To accept we will never move home due to the prices

[LioKa]

DH and I purchased our first home 5 years ago - very much a starter home, quite compact and always intended to be our first step on the ladder.

Yes, it has increased in value, but looking at what would be the natural next step in terms of property size - prices are just bonkers and we’d be taking on a much bigger Mortgage which would not leave much room for luxuries such as holidays.

We are both in decent jobs but realistically our earnings can only increase by so much in the best future. Likewise no help from family not that we’d ever expect it.

Has anyone else ‘accepted their lot’ in terms of moving and tried to come to terms with the fact it’s just not affordable?

I’m not sure this is fair.

Depending on where you live, and how much equity you have, the cost of the ‘next house’ can be a lot. I mean, 50% more.

Add to that higher interest rates and suddenly it all becomes unrealistic.

It’s no help to you now but we pushed ourselves that little bit more with our first purchase knowing we were going to start a family and also expecting (and not been disproved yet) that house price increases would continue to outstrip our pay rises. They’ve slumped a little now but now the children have started to arrive, my hours have dropped, and the cost of everything else has increased, so we are glad we did buy the family 3 bed rather than the starter 2 bed when we had the chance.
But no, we aren’t on the breadline by any means but there’s no money for holidays abroad and trips to nice restaurants etc. (or the opportunity with a toddler anyway…) but we also figure if we stay long term eventually childcare costs will go down, my hours will go back up and the mortgage is very slowing chipping away. We will have our chance for the nice things again at some point (I hope!)

Life is not fair! I’ve moved areas many times because of this very scenario.

@Groundhogday2025 my toddlers loved eating out and still do now they are adults 😂.

We are trapped in our starter home too and don’t think we will ever be able to move. The difference in price between our house and the next step up home is huge so we will never move up the ladder. It’s hard because the house we live in is very impractical for our needs as we get older, but terraced houses like ours just don’t sell in our town anymore unless you practically give them away. So the gulf between our home value and the next step up gets even greater.

We can’t even side step the ladder because we would end up with exactly the same, or a very slightly bigger house in a very bad area of town.

I think most people have had the idea of ‘a housing ladder’. You can buy a bigger house as you build equity. It is how it was for their parents etc.

But it’s just not the same now - because of the very high cost of housing, buying so much later, and prices not growing at the same rate.

Moving areas ‘many times’ isn’t appealing when each transaction costs tens of thousands (or more) - and people would generally assume their fortunes would improve as they earned more, rather than have to move to a cheaper area.

The housing market for today’s young people is different to the housing market when you were their age.

I think th additional cost associated with moving, stamp duty and removal cost along with solicitors fees make moving very difficult. Hopefully you can overpay on your mortgage to chop away at it and hope a new government lowers stamp duty.

@LioKa
It puzzles me why people think they need to move up the ladder.
I admit a love a bit of property porn and whenever I go on holiday devote an hour or so to looking at houses I couldn't possibly afford in places I would never move to.
My first house was a 2 up 2 down. My second is a three bedroom terrace. I've been here for a little over 30 years. I'm 60 and paid my mortgage off 4 years ago. I won't be moving again.
When I bought this house I dont know if I thought I'd be here forever, but I did think very carefully about where and what I bought, within the limits of what I could afford.
At 60 and looking at retirement it's interesting that what I need now is similar to what I wanted then. Walking distance to town, railway station, on main bus routes, local shops, cinema, theatre, GPs etc.
I've brought up my son here and I now foster.
I suppose there were opportunities to move in the past but that would have meant moving further away from local facilities, an amazing park, my son couldnt have cycled to school or got a Saturday job. And yes we like our holidays!
I think what Im saying is that overall our lifestyle has been better for staying put, not extending myself financially.
Now in sort of retirement Im not looking at a drastic change of lifestyle.

So it's about deciding what your priorities really are, finding contentment in those choices and not just going for the next thing

I think this is a sensible and realistic approach to take. CV osts are always higher with nursery aged DC. Cost then reduces through the school years but spike up again if DC go to university and if you have a 2 year gap in DC ages you get 2 at Uni and it's very tough to manage that.

