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?

That’s literally what it means. It’s not even less than best. It means less than average.

Im not saying people in smaller than average homes should be actively unhappy. But to say it should make them happy is bizarre. I’m saying exactly what you’re saying in a way; if a large home doesn’t make someone happy why would a small one. Your home is like 5% of your potentially influence happiness imo. Or in my case anyway.

I think you have misunderstood me.

I understand the literal meaning of "modest" but I think that it has come to mean something different. My sisters ex NDN had a stunning home, really beautiful. Her husband did a full renovation as he is a builder but it is 3 beds. She insisted that they move to the new build estate around the corner at a massive increase to their mortgage (he told BIL about it!) because they were 4 bed detached instead. The fact that sq footage was the same (if not a little less) was neither here nor there, she saw their home as "less than" because of the number of bedrooms. They had one child. A lot of people think like that and its madness.

I find modest homes in the UK ridiculously small for the most part. Like why always the box room? They seem particularly popular in new builds too. Why not proportion things a little better to give it a few more metres? And let's not mention the poky unsociable kitchens, no utility spaces and narrow hallways.

As someone who grew up between here and the Middle East, homes in the UK are tiny. I get they live in smaller spaces in parts of Asia and Europe, so I guess it's just what you're used to.

I think it isn’t as simple as wanting bigger as better. For many their homes are a financial investment and they using them for future planning too. If they stretch themselves more now, equity in the house is larger so a bigger nest egg for retirement type of approach. This will of course lessen as house purchase prices and increases have slowed but still money to be made for most doing this than having it sit in the bank.

Absolutely 10 percent inflation of house price is much higher on a 500k house than a 100k one.

personally though I see nothing wrong with wanting more space or a bigger home if you can afford it comfortably. We spend a large amount of time in our homes.

We moved a couple of years ago significantly increased our mortgage but increased the term so our payments didn’t go up much.
We love our house and our life here so much. Life’s for living now!
it doesn’t matter the end date of our mortgage because that’s just a date on on a piece of paper.
We have lots of equity and our house will increase in value. When the kids move out we will downsize and pay off the mortgage or significantly reduce it.
What we do not waste money on is fancy cars that depreciate!

personally though I see nothing wrong with wanting more space or a bigger home if you can afford it comfortably. We spend a large amount of time in our homes.

Absolutely, Covid lockdowns really pushed us to take the leap and we have no regrets 4 years later!

@PyongyangKipperbang was the 3 bed semi detached? A lot of people are happy to compromise on some space to get detached (I know I would be). Plus some people prefer estate living over being on a street (don't know your setup of course), and there are ways of utilising number of bedrooms even if smaller. Not everything is about size, you seem very keen to belittle the woman's choices based on a "lad's convo" probably full of banter, very much doubt you know the ins and outs of her thought process and may not be as shallow as you are making out.

Your home is like 5% of your potentially influence happiness imo. Or in my case anyway.

Wow really? I would say mine is more over 50%, where I have lived has had a HUGE impact on my happiness over the years, right from childhood.

Well for me, the bigger the house/ nicer / best location I can afford now means I’m sat on a nice asset when the mortgage is paid off and I come to retire

but on the flip side you could have a smaller house pay off the mortgage and be putting that into savings

it depends on the maths

my house went up in value by £120k due to the recent market, would I have saved that during lockdown. Nope

My MIL has been quite vocal at times about suggesting we climb the property ladder - they have a four bed detached that was purchased on one salary years ago and have been on final salary pensions since their 50’s, she is lovely but just doesn’t get it!

We’re staying put, we’ve a three bedroom semi detached house that is plenty big enough for our family (admittedly we did remortgage to extend downstairs). We already live in a nice town with beautiful countryside, good schools and family nearby, while not the prettiest house in the world (ex council) we’re happy enough with the size and layout of it, plus our neighbours are decent, why would we move and increase our mortgage payments significantly just for a fancier looking house from the outside that would probably be the same size or smaller?!

My dream was to extend upstairs to make bigger bedrooms/ an extra bedroom. For a few years when the kids were bigger. But I couldn't afford it and those years flew by so quickly that it is no longer necessary and would be ridiculous. Plus, I don't know if I could have coped with the upheaval. So I still have a perfectly adequately sized house that is neither too big nor too small but in a nice location and that is enough for me.

We bought a three bed terrace 17 years ago. It’s now 4 bed as we converted the loft. We also built an outdoor office space.

However, as we live in London, price wise it’s probably no longer seen as “modest” compared to what you can buy elsewhere in the country for the same value. You could probably buy two or three houses on its current estimated value elsewhere.

It is modest compared to semis in the same area based on price alone though.

Modest is relative.

We have no desire to move up the ladder. We are still in the first house, three bed semi, that we bought together after getting married. It’s just us, we don’t need more space. We’ve extended at the back (knocking down the manky old conservatory that was there previously and building a proper room) and converted the garage into an office/study/library for me. If I won the lottery I might consider a loft conversion into another bedroom and ensuite - but not essential.

We love the area, have lovely neighbours - one set of neighbours have become very good friends - and other close friends near enough to walk to each other’s houses for drinks/dinner.

We live in a society that promotes the idea that to be happy you have to have more, do more, be more.
Buy this car to attract the ladies. Get a bigger house, buy our products etc.
It makes people never content with what they have got.
It used to be just advertising that bombarded you with this mentality but now with social media and everyone posting the highlights of their lives it makes people feel their lives are not good enough or fulfilling enough.

