Does anyone regret moving to a bigger house and higher mortgage?

[Elsbells22]

Does anyone regret buying the bigger house?
we have a pretty small mortgage less than 100k left to pay off and monthly payments are around £700 a month so manageable and in turn because we don’t have a massive outgoing on the mortgage each month we have spare money to go on holiday or eat out etc and not have to worry.
But I’ve never thought of this property as my forever home, we are quite cramped. Would love an extra bedroom, dining room, utility room all things we don’t currently have.
So my question is has anyone done the big move to the better home and regretted it or taken the financial hit but thought totally worth it?

They’ve been saying it for much longer than a decade and I’ve been a homeowner since 2003 🤷‍♀️ but when there’s evidence of a drop it would be foolish to ignore it.

Have a read up on what’s happened to prices in real terms recently. In much of the country they have already fallen quite significantly, and it’s hard to see at the moment what would reverse that. I’m not suggesting that OP should try to time the market- the right time to buy a house is when you need a house- but personally I would not be overstretching at the moment or putting money into housing that was for the short term. If it’s a long term purchase and affordable, there’s no issue.

My (very modest) salary has tripled since we moved. Our mortgage payment went up 50%. The term had to be lengthened initially to make it doable. We have been here 7 years, and I realised in the old house our mortgage would have now been paid off, where as here I have 10 years to go. However, it is more than worth it for a large garden, extra bedroom, double garage, utility room and extra bathroom. Plus, the equity in this house. We now have the option to downsize in 10 years' time if we want to.

I love our house but the bills are eye watering so bear that in mind!

Doubled our mortgage to move from a 4 bed semi to a 5 bed detached. Yes, we are more cautious and careful with money but I love the extra space. We will absolutely get the benefit whilst the kids are teenagers, and can cope with no problems if they bounce back after uni.

@Nofeckingway I'm in the same position. Very little to buy and three bed accessible homes are the same price as modern five beds.
OP I would do the numbers based on one salary and no more than half of that. I fell ill, had to go interest only and the bank has been total shits. We have just sold but the deal is fragile and I had very little interest in our house. We're downzing and that doesn't necessarily mean a cheaper next move.

People said exactly the same to us when we bought in 2017 from living in cheap secured tenancy, after Brexit prices stagnated and people got nervous. And we bought during covid (before the stamp duty freeze when the market went crazy, when people were very anxious about the market). People thought we were mad. Both worked out well.

it’s daft to ever base your purchase on housing rumours. If they can afford the mortgage (with stress testing) that’s what matters.

I have no regrets buying a bigger house and tripling my mortgage. We wasn’t cramped in our last home but the location was not where I would have wanted to stay in, moved from city life to village life.
The only one thing I miss from the old house is having the amount of disposable income I had, but I wouldn’t change my house now for that extra disposable income.

Personally, If you are only having 1 child I'd stay put. Use the money you'd spend on a bigger mortgage and save it. Give it 4 yrs and see where you are.

No regrets. We've had family parties with 12 people staying over. Gorgeous garden, parking for plenty, space to enjoy.

It's been a good investment too. It has a huge garden that very few people want any more so I'll sell a piece as a building plot and give to ds as a deposit.

i did this and I don’t regret it. Went quite aggressively on the mortgage for the first few years once the children were out of the expensive nursery years, kept overpaying and then when the term was up we were able to stretch it a bit and enjoy more disposable income. I love having the space a big house gives me. It’s our priority over cars, holidays etc etc because we’re there every single day! Having 2 reception rooms has been brilliant as the kids get older and want sleepovers with their friends and everyone has a decent enough bedroom space, we both have room to work from home. We will be paying the mortgage for another 20 years but for us it’s worth it

I think it also depends WHEN you did it though.

If I'd done it in 2016 I'd feel great about upsizing as it is we didnt upsize until 2019 and didnt go full hog and are very, very happy about it.
A £1m mortgage (which we were being pushed) at 4% is no cake walk....
We took £600k and even that is punchy with 2 kids and we earn well.

I think it depends on so many factors. If you hate your house then it would be worth the stress and extra money but if you like your house but just fancy more space then maybe it's not worth cutting back on life's luxuries. Really depends if your new mortgage would swallow up the bulk of your income and how much of a stretch it would be . We are in a similar position. We live in a 3 bed semi with a conservatory with 2 kids. My husband would love a bigger house (our 6 year old is in the box room) but I grew up in a 3 bedroom council house in a family of 8 so from my perspective we have a house that is more than big enough. We've 6 years left on the mortgage which means we can contemplate early retirement (in the future - we are in our 40s), put money away for our kids future/education and in the near future maybe work part time. Like you we can have more holidays, take aways, parties without stress (& I love to shop 😂). We do like our house though and it is close to the school, the grandparents and we have lovely neighbours with a good garden.

