How would you feel about not having a family home if you have DC?

[T1mesAreHardForDreamers]

Just looking for perspective and hopefully experiences.

How would you feel if you were in a situation where your only chance of owning a home was to buy one that was too small to permanently house your DC?

The DC are adults in this hypothetical scenario.

Is it normal/common? Does it work, do you feel guilty and would it be difficult practically for your DC?

For context, I have young DC now and rent. I'm very unlikely to afford a family sized home in my area of choice, but could afford a small place.

It goes without saying moving somewhere cheaper is an option, but I'm interested in exploring this option as a long term plan as well. I'm 31 now and am thinking about what to do in 20 years or so. All my DC would be in their 20's.

I probably should have added in case my question sounds weird or tone deaf, everyone I know including myself has parents or is a parent who owns a family sized home. All my siblings including myself have spent periods of time living back at home since moving out. I grew up on a 70's built council estate where everyone had secure large family homes for life essentially.

My parents have a small spare bedroom but haven’t had a ‘family home’ since I was in my mid-twenties. They did, however, give me money towards the deposit for my first flat so I guess that provided an equivalent level of security maybe?

Why would you need to house your adult children? My kids have left home, they have their own lives and homes, I can't house them as I have no spare bedrooms now I have never felt guilty about that.

Lots of people downsize when their kids are grown up.

Bit confused as to your train of thought.

The time when your dc are in their 20s is the time when you are no longer responsible for housing them.

Also, what are you meaning by 'a family sized home' ?
Isn't the security of owning your own home, and your monthly outgoings paying down your own mortgage, whilst your dc share a room a better feeling than paying rent which is paying someone else's mortgage.
I know some people can't get on the property ladder, but - if I've read it right - you can but are choosing not to ?
I mean, depending on how many dc you have, obviously, but for me, I'd rather own a smaller home than rent a larger one, with all the insecurity renting brings.

My parents had a house which was big enough to house us all.

as soon as I went to uni my room became my
mum’s office and once my brother had gone that became dad’s office.

I am a bit unsure if you’re asking if you should buy somewhere to live in now or in the future.

Personally I wanted to buy a home to ensure my DC future, no matter the size. If buying and renting out your property is an option I would do that if it really is too small to live in. Otherwise I’d buy and live in somewhere smaller rather than rented.

No you're not reading that quite right, I can't afford to buy a 2 or 3 bedroom house in the area I currently live in and want to stay in.

We'd be downsizing even smaller to a 1 bed or 2 bedroom to buy. I don't know how else to get out of the renting trap.

We could buy somewhere else cheaper, a bigger family home, but it feels (selfishly?) a bit pointless to get a "family home" somewhere the DC's are unlikely to call home.

op I'm late 30s and have rented all my life... May just about build up enough savings to purchase a small flat when I retire and that's exactly what I'll end up doing. Even if I was renting I wouldn't continue to pay extortionate rent on a large house for 'spare rooms' for my kids. I'll buy a sofa bed or visit them!

My parents have a 3 bed semi where the 3rd bedroom barely houses a single bed which only just housed the 3 of us as children. The large age gap between us was the only way we got through teen years as the eldest went to uni as the youngest became a teen.
At one point they had my 34 yo sister, her 3 yo and my 23 yo sister living at home and still managed to find space to have me and my partner to stay for the weekend! We were on top of one another and it wasn't ideal but where there's a will there's a way.
We all now live within half an hour drive from them and there's no need for any of us to stay the night.
If they do move further away for the odd weekend you could have an air mattress or sofa bed. I would build your future plans around what gives you the best life and you can then work out different solutions depending on what your kids need at the time.
We have all gone back home at some point in the grand scheme of things relatively short time but I think the longest was 10 months and that was only 4 days a week for work. If my parents hadn't had a spare room I would have come up with a different solution and my parents would have done their best to help me with that in whatever form they were able to.

Thanks, this is what I want to hear really.

I left home at 21 but my brother lived at home until he was in his 30's and as said, me and my sister have moved back in at various points in our adult times when things were difficult (not financially) for me.

Everyone else I know has retained their family sized home so theoretically their DC could come home if they needed to. They host Christmas etc. It's outside of my norm to see parents downsize but I'd love and need to once the kids grow older so it's reassuring to hear people say it's normal

Thank you for being understanding, this is really reassuring!

You are right, if I hadn't had my mum's I would have had to find a different solution and I should hopefully be financially in a better position to help them on their way anyway.