Has anyone else ‘accepted their lot’ in terms of moving and tried to come to terms with the fact it’s just not affordable?

Yes. When I most needed to move I was in the middle of a hideous divorce.
Then it became an impossibility. Then the older son moved out so it's only an issue when he comes to visit. The youngest son is 16 so only has a few more years at home.

We could easily have bought a bigger house when we first bought, but we didn't want to max out on our mortgage and instead had £ for some amazing travelling. I'm glad I have those memories of when my marriage was happy.

Plenty of people muddle along, accept their lot and try and think of the positive things.

I guess there are a number of things at play

it really does help if you can be happy and satisfied with what you have.

Patience also helps - saving as much as you can for 10 years can make a huge difference to what you can then afford but it is going without those *avacados for a decade or more not a year

*avacados is lighthearted - you would have to go without a lot of things that people 50years never had to save a lot, but it can be done

it really isn’t uncommon for people to have to make choices and trade offs in their lives and prioritise what is important to them

but I guess if you were brought up with much more as a child , the step backwards can be hard to handle. I think there may a generation/ large part of a generation who grew up with foreign holidays and ever bigger houses and lots of expensive days out and are really struggling as a result

and house prices and rents are bonkers

but the first point still stands - being happy with what you have rather than thinking about what you don’t have is where you want to be

The only way to do it is to buy a low priced house in need of a lot of work, renovate and add value and therefore increase your equity that you have to go towards another house.

Rinse and repeat

Ha you changed the narrative quite a bit there. You went from "openly admitting they did it to retire early" to "holidays for the kids and hobbies"

The first is selfish, the second is a perfectly reasonable and sensible thing to do

I have accepted this.

2 bed flat in London. Most 3 bed flats are 250k more for 1 extra bedroom. Could move to a bigger 2 bed but stamp duty alone is 20k.

Stopping at one child anyway. Staying put will mean more money to allocate to baby whatever we choose in the future depending on his needs.

Also I am in catchment for a desirable secondary and I am hard pressed to find another property in a similar location for a sensible price..Our faith secondary option is lottery based and there is also private (dependent on earnings in 10 years time). So feels more prident to stay

Stay. We were in this position and opted to move.

Despite loving all the things this house has brought us, I wish we had stayed in the small house - I would be mortgage free at 47 instead of 65, and we would have money to holiday and enjoy life whilst having a secure roof over our head.

We are in this position now. We bought our house 6 years ago as a starter home to get us into the area we wanted for the school we wanted for our ds. Since then our mortgage had nearly doubled and the price of moving is ridiculous. We have decided to stay where we are and look into an extension for the back to add some extra space. We would rather over pay the mortgage and have more holidays and experiences than increase our mortgage again.

We bought our house which we thought was probably a starter home although it is a 3 bed detached and now it looks like it may well be the very long term/forever house.

We don't actually need more space, kids have a decent sized room each, our bedroom will fit a king sized bed in if we design the space around it to fit.

We have an ensuite, bathroom and downstairs toilet, kitchen has a dishwasher, washing machine and dryer. The only things we lack is a 4th bed for the odd first and somewhere to store washing and the ability to host loads of people, we could probably stretch to an extra 4 although it would be tight.

It's assumed that we want a bigger house and yes I would like one but it comes at a sacrifice. Right now we have a small mortgage which we can add to to make home improvements and really make it ours. A bigger house would cost more than we would need to make ours better and the chances are we would still need to pay money to upgrade something, not to mention the moving costs.

I have a friend who has 5 children in a 3 bed and my sister has 3 children in a 3 bed, they can't afford to move either and they are happy with what they have. I don't want to worry about interest rates rising, I like having family days out now and again, treating the kids to ice creams, parties, having a holiday and all of that would stop because we would be scrimping to pay for a bigger house that we don't actually need, it would just be a "nice to have"

I think if you genuinely need the space it's probably important to make sacrifices but if it's just a case of a bigger house would be nicer then unless you can be fully comfortable then don't bother.

it really isn’t uncommon for people to have to make choices and trade offs in their lives and prioritise what is important to them

I think people are doing this more these days eg having fewer or no dc.

what’s with the Ha! ? Do you think you’re catching me out on something? I’m just sharing what my friend and her husband chose to do.

