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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you love your house and could imagine staying forever

143 replies

valianttortoise · 19/10/2025 20:55

Or if various bits of it endlessly stress you out and you want to escape one day

And is this what you expected when you moved in?

OP posts:
saltandvinegarchipsticks · 19/10/2025 22:22

I love the house itself. I’d just like to pick it up and move it to a location which has parking and doesn’t have drunks staggering past on the regular.

PurpleFlower1983 · 19/10/2025 22:26

I don’t know if it will be the forever home as we may need something bigger when the kids are older but I love my house and have since the moment I walked in, even though then it was a massively run down fixer upper. It will sadden me to sell it. It’s a decent size Victorian end terrace.

Cherrysoup · 19/10/2025 22:26

Been here 22 years and looking to move rurally next year. It probably won’t be the forever home, at some point we’ll probably need to move back to town for the medical support etc, but we’d like 10-15 years of the ‘dream’.

Awrite · 19/10/2025 22:27

I love my house. Good size, great location, amazing views, easy to heat/cool, lots of lovely memories.

However, the walls are thin and the council tax is crippling.

Our next move will be to downsize and move to a part of the country we really like when we (I) take early retirement.

TheChosenTwo · 19/10/2025 22:32

I love our house but we’ve spent years getting it to this stage. It’s got enough bedrooms for all of us and a spare, and nice downstairs/reception space for entertaining big parties and big family Christmases etc but I’d like bigger bedrooms and more outside space.
We will move again, not too far from where we are now but a bit more towards being a little bit more rural (I don’t want to be remote, I like having some shops etc within walking distance at least). We won’t do it until the youngest is driving as don’t want to commit to having to drive him to school and he’d lose the benefit of his friends being so nearby etc while he finishes secondary school but there’s a next steps kind of plan for when he’s finished.

MajorMerrick · 19/10/2025 22:34

I’m not the attached to a house type of person. It’s just a house. I’ve here 24yrs because I can’t be bothered to move, lol

GargoylesofBeelzebub · 19/10/2025 22:37

Love my house. It was never intended to be long term, we just bought in the “right” catchment for schools never intending to fully pay off the mortgage, but to move once the kids left school for a cheaper area.

Now I can’t imagine moving.

DancingLions · 19/10/2025 22:38

I love almost everything about my house. It's a victorian conversion with a lot of original features, which is what I always wanted. The one downside for me is having to go down a fire escape to get to the garden. On the other hand, I do feel thankful to even have a garden and it is lovely.

I do have a lot of stairs but I think they help with fitness. My grandmother lived in a 4th floor flat with no lift all her adult life and she was still going up/down those stairs in her 80s!

I'm 5 minutes walk from the tube station. The hospital is close and very good. This has been really useful the past couple of years as I've been having endless tests there. I can see how useful it will be as I age further. I have every shop I need and every delivery service possible.

I cant see me moving again willingly. I couldnt face the hassle. I have everything I want here and I've spent a lot of time and money making my house perfect for me. I used to love moving when I was younger but now I'm older am happy to stay put.

SGBK4862 · 19/10/2025 22:40

I love my house. It's not perfect or yet how I want it to be (i.e. needs some work), but it's large and quirky with an unusual garden. On a quiet road but close to two easily walkable decent shopping areas, several nearby bus routes and a station. Also woods and parks. Plus it's in a sought after area so will hold its value. Forever home...? Probably not as it will be too big when the kids leave.

TenGreatFatSquirrels · 19/10/2025 22:40

Mines a bit of both. It endlessly stresses me out - needs a big update including new floors, new insulation, new roof and new windows. The previous owner also didn’t get building regs sign off for the extension 🙄

But equally I hope to stay here for the next 50 years. It’s a really beautiful house and I adore it.

GarlicPound · 19/10/2025 22:40

I will most likely die in this flat so, in that sense, it's my 'forever' home. It's a tiny HA rental and not my choice by a long way - but it's safe and warm, someone comes to fix the boiler, and I'd be a fool to expect a long old age [shrug]

I loved the flat I bought after my last divorce. Circumstances forced this move: I'd be happier if I were still there and could afford it, but I'm not and I couldn't! Spilt milk and all that. I've 'owned' and rented so many places, I can't face counting them - all had something to commend them and some niggles.

I agree the concept of a forever home is bullshit. People change, life changes, our needs and opportunities change. Places change, too: your ideal leafy avenue might be a corridor of desperation in 25 years' time. Best to love the place you're in for as long as it meets most of your needs.

