AIBU to think my small family doesn't need a bigger house?

[Izzasaurus]

I'm annoyed with myself for even posting this in a way because I shouldn't need to ask. I know plenty of parents who seem to give their children wonderful childhoods, despite not having much money and living in small flats or houses. I also know from personal experience that growing up in a big house with a big garden is zero guarantee of turning into a confident and mentally well-adjusted individual! (although the garden was very fun).

DH, toddler DD, DDog and I live in a small 2-bedroomed terraced house with a little grassy garden. We like it. We are also mortgage-free.

We've thought about moving somewhere bigger because we both got promoted at work recently and suddenly find we are in the incredible position of having a lot of spare income. Our own house wouldn't sell for much (possibly not much over £110,000) but we could upsize a lot without too much pain.

On the other hand... we're settled here. We like the area. We have enough room to entertain the local family and friends who we care about. We could put some of the extra money into upgrading our house and making it nicer, and have a lot to spare.

Ok, DD will never be able to have a double bed, an en suite or a big trampoline and climbing frame, but does she really need these things? Wouldn't she rather have a good university fund / house ladder fund for the future, and the chance to have lots of cool holidays and experiences? Parents who can afford to cut down our working hours a bit soon so that one of us can be fully present with her after school each day? Plus there are lots of lovely play parks nearby and we go a lot.

I have a few friends and family members who reckon DD will be embarrassed by our house one day and will want more space. They act like I'm depriving my DD of a better future by staying put. I also suspect they look down on where I live. (Quote from one: 'I couldn't live like that'.)

Equally, I very much hope not to raise an entitled brat who judges value by house size, and I don't like the idea of buying into a sort of competitive house-upgrading culture now just because I can when I've never been interested before when I couldn't.

We have a sofa bed in the lounge for guests and I don't get why a family of 3 people need a bunch of spare rooms.

YABU - get a bigger house

YANBU - stay put

I completely agree with you OP as someone who’s chosen to stay in a one-bed flat despite being able to afford something bigger (live in London and no kids) purely to have cheap living costs and pay the mortgage off sooner. I grew up poor in a two bed terrace with a tiny garden and never had a double bed.

My parents were always low earners and couldn’t afford to do any updates or renovations to the house so in a very different position to you. It didn’t have any effect whatsoever on my friendships, and frankly your friend who said this sounds like a judgemental bitch. What it did was give me an appreciation of things in life beyond material. I’ve never seen a big flash house as a need or an aspiration (I don’t think housing should even be a for-profit asset but that’s another conversation).

I have friends who’ve overstretched themselves and constantly complain about being broke (they’re not, they just chose to buy an 800k house in Wimbledon). Meanwhile I have a tiny flat but have been able to choose part time passion work and a life of lots of travel. You’ve got a great mindset and good values in my opinion.

What kind of a ‘friend’ tells you that your child’s future friends will sneer at their perfectly nice, clean but small house?! Good Lord.

We stayed in quite a small house (bigger than yours, but 2 DC) when we could afford bigger. We still think it was the right decision, but did move once the kids were in secondary. Sure we could still have made it work in the smaller house, but they wanted a bit of privacy and space to have friends over.

Why not keep an eye out to see if something comes up that you can see yourselves living in. We definitely didn’t move until we’d found somewhere we fell in love with as much as our first house (took us years!).

We inherited my mum and dad’s house and wanted to relocate and keep it due to the lovely area and being near the beach!

We’ve just completed a loft conversion giving us an extra room so our little girl can ultimately have a bigger room and we move up there! Would this be an option for you if you have extra income?

Our builders were great and it wasn’t too intrusive and we now have a gorgeous new room!£

I wouldn't move just yet. I'd save a lot of the extra money and if I decided I needed a different house down the line, I'd want as big a deposit as possible so I could get a tiny or no mortgage. There's a happy medium between a little house and a massive one, so you'd need to weigh up whether an extra bedroom or slightly bigger living space/garden are worth the hassle and expense. But I def wouldn't do it now.

