To think being happy with a modest home should the norm?

[DinDinDin]

Obv it depends on where you live and your income etc but pretty much every person I know either lives in a big house or is trying to trade up a modest home to try and upgrade for a bigger place. Some of these people can easily afford it whilst others are overstretching themselves to make it work. AIBU to think we are all (myself included) a bit too sucked into this upgrade mentality anf the fact that we always strive to have more stuff? I am facing the (very fortunate) dilemma of deciding whether to borrow the very maximum I can afford and stretch for a bigger home or choose a more modest option and aim to pay off the mortgage faster and be debt free sooner in life.
Do you notice the same attitude with people around you?

I think modesty is different for everyone depending on needs.

As lost as your home meets what you need, or at least you can make do and the inconvenience is minor if it doesn't, then it seems sensible if you're dependent on income from employment to not stretch for more.

It is tempting though! Especially in the early childhood years where kids take up a lot of room with toys and aren't yet out of the house independently like teenagers.

We're holding on....despite not having quite everything we need. Because it's manageable (sort of) and DC will eventually leave. Then we potentially have too much house.

Moving costs a lot in fees/removals. I'm not keeping losing thousands to move up and then down. Lots of friends have more but didn't consider the pressure that comes with having to maintain that income to afford what they have.

No one I know can afford to buy or move

I have said YANBU but I have recently purchased a ginormous house which we are renovating to a high standard.

The important thing I think is not to overextend oneself. Our house is also not in the best location and we have compromised by accepting small / low spec aspects of it such as tiny kitchen and aged bathroom.

I find being cramped stressful. I think our homes are generally quite small and badly designed in the uk.

But i suppose my idea of modest and yours might be different.

We could all do with de cluttering and rationalizing our belongings but I think there's an innate desire to try and gain space and privacy.
I had 4 children in a 1 bathroom, 3 bedroom home and it was so difficult for everyone to get a good night's sleep as one bedroom was only a box room. I extended to get 5 bedrooms, a utility, playroom and 3 bathrooms. At the time it cost me 50k and it was a struggle but so worth it in the end.
At the time I remember a few friends being very forceful in telling me I didn't need it.One suggested I put my children in a Mobile home in my back yard.

This is my feeling. I don’t want to fill a space with more stuff, do more cleaning, pay higher energy bills. I like feeling comfortable and not stretched.

Lots of people basically saying you do you here, but I do agree OP that there is a culture of “more, bigger” now.

I live in a flat, and I know a lot of people see that as “lesser”.

These are definitely things worth considering. Sounds like the right decision for your mum, definitely.

Mumsnet is a different world, literally most people I know live in a rented flat and just get on with their lives, not pining over 5 bedroom detached houses or whatever

Well, I do want to downsize. I don’t want to clean rooms I don’t use any more and I don’t want the expenses associated with a larger house. I’d like something smaller and a cash buffer for unexpected expenses. The market means that no one wants to buy it though. So we’re stuck.

I'm absolutely terrified about the concept of moving, selling etc. I've absolutely no clue about any of it. And I'm going to have to deal with it while suffering horrific bereavement.
First world problem I guess. At least I'll have somewhere to live.
But I've been here so long, I'm so scared I won't be able to take the pressure of it all.

I was brought up in a small terrace and am more than happy with our semi detached bungalow. DP was brought up in a 5 bedroom detached and thinks our house is too small and hates being attached to another property! So I guess everyone has different 'wants'.

My mum lived in our childhood terrace home until the day she died. I remember chatting to her neighbour, a young woman who lived alone. She told me she was getting married and moving to something bigger as they wanted to start a family. She was a bit shocked when I told her that my 2 siblings and I had been brought up in the house my mum still lived in. It was unthinkable to her. No garden. Sisters SHARING a room😲 But we didn't know anything else. We were safe and secure with a roof over our heads. There were so many settled families like ours in those houses back then. Now they are mostly viewed as starter homes and the turnover is huge, with many of them rentals. Nothing wrong with that. Just interesting how things have changed.

It depends where in the country you live we have a 5 bed with dressing room, play room and hot tub.

The difference is we paid 200k ish two years ago have spent 60k and will likely get 350-400k for it. Down south that wouldn't get me a three bedroom semi.

We might move but it will be to a property with significant land for around 500k. We have one DS we don't need the space we have but our mortgage is only around £700 (<1/8 of our take home) a month so why not enjoy it.

We rent a three bed terrace, in a small northern town. Nothing fancy, not a particularly great area, it has no garden, just a strip of yard thanks to a bathroom extension. It's the type of house we would have been able to buy for around £80,000 a decade ago. It's now 'worth' nearly £200,000 and well out of our price range because our income just hasn't risen along with everything else. I don't want a huge fancy house, I'd quite happily buy this one but buying any house seems really, really impossible right now.

I agree OP. Not trading up to a larger detached house (as SILs and most of our friends did) funded my early retirement at 55.

UK homes are on average small for the price and often badly designed/ not particularly comfortable. Most people aren’t trying to buy a mansion with acres of grounds. They might want a detached house in an estate with enough bedrooms for their children and maybe a separate office and a small garden. It’s not hugely decadent.

