Cost of moving - how much😳

[LivingBetter]

We have the opportunity to relocate with work to a part of the country we’ve always wanted to live in. Looking over last few days at Rightmove has shown that we would need to increase our mortgage by at least £150000 to get a similar size house to ours, in what is definitely a more desirable location plus we would have to find about £30000 stamp duty plus other moving costs.

How does anyone manage this kind of move in their fifties and without an inheritance or lottery win? So so disappointing but unless we are willing to squeeze into fewer bedrooms and other location compromises there’s just no way.

They manage by not expecting to move to a more expensive area and buy a similar house. They downsize to get the benefit of the area.

Would work consider a relocation package?

We’re in the process of moving and have had to budget over £20,000 for stamp duty, EA fees and solicitor fees! That’s for a house worth £500k.

We thought the hard part was getting onto the housing ladder but it turns out that moving from our starter flat to family house is the nearly impossible. By the time we get the money together, the kids will be too old to benefit from the garden anymore. The housing market officially sucks arse at the moment!

Well, quite.
How did you expect it would go, op?

Increase your mortgage by 200k, and use the equity from the house to pay for the "cash" purchases. Quite frankly, if you are looking at a 800k or 900k house, I wouldn't have thought finding either the cash or the extra mortgage a massive struggle.

Yep it’s shit! People always moan about getting on the property ladder, yes that’s hard, but so’s moving up, you just can’t earn a further 40k and simultaneously save £30k for stamp duty, especially with a family to raise.

part of the country we’ve always wanted to live in.

YABU. you expect to move to a better area, but have the same house you have in the lesser area?

If its somewhere you've "always wanted to live in" - downsize, sell stuff. You don't have to add 150k to the mortgage- that's your own choice. That'll also bring down the stamp duty.

Jeez - who'd have thought a more affluent area would be dearer...

Ok but am in my fifties, it’s not a mansion just another 4 bed house and not particularly huge and wherever it is the stamp duty alone is huge. People move house all the time, having lived in our present home for 20 + years i didn’t think it was unreasonable to consider moving. When we bought our current house it wasn’t with a view to living there till we die. The stamp duty alone makes moving difficult, who has £30k tucked away in case they need it, we certainly don’t.

Even if I wanted to downsize it would mean adding a large amount to my mortgage just to pay the taxes and that’s exactly why no one wants to downsize I guess

It’s not “unreasonable to consider moving” whether you’ve been in your house 20 months or 20 weeks. But that’s not what determines what you can afford. DH does this kind of “I’ve been in this career thirty years so I should be able to have x” thing and calls it budgeting. You work out what you can afford with maths, not vague feelings that you want a thing so you should have it. We are all buffeted about by economic forces. There’s no entitlement to things because we feel we should have them.

Housing has risen so much in value/cost. If you’ve been paying down a mortgage you took out 20 years ago, you paid a much lower price for your house than it will fetch now. Thats the upside. Youve been insulated from the current cost of things, but you’ve made a packet. The downside is the next house you want has also risen in value and stamp duty etc rises with it. It’s why runaway house prices don’t really benefit people who own one house.

The houses you are looking at must be pretty expensive if stamp duty is 30,000. When you are buying a very expensive house of course the fees are going to be huge, but there are so many places in this country where house prices are not that high, and where the stamp duty would be no where near that high.
You aren’t unreasonable to want to move, but you are unreasonable to expect it to be cheap when you are buying an expensive property.

You need to be more realistic.

Most people add the stamp duty costs to their mortgage. Most people upgrade houses in their 30s and 40s and extend their mortgage term, not 50s.

Stamp duty is just too high now for many to afford to move.

Stamp duty is crippling. I'm so glad we managed to move during the stamp duty holiday in 2021. Saved us a fortune. We still used nearly all our savings in other moving fees.

But you’re not downsizing in the same area. You’re wanting to move to a more desirable area where houses cost more. If you downsized in the same area you most likely wouldn’t have this problem.

It's it just the 2 of you? You mention 'squeezing' into 4 bedrooms, but most people in their 50s don't have children living with them/children are about to leave. Buying a home with fewer bedrooms is the way to afford what you're after.

Unless you had babies at 45, you don’t need 4 bedrooms. Get a smaller house in the lovely new area with sofa bed/air bed for visitors in the sitting room, or work at the kitchen table instead of a dedicated office room.

20 years? Then you've simply spent the money you've saved by not having larger mortgage etc on day to day living.
You can't expect to move to nicer area without it costing. Doesn't matter on size of house. My house in London would be 3 times the price. Location, location, location as Kirstie and Phil say.

It’s never too late to learn more about money and take control, though, OP.

Stamp duty is shocking now. I'm looking to sell and will have to pay 5% stamp duty. 15 years ago we sold a house of same equivalent value and it was 1% stamp duty.

@bookmarket Exactly! Love the way people intentionally misunderstand posts on AIBU but that’s all I’m say really. On top of a bigger mortgage which is something I’m prepared for I was shocked by the cost of moving full stop regardless of where and to what. Stamp duty when I bought my house was affordable m, now it isn’t so I was wondering how people generally manage to move because lots clearly do and shock horror buy houses much more expensive than what we’re looking at

They build equity in their present home and increase earnings as they get more senior in their careers, so more financial freedom compared to when they were younger.

We are only in our early 40s, but I’d guess we have about £400k equity in our current house. An extra £150k in mortgage wouldn’t put us under because of our earnings. In our 50s, we’ll have no children living at home to boot, which would mean we could downsize if we needed to and lower expenses overall.

@mindutopia yt do you have the money put by for stamp duty? We are in similar position just a decade on and still got kids at home. The increase in mortgage is one thing and not considered lightly when retirement is only a decade away. It’s the additional lump sum we need to find immediately that’s the issue