If the house that you have meets your needs then try to be content. If there is a reason why you want/need to upgrade then weight up the pros and cons and make a decision from there. Don't put yourself in a difficult financial position just to keep up with the Jones'.

Staying in your modest home assumes that you didn’t have to compromise significantly to afford to buy the modest house in the first place. We sold our modest 2.5 bed semi and have pushed ourselves for a large 4 bed detached with playroom and a study. It’s a push whilst we have childcare but that will get easier and we fixed for 5 years whilst we had nursery payments to ensure we can afford it.

We didn’t like our modest home. It was actually quite a big 2.5 bed so it wasn’t specifically size. However, it was location for a number of reasons. It was also the layout of the modest home, which was over 100 years old. We felt it didn’t suit how we were using the house. We also didn’t want the upkeep of our “modest” money pit house. But that was what we could afford when we first bought, we knew it was temporary, we knew we could make improvements to the property and increase its value. Did I want to spend my life paying a mortgage and interest on a house I had settled on and that fundamentally didn’t make me happy? No I didn’t.

The bugger house just feels like home in a way the other house never did. It’s newer and whilst it’s bigger, it’s easier to clean and maintain. The layout works with how we use the house. The modest house felt like we battling against the current, this one feels like we are just bobbing along. I feel settled in a way that I’ve never felt in the modest home.

The bigger house isn’t actually more for us. It’s a bigger mortgage but we were spending more on maintenance. We weren’t going to pay off our mortgage in our thirties anyway so we might as well be happy. This is a house that we can be in for the next 30 years. We will almost certainly downsize but there’s no guarantee we will still be in this area, we have one DC and so we might move to where they base themselves for work (if we can afford to). Part of the decision to buy this house was to factor in downsizing to a potentially different part of the country or even in this area. We bought our house for £375K. A bungalow in this area costs £350K. An area near us that we might want to retire to because it has a bit more going on, a 2 bed would cost us £250-300K and again a bungalow would cost us £330K. The modest home would have been completely unsuitable for us in our old age due to location and maintenance and we wouldn’t be able to afford to downsize. Hopefully, we can downsize to an area where we can free up some money to help DC with a deposit.

Everyone has different priorities and different lifestyles, and that's OK. I'm a risk adverse person so it was very important to me to only take a mortgage based on 1 salary and pay it off quickly. To do that we stuck with our 3 bed terraced house.

Where we live is actually nice, and it suits our lifestyles as there's lots of decent walking on the doorstep, but we can still walk to shops, restaurants etc. We don't have children so have more than ample space. It's a victorian house so very well built, well insulated and fairly well sound insulated.

It means we have lots of disposable income to save, invest and live with. We like to be out doing things, and with my husband having a serious illness it's important to do those things now whilst we can rather than assuming we can benefit from equity which may or may not come to fruition further down the line.

I agree, I’m the same unfortunately. We live in a house that’s “too small for our income” but we spend a lot on travel and we have a cottage abroad too. I’m constantly going back and forth whether we should buy a bigger one as it feels too small, 3 bedroom semi-detached ( 2 young children). Where I grew up the houses are bigger and I find the typical British house with the tiny hallways and small rooms very uncomfortable to live in. However we live in the SE and to get the size house I would be happy with we would have to pay 1.2-1.5 millions and we wouldn’t be able to afford our current lifestyle. We’re in our house 90% of the time though so it makes sense to spend a lot on it and sacrifice the lifestyle.. I’m not there yet though..

@aroalfks my home is 90% my happiness

We have just moved off estate and have some space around me . It's literally everything!!

I grew up in a big house with space so maybe it's just if you don't know you don't miss it but I hated being penned in for most of my live although we had big new builds it made me feel claustrophobic.

I think it depends on what you call modest. Our house is modest for when it was built (4 bedroom Edwardian semi) but is big by todays rabbit hutch standards. I still consider it modest as its not huge and we don't have a large garden, just a modest suburban one.

@boredybored yes completely agree, people are making out that shooting for the house you want or having different expectations is some how superficial, looking for a badge of honour, materialistic, but I wanted a bigger house because I wanted and needed one. I wanted an office so I could close the door behind me at the end of the night and have some separation from work. I wanted enough bathrooms where we didn't have to queue up. I wanted a separate space for my teens to hang around in so they weren't cooped up in their bedrooms. A garage so my husband can do his hobby. All of these things contribute to our happiness, it's not about keeping up with the Jones.

I am very happy with my 2 bed terrace. If I wanted to upgrade I'd get the loft converted but there's very little point.

With my small home there's less to clean, less to mend, less to heat, less to go wrong, less space for the garden to get out of control.
None of my friends have wildly upgraded. We are all pretty much 2/3 bed terraces - inside we have made them very nice and modern though. We are all very content and spend our money on enjoying life and eating well instead.

I grew up in a big house with space so maybe it's just if you don't know you don't miss it but I hated being penned in for most of my live although we had big new builds it made me feel claustrophobic.
l grew up in a big detached house with a huge garden but I’m very happy in my 3 bed semi. Don’t hanker after a bigger house at all.

Really? Trust me I love my house. I really do. Every day I have one thought at least that I can’t believe we live here. But 50%! There’s a lot of shit in life to impact happiness. Well in my case it feels like that at the moment anyway.

@aroalfks agree .. we don't have any neighbours so I don't give two figs what anyone else is doing. We bought this house for our enjoyment and pleasure . We too have room for hobbies and space to have nature around us not cars and people !

I absolutely love it and it makes me happy . Def not about what anyone else thinks