The home needs (ideally) to be adequate to house whoever lives there at the time. If it's quite small it would encourage the kids to move out maybe a bit sooner. Which is no bad thing.

Plenty of people sell the family home and downsize due to relationship break up or circumstance change.
Or simply once their kids are at Uni/working they can't afford to keep an empty room. So either move or rent the kids room out.

Millions of people sadly do have to live in overcrowded family homes, and can't ever move anywhere bigger.

It doesn't mean it's not a family home just because you can't afford a bedroom per person indefinitely.

Hey you are so right and I'm in the exact same position.

It makes financial sense for you to buy rather than keep renting; and I’m sure if you asked your adult DC, they’d be just as keen to see their mum settled in somewhere to call her own and getting herself some security. They can know that if they’re ever in genuine need of somewhere to stay, you’ll (maybe) have a spare bedroom, or will make them sleeping arrangements in the living room. They’re never going to be homeless whilst you’re around.

Things like hosting Christmas: honestly, as an adult who has never had Christmas in my own home (except lockdown Christmas!) because of an expectation - wonderful and loving, but an expectation all the same - that I’ll travel back to my parents the family home, I think that the DC moving out can be an excellent opportunity to create new types of Christmas - where you take turns, and sometimes you visit your DC and they host, or you go away somewhere together.

So my parents owned a 3bed terrace house in a not great area when I was young (under 10) and moved area to a 'poor man's detached' as she called it, as then as a single mother had the salary to afford the mortgage with the intention of selling it to be afford a bungalow in her retirement years (if she has never made the jump the terrace house would never had sold for the price needed to buy a bungalow) so she has always told me to move up the property ladder whilst you can

So I would go for a house in a different area, assuming it's safe and still.feasible for school and work with the intention of hopefully selling in X years if that makes sense to downsize into an area you do like

We have a similar house to Superscientist that's a box room, 1 bed bedroom and a double bedroom. Rooms are smallish but we managed ok with 2 DC (G & B) 6y age gap.
However, we were lucky enough to build an extra bedroom on top of the garage when eldest was 16.
So my advice would be if you buy too small maybe look at a home that has potential for an extension to add extra space in the future.

I live 150 miles away from my family, my mum has one spare room - the box room.

When I go back by myself for work, I stay in the single room (which is not kind on my back anymore!).

When my partner comes with me for family events/visits etc, we just get a hotel.

It’s worked well for us so far!

I fully intend to downsize when my kids move out. It’s not realistic for me to keep the family home just in case they want to come back again. If was the choice between buying or renting, I’d buy somewhere I could afford rather than continue to rent a family sized home.

My parents changed my room into a study after I left, though I actually had left a couple years earlier but stayed for about a year in between universities. If we were all home someone had to sleep on the sofa, but by the time we were in our mid 20s at least one of us owned our own place.
A friend is divorcing and has three adult kids, one who has MH issues and spends half his time at home, one in the military with no other home and youngest lives with the dad. She can’t afford a house, it will most likely be a two bed flat. She’s come to terms with the fact she’s no longer responsible for providing housing for her grown up children
You don’t have to have a home large enough for all kids on the off chance they return home - I mean unlikely they all will at once. But I’d be reluctant to not have one spare bedroom, for regular guests as much as rebound kids.

I think there’s a big element of personal opinion on what a ‘family sized house’ here.

I live in London and it’s normal for people to be raising children in very small houses / flats - even on a very good income.

My parents divorced when I was 22 and I was sad not to have a ‘family’ home anymore so my flat became the new family home and my parents (separately) and sibling would visit me there for Christmas etc.
Home is where the heart is.

You can't live your life on 'what if?', when your kids are adults I am sure they would want to see you in your own home rather than in rented and if one of them needed to come home for whatever reason then where there's a will there's a way.

My mum has two spare bedrooms but hell would freeze over before she would ever help me out, I have no spare bedrooms and I would sleep in the shed if my kids needed help. It's not the bricks and mortar that make a home, it's the people (or person) in it.

I wouldn’t buy a smaller house if they were still living with me (although I’d ask for rent so I could save to buy) but I don’t think you need to feel that you need a larger home just in case they come back. Realistically if they had nowhere else to go and you had a one bedroom place you’d let them use the lounge so they’d never be homeless

Downsizing is a normal thing. I have no intention of keeping a family home when my children are older. In fact, in the next 5 - 7 years (one is 17 and the other is 3) I intend to move to a 2/3 bedroom down from a 4-bed. This includes moving back to UK. I have no intention of housing adult children after uni plus a couple of years grace for them to settle. I really want independent adult children.