Has anyone gone for the smaller, more affordable house and not regretted it?

[Housechoice]

As above really! It’s the debate I find myself having with DH. We’ve 2 very young DC (no plans for more) and are weighing up the pro’s and con’s of a reasonable house for say £350,000 with some compromises versus a bigger ‘ideal’ house for say £450,000 which ticks every box. Location wise both would be similar area so no compromises there.

The Mortgage saving would be big by not taking out an extra £100,000, so less financial stress/worry.

I’m looking for any insights on those who found themselves making a similar decision and whether there’s any regrets either way?

When i bought with my exH, we could have borrowed a lot more money than we did. We were very tempted to buy a much larger house, but knowing we only wanted one child we went for a 3 bed. It would've been catastrophic if we'd taken out a larger mortgage. First the interest rates had a huge increase, and if we'd got a bigger mortgage we'd have struggled a heck of a lot. Then we decided to divorce, and i was able to take the mortgage on in my sole name. I'd never have been able to do that if we'd borrowed more. And being able to keep the house meant there was stability and familiarity in our DD's life when everything else fell apart.

We went for the smaller home and have been mortgage free since we were 46, and we have never looked back.

I would choose a smaller place and less debt. Our little cottage is in the sticks too, with woodlands behind, and we love it so much!

We went for the property that was less money when the children were small with absolutely no regrets. We had to put a strong fence up because the house is on a busy main road and we didn’t want children or our dog on the main road!

We were very very happy there for over 30years, and now we have downsized again which we are extremely pleased about.

Having money in your purse gives you freedom, when you’re hocked up to the gunnels it’s miserable

We went for the 350,000 house, no regrets. Let go of the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and remember the Joneses shit themselves whenever an envelope arrives. Peace of mind and affordability is so much better than an extra bedroom or a bigger garden.

I think you need to look at your day to day quality of life. If you’re people who enjoy staying at home, you’re more likely to use the bigger space, but if your idea of a good time is being out, away, busy, and you’re not using the actual house itself for your leisure time, then it might be less important to have extra space and better for your QoL to have the extra freedom of spending money.

🙋‍♀️ I bought a lovely 3-bed semi detached fixer-upper. It is a brilliant size for our family of 3, with a little guest room for grandparents and friends to stay.
I could have stretched to get somewhere with a bigger square footage or bigger garden, but I really wanted a mortgage that wasn't going to stress me horribly if rates fluctuate and to have money for other things each month.
I love my house.
I've been doing it up a bit at a time and we're 2.5 years in and it is unrecognisable from the advert. I'm so proud of it and don't see myself moving for a really long time, if ever!

We went for a bigger house, as I was pregnant with our 3rd child. We didn’t regret it but our potential earnings were only going to increase so we made the jump. If you were going to stay at a similar salary I don’t know if I would frankly. Would your kids share a room or do each have their own (didn’t see that mentioned - sorry if I missed that!)

But don’t forget those teens will be off to uni in a few years and then you’ll have a large empty house that still needs heating and maintenance.

We went for the big house. As the kids get older is a godsend (they have their own lounge/floor) once they get older we’ll rent it out to a lodger

Depends how much time you spend in your house. If you're alwasy out and about, active spend all of Sunday at grandparents and Saturday doing sports then you probably won't notice as much as a family who are more homebodies.

Don't forget vast majority of uni leavers now return home for a few years before they fully fly the nest!

When my son was 4 years old we moved from a 3 bedroomed semi-detached house (2 double, 1 single bedroom) with only 1 reception room, no garage. We borrowed more to be able to buy a 4 bedroomed (4 double bedrooms), detached, with a garage and 2 reception rooms. Yes, we managed to purchase the house at a lower price, because it needed a lot of work doing.

We have gradually renovated the property over the years, and still have rooms to do. We have zero regrets on purchasing the house. Yes, we could have stayed in our old house, would have likely paid off the mortgage by now. Our previous house wouldn't be as worth as much, as our current one. We've looked at it, as a long-term investment.

My friend bought the big house. And just isn't feeling it. She might even sell. Have a good think about what the big house would enable, how you'd really end up living in it. I was watching someone yesterday who grew up on an enormous house talk about how it kept people apart. That may be good or bad, although on balance I think bad.

I think it depends what kind of people you are. I don't really spend loads of time at home and I'm not that fussed about having a fancy house. I see a new bathroom as a pointless expense not a source of joy. I love holidays, being out and about doing exercise, trying new foods, going out etc.

I don't have kids but I went for a cheapest house in an area I felt safe to go running in. I bought the house at 28, at 38 id only have 65k left on the mortgage, but my dad very kindly paid it off this year. I work 4 days a week and absolutely have the life I want. I could easily buy a fancier or bigger house with a mortgage but fuck that!

The other thing to consider is what the biggest house means practically, eg if it means the kids both get their own decent sized bedrooms I'd probably do it. Or one of you loves to garden but you've only got a yard. But if it's just an extra bedroom you won't use much, then I wouldn't bother!