SoloSofa24 · 19/10/2025 22:44

My parents had a 'forever house' they loved so much they lived in it for 50 years and refused to move. What that meant was that for the last 20 years of living there my father couldn't go upstairs, and for the last five years of living there my mother couldn't have a bath or shower. It also meant they became isolated and housebound far sooner than they needed to. And they ended up spending the last few months of both their lives against their will in hospitals and nursing homes because their 'forever home' was impossible for them to return to.

So I reject the concept of a 'forever home' unless it is adapted for all potential future needs, ie mobility problems, inability to drive etc. I moved this year, downsized from a big family house to a place that is great for now (50-something empty nester), and might be great for another ten or twenty years, but if my knees give out, I will happily move somewhere more suitable.

Pregnancyquestion · 19/10/2025 22:45

Was very lucky to get on the property ladder a few years ago by scraping together a deposit and getting a shared ownership house after my landlady decided to sell. It’s an old Victorian house, small but good enough for now. I imagined we’d be there for 10-15 years while we started a family but as it’s a shared ownership house a lot of houses on the street are housing association and last year two large families moved in next door to one another and they spend all of their time in their front gardens. Kids screaming running up and down the road, kicking footballs at cars, playing in the road. Their parents all out the front chatting and shouting after the kids - never to tell them to stop screaming though, or to tell them off for booting footballs at cars. I hate it now. We are stuck here for the next 5 years as I doubt we’d get a mortgage now due to paying down some debts. As soon as we can move we will

Spicepie · 19/10/2025 22:45

I love my flat and i could live and will live here forever.
However i could not stand my last home.

Endofyear · 19/10/2025 22:46

I didn't love our house when we first moved in but it was all we could afford in the town that we moved to and we had 4 kids and one on the way so we needed the space. We've lived here 25 years now and I do love it because it's the house my children grew up in and we've had a lovely kitchen put in that I love! But now the kids have all left home, it really is too big for just DH and I so I think we'll probably downsize in a few years. Dreading having to declutter and move though 😭

PortSalutPlease · 19/10/2025 22:47

I hate this house, I feel so trapped here.

Andouillette · 19/10/2025 22:56

I love our house, we've been here for nearly 40 years. More importantly two of my DDs will marmalise us if we sell, they want to live in it after we're gone. it's not perfect and needs some money spent but it's ours. We could adapt it so we can live on the ground floor when we are very decrepit, and DH and I will be buried in the garden!

AliasGrape · 19/10/2025 22:57

Yes, in theory!

We lived in a house I really didn’t like for nearly 10 years, I loved the location and had amazing neighbours and it was a ‘happy house’ - we got married living there and brought DD home there as a newborn and I think we made it the best we could. But even when it was just the two of us the house itself depressed me somehow, and once we had DD it was too small. Plus both our jobs changed so we were working from home either most or all of the time, it really didn’t work for us and we’d definitely outgrown it.

Moved a few months ago. Really love the house - don’t quite feel at home somehow though and waiting for that feeling to shift.

My daydreams of living by the sea or somewhere much more rural or even abroad again (I did a fair bit when I was younger) still persist - but realistically we’re here for the long haul.

CoffeeCakeAndALattePlease · 19/10/2025 22:58

Both!
I love it and want to stay forever…. But it also needs loads of essential work doing and that stresses me out.

we joke (but probably true!) that we may get the work done by the time we retire!

ReadingSoManyThreads · 19/10/2025 22:59

I can't stand our house. We found one we loved recently but it was just out of reach financially for us sadly.

pumpkinscake · 19/10/2025 22:59

I love my house and could imagine staying till I die. Unfortunately it's an older house, lots of stairs, so I am not sure if I will manage that through old age.

thetallfairy · 19/10/2025 23:01

Yes I do

It's perfect

I paid for it during Covid as I took on extra work

Planned in my head for years and our wonderful buildet did the best job ever !!!

pumpkinscake · 19/10/2025 23:01

pumpkinscake · 19/10/2025 22:59

I love my house and could imagine staying till I die. Unfortunately it's an older house, lots of stairs, so I am not sure if I will manage that through old age.

I have it mind to downsize reluctantly but sensibly to an apartment

blankcanvas3 · 19/10/2025 23:04

Yes this is our forever home. It’s the perfect location and the perfect property. I would never leave

BitOutOfPractice · 19/10/2025 23:06

It’s not a house. It’s a flat. But yes, forever.