare cash to enjoy our lives and be mortgage free from our 40s!

We are still in our first home, it wasn’t the plan but the housing market is ridiculous now, I honestly don’t know how young couples are affording these house prices.

its a 2 bed roomed house which we have partitioned the bigger bedroom which means we have 3 small bedrooms, with one being only big enough for a bed and wardrobe but it works. Kids are both in early 20s and for us it would be too much hassle to move now so we are staying put and upgrading.

once one of the children move out we will be bringing the partition wall down to give us back a bigger bedroom . We like our neighbours, street is quiet and it’s handy for commenting, also means we have extra money for luxuries eg eating out , going on holiday, new cars and we don’t need to worry about paying bills.

also means less to clean!

This

3 beds is definitely not a starter home

Nothing wrong with a box room as a teen bedroom. I was perfectly happy in mine (8' x 10' = 2.4m x 3m) until I finally left home in my early 20s. I'd stay wehere you are if it were me OP.

Paid £80k for our large 3 bed semi 20 years ago. Our first house. I was 21. Mortgage paid off 3 years ago. It's done how we like it, we like the area, the three bedrooms are big. Would even dream of moving!