We went straight from a 2 bed flat to a 4 bed detached, skipping the 3 bed semi entirely. We had noisy neighbours in the flat and I was super keen to go detached if we could! We didn’t stretch to the max financially as didn’t want too much pressure on me (breadwinner) - I’ve been able to take a long mat leave then go PT after having DC.

We’re only 3 years in, and 1 DC so far, but no regrets! I know the small 3 beds we viewed would be feeling very cramped already, especially as we both WFH a lot.

I moved to a bigger house and honestly I’m really torn about it. On the plus side we have a really nice house and room for everyone to have a bedroom plus a spare room / office and as we work from home most of the time that’s invaluable. But I hate having a big mortgage - £200k at 50 feels completely different to 40. But then I guess we can always downsize and will own a good asset.

Hmm, we went for the cheap house as a temporary solution and now it is looking permanent. I do regret it slightly, but also, I'm working 6 days a week earning a lot more than I did when we bought this house, and we still can't afford to improve it due to interest rates rises. We are now have the best LTV rate and our mortgage will still go up higher than it was 5 years ago. So I do wonder how we would have coped if we had stretched ourselves. But I also feel a bit stuck here in a house that is too small, and part of me thinks we would have found the money. OTOH, I think it's rare for anyone to be completely happy with their house. It's human nature to always want better, is it not? With interest rate predictions, petrol prices, food crisis imminent it doesn't seem like a good idea to be pushing any budgets.

We bought a bigger house over the top of our budget because we fell in love with it. We did see a very nice much smaller 3 bed house and I am so glad we didn't buy it. We are home bodies and a small house would make me feel really claustrophobic I think. However, although it was a stretch at the time we always had a solid plan to pay the mortgage off quickly and we will have done so 10 years after buying it. We have never had a worry about paying the bills or losing the house, I might feel differently if that was the case. I love our home and have no regrets.

I live in a 2 bed house ex council house. The rooms and garden are a decent size, although the bathroom is small and there is no dining room. It was what I could afford when I was a young single parent.

Fast forward in time, and I am now 50, my DC has grown up and left home, my mortgage is paid off, I only need to work part time, I have a motorhome and I travel/go away about 70 nights a year. My house is done up nicely/been remodeled. It's plenty big enough for me, I can have guests sleep over, and I have an office to WFH.

It was absolutely the right thing to do. I could have gone for a bigger house, but so would still have a mortgage, still be working full time and not be able to afford my motorhome and to travel so much. Quality of life over big house every time.

Smaller house no regrets. For the few times a year we host when we would need a bit more space its not worth it. We're nearly mortgage free. We go on multiple holidays a year. We'll hopefully be able to help our DC with deposits and therefore they won't be living with us forever. There was no stress when interest shot up. If one of us lost our jobs we could still pay the bills.
Bigger house means more to clean, more to heat, more to decorate and more furniture to buy.

We have a smaller house, mortgage paid off late 30s. I was able to be a SAHM for 5 years and now work part time in low paying but worthwhile job I love. DH was able to afford to return to education which allowed him to progress further in his career than he imagined he'd ever be able to.
We have the ability to fund DCs various hobbies and school residentials. We feel financially stable and are able to save/invest
Downsides are that we lack a spare bedroom, our garden is smaller than I'd like, we'd benefit from an office for DH when he WFH. We aren't willing to move while the DC are at school, don't want to disrupt their education or friendships.
We plan to buy a larger house when the last DC leaves for uni, so that we have enough space for if/when they return before they're able to properly fly the nest.

I think it depends how much of a compromise you're making. We went for a two-bed mid-terrace with one living/ dining room - and I was miserable for ten years.
We're now in an end of terrace home with an extra side entrance and three living spaces (but still only two bedrooms as old house was only big enough for one child).
I am soooo happy to finally have enough space to live in, and just wish DH had agreed to spend a bit more sooner.

The thing is the more expensive the house the higher the equity growth

so if you buy a 350k house now, in ten years qirh a low average of 3.5 percent growth it will be worth 494,

if you buy the 450 in ten years it will be worth 635,

so you will make 144k on the 350k house, but 185 on the 450.

if you then remove interest on your mortgage say 5.5 percent, you make a net 23k on your 450 house and 18 on the 350

this is with ten percent deposit, obv interest rates would go up or down and value growth too, over a 25 year period you’d net a 272 k profit on your 450 house v 211 on the 350,

you then can leave that to your kids, or down size and enjoy it in retirement, or keep moving up the ladder, increasing how much money you make,

We sized up when our children were grown! The house we had had enough bedroom but didn’t feel like enough space we could afford it so thought fuck it lets not our dream house in the country so we did. Haven’t regretted it for a minute however dh is a high earner and we paid the mortgage off within 5 years, had that not been a possibility the I would not have moved. Yes we could have saved that money and been quite loaded but we’re only here once and we have money to eat and pay our bills so we went for it. Not everyone can do that, we may downsize at some point in the next 10 years if we feel we need to.
We don’t do it when the dc were young as we couldn’t afford to and at that time I was very glad of our smaller mortgage and payments.

I never get why bigger is more ideal? More money, more work, more cleaning and unmanageable as you get older