Would you live in a mobile home for 2 years whilst building a house to get a better education for your children?

[Mysteriousgirl2]

We are a family of 5 happily living in a detached house in a rural area. The secondary state schools are poor here though. When we first moved, we assumed that we could afford private education for our kids. Basically, we’ve recently come to the conclusion that we really can’t. Sending 3DC with all the price rises year on year just isn’t going to be affordable. And that’s with saving really really hard throughout their primary years.

We are going to look at a building plot in another county next week. There’s excellent schools in the area and I think it would be a much better investment. DH is not keen on buying a house that he hasn’t built or worked on (he’s not strictly a builder but we’ve self built our home here already). We wouldn’t be able to buy a ready made house which compares to ours now in this new area so this is a way in for us.

Is it worth moving to the other area to get into the better school catchment?

It’s a much more affluent area - therefore more engaged parenting and better school environment. Where we live there is a high travelling community (honestly not trying to be a snob or knocking it) but in our experience the focus on education just isn’t there and it impacts the local school.

But if we did it, we’d need to live on a building site for at least 2 years in a mobile home..

Absolutely I would.

I have a friend who did similar. Unfortunately planning permission wasn’t straight forward as it was agricultural land. Every time they applied they kept having the goal posts moved so it took age longer than expected.

But they have a beautiful home in a beautiful lovely place. It’s fantastic.

I have started looking into it myself

Oh that’s interesting.

This plot has planning permission already which makes it more expensive as a plot but it does mean that it’s less of a risk for us as it’s already got permission.

Schools and, importantly, catchment areas can change a lot in 5 years! If one of the schools goes downhill, will you definitely be in catchment for the others? Catchments tend to shrink when people start wanting to avoid schools. And what's the birth rate like in the area?

I've previously worked at a school that lost its "good" status- semi-rural like I assume you are looking at? A lot of parents assumed they could get their children in Y7 into the two other possible local schools- but what actually happened was their catchments shrank a bit, because now everyone close to those schools wanted them as well.

My current school is one of the best regarded schools in the LA- although there's not much school choice due to geography, every year our last distance offered gets a bit shorter. Apparently a lot of parents apply who are just outside of this, and are very disappointed not to get in!

It would be such a shame to go to all this effort and end up disappointed with the secondary schools after all!

I'm not against moving for school catchment at all, but you're potentially taking a risk here. It surely makes more sense to have the flexibility of buying an existing house, not building one? Maybe get your daughter into the school (assuming there is a sibling link?) and then build one? This also means you can stay in your current house bit longer?

Look on FB for 'off site static/ park home/chalet' pages. There are some good homes and great bargains to be had. Ranging in price from £1500-£150,000.

Do you know that the travelling community have any impact on the secondary schooling? In our area, next to none of the travellers actually attend at secondary level, so have little relevance, except on attendance figures.

I think the short term pain would be worth the long term gain. So yes, I'd do that in a heart beat.

Update in case anyone is interested: we viewed a plot today and it was really exciting. Enough space to put two decent mobile homes on and really close to our dream school (although, importantly, still in good reach of other options if our plan A school doesn’t work out) It had a good garden and is really well located.

We are considering buying the plot with savings, then taking out a BTL mortgage on our current home (owned outright currently) to pay for the build cost. However, owning two houses could complicate things in terms of stamp duty so a straightforward sale might be easier.

It’s so exciting! I don’t know how much I’ll sleep tonight mulling things over…

I would go for it just make sure the 7 year old has their own room as sats will be coming up. Mobile homes can be quite big now too.

I don't think it's a problem to live in a mobile home. We lived as a family for 1.5 years in a 1 room annex while we gutted and restored a wreck, and dh has lived as a child for 10 years in a small mobile home (with 2 siblings). I would still look at your local schools first. There is a difference between how many pupils get great results and whether it's possible or not. If the schools teach Further maths at A level, triple science for GCSEs, and there are even a few individual pupils getting mainly 9s and Astars, then it should not matter whether 60% of pupils fail to get 5 passes. Both dh and I have been at schools where very few got good grades, but if individuals worked reasonably well, there was nothing stopping them from succeeding, (in the end, everyone can buy the exam board syllabuses and read tjem during tje summer holidays ahead of the school year), and we both went on to Cambridge and Oxford respectively. It's always been very encouraging for both of us to be big fishes in a small pond, mainly by just applying ourselves a little bit in a see of apathy. We are generally not sure how we would have fared in life if we had been small or just average fish at very selective/high performing schools.

That’s such an interesting post thank you @NellyBarney

Edited: oops, no idea why this very old thread popped up! Didnt check date before responding.

Yes absolutely. Many many people in rural areas live in them permanently! If you can afford a good one then they aren't much different space wise to any bungalow, just shitter insulation

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Yes I would do this especially because the children are young and nowhere near exams. We were out and about a lot when they were little - so wouldn't have spent massive amounts of time in the house.

With schools I think it is possible to choose a long term excellent one - the ones near me have been consistent for over 12 years. Agree with other poster - look for ones with 3 separate sciences and further maths on offer.

Things to ensure - minimal living (declutter and store extra stuff) and good heating to prevent damp. Plus contingency fund for building cost rises over the two yrs.

Schools’ fortunes go up and down. It just takes a change in head teacher or a member of the SLT for a school’s performance and ethos to change incredibly quickly.

Don’t move home for a school your DCs haven’t even started attending yet.

A year maybe, but not two. They could end up with nowhere to study, nowhere to invite friends. I’d honestly stay where you are and invest the saved money in tutors. Or move to a built house.

We had this dilemma.. rural area.. local education very poor (lack of ambition ).. miles behind performance of city schools..

We looked at moving but we all like where we live.. we've ended up sending one child to day private (probably state college for sixth form) and one to state boarding. The state boarding education is excellent but you get slated on MN for sending your child to a boarding school ...

Personally I couldn't live in a caravan for 2 years but I've known 2 other families do it. Both with kids.

How about rent & rent? Rent your house & rent another in the preferred area? You might have to downsize houses to make up for the price discrepancy, or 3-bed semi

My husbands parents did this for a similar amount of time.
I'm regularly met with tales of how awful it was from all involved I swear there's some lasting trauma due to it since it's so present despite being almost 40 years ago.
The lack of living space, lack of privacy, not being able to have visitors, friends over, there was teasing at school and prejudice they were travellers when they weren't.
I.couldnt live without decent heating that'd be my biggest barrier.
I'd not consider it ever

I think you would spend way more than 3 lots of indy school fees on such a scheme (counting all the income your DH doesn't earn because he's working on this house as part of what you are spending)

And there's no guarantee that the school you like now will still be good in 2 years or that you'll get a place there.

I'm excited for you.
You have the skills and smarts to make the move a positive change for your kids' education and financially too.

Erect the garage and fence first so that your kids can have a safe yard and you have lock up space additional to the mobile home.

But they like to self build, not buy ready made, so they would have to go back in a mobile home...

Unless this is a huge plot you could end up not getting in the better schools because others have bought and built houses.