25 years ago when the houses on my estate were built they were accessible to families on average incomes. Now they are only really accessible to relatively high earners.

My take on it is that I’ll probably do better financially in the long term with a slightly more expensive house than strictly necessary and in the mean time I get to live somewhere nicer for the cost of a few hundred pounds a month. If I need to downsize later so be it. I don’t really care about paying off the mortgage- I just see it a bit like renting from the bank without most of the downside of actual renting.

Of course it’s not sensible to live somewhere you can’t afford without significant sacrifice.

This. Absolutely.

When we got married in the 80s we were advised to buy the most expensive house we could and take on a bit mortgage "because it helps with your tax" whatever that meant. We didn't - just bought a modest house we could afford.

I like my house - pay Band A council tax, no mortgage, not much cleaning and plenty of money left over to do things we enjoy. Why would I want to be mortgaged up to the hilt and pay expensive council tax then have nothing left over to enjoy life?

I do worry when friends mention stretching themselves to the limits of their affordability with a mortgage but it is their choice and to be fair none of them have ended up unable to pay their mortgage.

I am very glad that we went below our maximum affordability. We have discussed moving in a few years but the areas we would move to have more expensive housing stock so we have decided that staying put is the most sensible thing to do. This way we hope to pay the mortgage off by 50 at the latest.

We do live in a cheaper area so are fortunate to have a detached 4 bed with a large (if very overlooked) garden. DH works almost entirely from home however so one of the bedrooms is a permanent office. This house is the right size for us and although I enjoy looking at bigger houses on rightmove the sensible part of me knows that being mortgage free by 50 will have a much more positive impact on our lives than more space.

I’m am so glad that we never made it out of our modest house. We have had two years of hell ( cancer diagnosis for me and a stroke for DH) I cannot imagine how I’d be coping with a bigger house and garden. At the moment DS19 is on a gap year ( actually needed shoulder surgery so was perfect timing) so he does a lot of the jobs DH used to do.
As a result of no mortgage and low running costs both DH and I have been able to take early retirement ( well it was pretty much forced on us). There is no way we would have coped otherwise. I still work one day a week but in a job that is highly paid.
Downsizing would have been a mammoth task for us both physically and mentally.

I look at friends who have the huge houses and equally huge mortgages in their 50s and thank the Lord that we didn’t stretch ourselves when we had the opportunity. The one thing you have no control over is the future. Life can often throw a wide ball so you need to consider all possibilities and make sure you have a disaster plan.

We have some of the smallest properties sizes in Europe and in fact the world.

https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2023/5/size-matters--uk-homes-amongst-worlds-smallest-but-most-expensive#:~:text=The%20research%20shows%20that%2C%20at,India%20(504)%20were%20smaller.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/england-smallest-homes-in-europe-canada-largest-hong-kong-smallest-world-find-me-a-floor-a7597636.html

Also trading up is sometimes less to do with size and about less crime more amenities and school catchments.

I also think design is poor - though we have more pre-war properties as well than other countries - even in new build stuff like clothes drying even in really wet regions of UK never seems to get considered.

Looking at older relatives downsizing isn't easy - it doesn't free up as much money as expected and there are fewer suitable properties than expected when they looked.

I actually think interest rate rises have made many more cautious about over extending just high prices sometime mean there is little choice.

I don't know if it's a generational thing. I'm 61 and grew up with parents who always lived within their means and never had anything on credit.

A work colleague whose husband was only guaranteed 6 months more on his contract was selling her adequate house and building a new 5 bedroom house. I just couldn't live with that uncertainty.

@RaraRachael
My parents are of that generation and also never bought anything on credit but they didn’t need to. On two fairly average public sector salaries and no family help they were mortgage free by the time I was born in a house now worth over £1m. There was some luck / wise property choices but they are by no means unusual for that generation. To be fair they didn’t spend on renovations etc in the way that more people do now - just accepted the house with the kitchen, bathroom etc it came with.

No one of my generation on an average income could hope to be in the financial position my parents were in in their 30s. But maybe people struggle with not being able to have the lifestyle and type of property which their parents had and to provide that for their children and that leads them to overextend.

I don't know if it's a generational thing. I'm 61 and grew up with parents who always lived within their means and never had anything on credit totally generational, the generation that didn’t pay for uni, had a house worth 2 x their one income not 4x 2 incomes, that received child benefit without issue, that could take a final salary pension, that could get a council property if they fell on their uppers. Totally generational!

British modest homes are terribly small.

I am in Amsterdam on a 4 day break at the moment- if you wonder why there are so many Dutch or Dane's or Germans on holiday in nice places or with an overseas home- many stick to their 3 bed flats in cities and travel a lot or buy cheap places overseas. Many of their city flats are social housing too- even with decent household income. Mind you- unlike the UK they are often good apartments not tiny rabbit hutches in grim areas

We did exactly this , stayed in our first house which is lovely but no mansion but in a good location with great but very close neighbours some of whom are now our very closest friends . My husband and I are now retired .I am 58 and he is 54 years old .We spent a lot on our kids education in the last few years and also on travel over the years .We are now sprucing up our house a bit since the kids have moved out .