I don't see why your daughter would suffer at all. If you don't need a bigger house and you are happy and mortgage free stay. I can't believe that people would look down on anyone at all. Why do people seem to think you have to have a bigger house if you don't need one it's ridiculous. My twins were in a tiny room with a bunk bed until their 20s. There was just enough room to have a blow up mattress on the floor for a friend to stay. It was fine.

I think it’s lovely that you are content and happy. Why not just stay put, invest wisely and be in a position to move later if it starts feeling like the right thing? You might find it all feels much more tight when your daughter is older and you’ll be in an amazing position to be cash buyers in a few years if you want. Doesn’t have to be a now or never decision.

I don’t think having a house with a spare room or enough room for your DD to have a double bed when she’s a teen would make her an ‘entitled brat’. Your house is fine and there’s nothing wrong with staying there. But as you had a toddler, are mortgage free with spare income… I would look at getting a slightly bigger house in the next 5-10years. Then your DD will be able to have sufficient room to study, sleep and have friends over in a bigger bedroom that fits a double bed at the very least. She may well choose to hang out more at the friends house where there’s room to swing a cat in the bedroom otherwise, which isn’t a problem, but given your lucky financial situation I’d future plan for a little bit more space without worrying id completely ruin my child. I think you are being a bit short sighted acting like the only options are a tiny 2 bed with box rooms, or a huge show off house with loads of spare rooms. Buy a 3 bed

Is there space to put in a little garden room as a teen hangout space?

Of course it was fine and they didn’t suffer, but would it have been a bit nicer for them if you could have easily afforded to give them a bit more space in their teen years? Of course also yes!

It may be better to stay mortgage free and invest the amount you’d pay into a mortgage. Over a 25 year or so period, you could gain more than you would from the house value increase. This obviously depends on you being happy in the smaller house, and it’s hard to compare the non financial value of the larger house and living quality that comes with that. It also depends on whether you really would save the amount you’d otherwise spend on a mortgage (like you say, mortgage payments are fixed so it’s more disciplined).

Family A

• £110k deposit
• Buys a £360k house
• £250k mortgage
• Makes mortgage payments for 25 years

Family B

• Lives in a £110k house outright
• No mortgage
• Invests the amount that Family A would have spent on mortgage payments every month

What earns the higher return: the leveraged housing exposure or the invested mortgage-payment savings?

Suppose:

• Mortgage: £250k, 25 years, 5% interest.
• Monthly payment about £1,460.
• Family B invests £1,460/month into a stocks & shares ISA.
• Stocks return 7% annually after fees.

After 25 years:

• Family B’s ISA could be worth roughly £1.1 million.
• They still own their £110k house, which may itself have appreciated.

Meanwhile Family A:

• Owns a house that started at £360k.
• If it grows at 2.5% annually, it’s worth about £666k after 25 years.
• Mortgage is paid off.

So under those assumptions:

• Family A wealth ≈ £666k.
• Family B wealth ≈ £1.1m ISA + house value.

The regular investing over 25 years is extremely powerful. Most of the wealth comes from the compounding of the monthly contributions, not from the starting £110k. Its obviously hard to predict though re housing growth, stock market performance etc.

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Are you in catchment for good schools?

Is your small garden still child friendly? (Flat, with grass/fake grass your DD can play on)

Do you have decent parks nearby?

As you like your home why wouldn't you stay put? Your friends/families perspective on hypothetical future concerns feels quite narrow minded really and not particularly grounded in objectivity - in fact it really seems more like they just want to make their own opinion about your home clear. I find this quite rude and wouldn't dream of speaking to a friend about their home in this way. I wouldn't be planning my family life around the borderline unpleasant comments of others either. Be guided by your family unit only, spend less time with people who actively try to put you down.

As it stands you are in excellent position to build wealth by staying put. If in the future the home genuinely does start to feel too small as DD gets older and perhaps more space might be needed then you'll be in a position to fund this move then whilst still having wiggle room now for improving your lifestyle in whatever way that works best for you - working less hours, supplementing holidays and activities etc etc

@Wiennetta I like this. It is very hard to tell what's best though, isn't it! I'm probably someone who would never ever invest the value of the mortgage consistently in discretionary savings.