They did do it to retire early. Keeping their smaller house meant that they could still afford nice things to while achieving their retirement goals.

Seeing them now, I’m chuffed to bits that it’s all worked out for them x

I completely agree with this. I grew up in a 2-up 2-down with no wallpaper as my parents were too poor to have it decorated. The idea of upsizing or climbing a ladder was just not in my frame of reference at all - they still live in the same house 40+ years later and although they’re still poor they’re mortgage free and secure in that sense.

I didn’t think I’d ever own property because, as I said, poor. So when I’d finally saved enough to buy a pokey one bed flat I felt like a millionaire. I also don’t believe ideologically that homes should be a profit making asset so the idea of flipping and upsizing doesn’t sit right with me. Now I have a partner, we probably will at some point pool our resources to treat ourselves to a whole two bed flat but for the foreseeable, I’m very happy having a tiny mortgage and loads of disposable money to travel 8-12 weeks of the year. I’d personally hate to be spending everything I earn on a bigger property but having nothing left over for all the things that make life worth living.

If you want more space but can’t afford to move up the ladder in an area you move to a cheaper area. It’s not rocket science!

Nobody is denying that the housing market is a different ball game now but this is the reality of today’s market.

Reasonable expectations are reasonable but not useful if you don’t have the cash to move.

Maybe the expectations for more space is also a modern development. My DH shared an actual bed with his brothers and I shared a room with a sibling. This drove us to want our own DC to have their own bedrooms and bathrooms. We moved to a cheaper area to achieve this.

Well no, it hasn’t always been this way.

Always on housing threads you see people talk about ‘the housing ladder’ - start small, build equity, earn more etc up to a ‘dream house’. This was a fairly normal path for a few decades.

Thats what the OP is observing isn’t possibly now - because the value gap is so huge - you won’t be able to gain enough equity and then earn enough to get to the next ‘rung on the ladder’.

It is if you move to cheaper areas! I bought my first home in London nearly 30 years ago. I couldn’t afford to move up the ladder in London 5 years later so I moved to a cheaper area. What is it you find so hard to understand that this housing ladder phenomenon did exist 30 years ago too?

It is simple. If you want more space but you can’t afford it in the area you currently live in you move to a cheaper area. It’s always been like this.

OP what is the current equity in your house now and what is the buying power you have in a future mortgage on your current wages?

My DC doing a much better professional degree than I did will likely never afford to buy in London. Guess what? DC does not have the expectation they will be able to. We’ve made sure they know about what areas they will comfortably afford and shock horror still live a meaningful and purposeful life regardless of the postcode!

You're not the only one OP. I would like to downsize, as my house is too big for me now that my DD is an adult and the extra space isn't needed. It has gone up in value but not enough where I could sell and buy something outright or have a small mortgage. House prices have gone up so much that even a smaller house is either equal to or more than the value of my current home. I can't afford to move, and since already live in one of the least expensive parts of the country (not in the UK) I really don't have any options. Its a bit depressing really.

No the point of the housing ladder isn’t just moving to cheaper and cheaper areas with the same amount of capital, to get a bigger home.

My parents lived on the same estate over ten years and bought three progressively larger houses. I have some family friends in my area now in their 70s - started with a flat, got a small house, upgraded to a huge house.

That was ‘the ladder’, you were accruing equity and capital as prices increased, and inflating yourself out of the debt. That isn’t happening now.

I wonder if anyone bemoaning the lack of “the ladder” would vote for socialist policies that would correct the housing market by force, like a limit on how many homes you could own or a cap on price rises? I would, but I imagine many wouldn’t because they want to take advantage of the market when it works for them, but complain about it when it doesn’t (like now). That’s the thing about capitalism, things go bust as well as boom, so if you want to reap the rewards when it’s working you have to accept the downsides.