I agree with your last sentence and have said so above.

I’m not talking about rumours btw. I’m talking about an actual measurable drop which has already started in much of the country. The fact that people have been incorrectly predicting a crash for years doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

It sounds about the same size as our house, if you have just the one child it's doable with the 2 bedrooms and box room/study but if we had had anymore we would have moved so I would definitely upsize if you plan more DC. There is only us now as DS has left home and we find the house just right so don't have to think about downsizing

Not the same scenario as we massively increase the size while lowering our mortgage. The lower mortgage is invaluable, the freedom it grants is not only now but in the future when it’s paid off much earlier is so reassuring.
However the big house also makes a difference to our enjoyment day to day. It really depends on your actual numbers and how much of a stretch it would be imo.

We went from mortgage paid off to our dream home in the country and I’ve never regretted it I love this house.
We had quite a lot of equity from our house sale and savings and our mortgage was slightly over 100K so the payments weren’t that bad but we have massively overpaid and have 10K left so almost mortgage free again. But even if we weren’t I still wouldn’t regret it.

I absolutely love our house and have no regrets as it facilitates a lifestyle we all wanted however I do occasionally wish I could have “made myself” be happy in our old house because it was so much cheaper to run due to being newer and more energy efficient. Our energy bills are staggering and will only keep going up by the sound of things.

We did move to the bigger house. What motivated the move was moving closer to where I spent my time and saved me an hour a day while only adding 4 minutes to my husband's commute. To then get somewhere we could reliably park and was safe for the cat added 100k. We also spent a lot of money and time redecorating, repairing and buying more furniture even though it was only one extra room. The lounge was smaller but the kitchen now was bigger and could take a table. That saving of 7 hours a week was worth it alongside a huge saving in fuel, so for quality of life then and now it was worth it.

Had I been able to stick it out though, I would be retired by now. Knowing what I know now I would definitely do the move as it turned out that being closer to amenities generally saved money too.

Only you know what it is worth to you.

Yep that happened after 2016 and in 2020 too! If people keep saying a crash is coming, they’ll probably be right eventually. No one is saying the housing market is secure, but at the end of the day we’re generally buying homes for the long haul, the market will go up and down.

Absolutely no regrets here. We moved from a 2 bed terrace to a 4 bed semi, with utility and dining room, 3x more garden space, and will do some work next year to add another bedroom and bathroom. It did increase mortgage paymenta and we also had to extend the term, so currently will be paying it off well into our 70s. But in reality once the kids are done with nursery we hope to use some of that freed up money to overpay it and reduce the term a bit.

We host almost every weekend, can have family to stay, and now have off street parking. We hope to stay here at least 20-25 years before downsizing if needed. 10000% worth it for us.

Responses on this thread are kind of useless OP as you have no idea what income people are bringing in and the impact on their living costs of taking on a bigger mortgage.

Absolutely no regrets here. We moved from a small 3bed semi on a busy road to large 4 bed detached on a quiet 1960s estate. We loved our old house, across the road from the DCs primary school, we stayed there 15yrs. However we moved in as newlyweds and the house felt smaller once our DC hit their teens.

The mortgage is not as big a leap as we bought a doer upper that is half done and we have run out of cash to finish it but still no regrets. The peace and quiet on the street, garden not overlooked and big rooms with huge windows more than makes up for it. Both kids get a double bedroom and I have a decent WFH office space. The only downside is more to clean.

I wouldn't overextend yourself financially to move up but I found it worth it if you can manage it comfortably.

We never moved from our 3 bed semi detached. Yes, I would have liked a bigger kitchen, one more bedroom etc but not moving allowed me to retire at 49. Kids have now moved out so the house is now big enough.

We moved to a much bigger house last year.
I absolutely love the space and enjoy inviting people round knowing we have the room.
However, it's not just higher mortgage you need to consider.
Our Council Tax increased by approximately £120 a month, our heating costs are much higher, as are insurance premiums.
Our house needs quite a lot of work and more and larger rooms cost more.
Just remember to factor all that in too - but if you can afford it, and still afford to live, then do it. I wish we'd moved earlier.

We moved to a cheaper area (city to rural town) and had the same mortgage but for a house that was twice the size. It suited for work anyway but it had been the best decision we ever made.

Kids were preschool and that made it much easier to do because there was no school moves.

Might that be an option?