And I don't take my own advice, as we paid off ours and are doing more like your Family B but without hardly any saving.

So we will end up as Family C, having lived in the smaller house than we could stretch to, always, no utility of a bigger house...Having the appreciation only on 110k...having some savings but not the million quid ISA.

I would hazard a guess more people end up as Family C as it feels safest and most pleasant in the moment - no debt, ability to spend your salary on nice bubble teas for the teens, the gen alpha equivalent of avocado toast...!)
It doesn't really do any of us any favours.

Most people never think about how much houses cost, only what they are worth in terms of selling now over what they paid for them.

They don't add in the cost of mortgage interest, the cost of inflation and of course the opportunity cost of investment that is lost.

Do that, and your house has to appreciate a lot in order for it to make money.

We stayed in our tiny house and I moved when the kids finished school. We are now in a bigger house that is more convenient for my work and the bedrooms happen to be bigger and both (adult) kids have ended up back here now because their landlords sold the places they were renting. I’m now relived we are in a bigger place as we would have all struggled together in the old house!

best time to get a bigger place is when you’re earning well - just remember she won’t be small forever. At the same time there is nothing wrong with it. I suspect we were judged a bit but kids still came round. One did ask where the rest of the house was!

Inflation is the biggest hidden cost of course. But I think opportunity cost and mortgage interest are handled ok in these scenarios?

The real question OP is whether the house (and DD room specifically) is big enough for her to grow into.

We have two kids who we put in the two smallest bedrooms. Seemed to work when they were babies/toddlers but now they are getting older we’re facing into their furniture not being big enough to store their larger and more varied clothes (uniform, various sports kits, as well as day to day clothes) and I don’t think we can fit desks in their rooms which is definitely required once they’re a bit older. Cabin beds are obviously one option but I can’t imagine an 18 year old studying for a levels being happy with that.

I never had a double bed when I lived at home and that was never a problem. But once I left home my Mum got rid of my desk to make room for a double which made visiting with boyfriends much easier.

It's entirely your choice to make and friends who make such comments are knobs. I like plenty of space, so it wouldn't work for me, but if it works for you and your family is on the same page, stick to your guns. It's fab for you to be mortgage free. Life is for living the way that you want to live it.

I suppose I do notice that, having been to a couple of people's houses for paydates recently, they both had much bigger homes than me (despite being in pretty low income jobs). Maybe it's made me reticent to reciprocate the invites, if only for the reason that the kids don't have much room to run around at mine

so it’s already impacting your child.

stay put, don’t stay put, me no I don’t want to live in cramped conditions if I don’t need to, I don’t want guests to sleep in the living room if they don’t need to and I certainly wouldn’t wish to impact my own child’s friendships because I don’t reciprocate play dates due to my house, one day they will stop inviting.

but if you want these things crack on.

Just came on to say you sound like a fab person with very decent values. When it comes to my DC and who they play with, the only thing I care about is that their friends are kind and they get on well, and that the parents are responsible and caring. Whether that’s in a 2 bedroom flat or 10 bedroom mansion. Ignore those shallow comments and remember this saying: “never change a running system”.

It sounds fine for now. You could save up/invest and keep an eye on slightly bigger houses coming up locally if you needed more space later on. People talking about being ashamed are talking rubbish though.

It’s fine to stay where you are.
My dc are adults now but they stayed with us till their late twenties to save for their own houses. By that time they had long term partners etc. Things would have been difficult if the only space they had was a small bedroom. Having more than 1 bathroom was also important. So I am glad we had more room.

My two pence worth with young adult kids is that a bigger bedroom is a great when they become creative or explore make up / jewellery - room for a desk and in our case a green screen for one and the other space to film endless tik tok videos - it's nice for them to have some space to hang out in as older children in private, to study etc - not crucial but if you can afford then great - also toys get bigger before they get smaller - trampolines / Lego / doll houses etc and there is a time when it's lovely they can spread out in their room and not always the lounge

personally if you can afford a roof conversion then that would be ideal or maybe a three bed so two good sized bedrooms and one box room for a spare / study / tik tok dance or whatever that might be in 10
years space :)