Anyone moved to a smaller house and no longer been able to accommodate visitors?

[feesh]

We live in the Middle East and my mum visits approx 3 times a year, my Dad once and my in-laws once.

We are thinking of moving to an apartment, but it would be a lot cheaper to get a 2-bed than a 3-bed....so much so that we'd save enough to be able to afford to put them all up in nearby hotels every time they visited and still have money left over.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has done this and were your family offended? I'm not sure it will go down very well as they don't get to see their grandchildren very much and I don't want to upset them all by doing it. We won't do it if it will offend them, but I'm not sure how to raise the subject tactfully!

The hotel would be quite close, but they'd still need to take a taxi to come see us.

Yes we did. And would do it again.

Do what is good for you, it is your life. YOu wouldn't even think about if you lived in the UK. If it was reversed and your family wanted to downsize would they think of you and keep the expensive house? I bet they wouldn't.
They will be fine (may be even better as they age) in the hotel.
If they complain about not seeing the DGC enough they can babysit at yours and you take the hotel room for a few night to have some well deserved rest!

I'd say do it too.

We live in a property that has another floor in the basement - an extra bedroom and bathroom. We rented this specifically so that we could welcome visitors to the house and we wouldn't all get on top of each other. A nice quiet cool place to rest while visiting.

I can tell you it's been used a total of 32 days in 4 years. Complete waste of extra rent really. Perhaps for us there is more of an issue is how some people perceive the country we live in and how some have rejected our move here completely.

I don't see why they would be offended - you'll be using that money on your family, and your living arrangements aren't really something they should worry about.

I'd quite like to be put up in a hotel by a friend or family member - breakfast is always better!

EXACTLY! Wally

We did it. Putting family up in hotels is cheaper and in the case of my mother visiting, much better for my sanity as well! So far the family's all reacted well.

Thank you so much for these replies. It has really helped me to get my head around it. We saw a 2-bed yesterday...it wasn't for us, but at least we can open our options up a bit.

I would do it. We were in the ME for 3 years and if we had been paying the rent we would certainly have been in a smaller place than we were given. Not once in those 3 years did a single person come to visit us so imagine how much we would have saved in rent had we been in your situation.

We didn't move house, but we had more children to fill the rooms, with the same end effect :o Parents in a hotel is much, much better all-round, though as we have a house we can accommodate flexible, sleep on the sofa and kids bunk in with ours type visitors, but even room juggling wouldn't work for parents as our room is up too many difficult stairs and the kids' easier to access rooms contain only bunk, mid sleeper and toddler beds - parents too old to accept the inconvenience of any of the options, and much happier in an en-suite hotel room where they are not woken at 6am by the bustle of a busy house full of early bird kids - and I am much happier too :o

We are doing it! We are paying top dollar to have a 4 bed house with lovely guest room but the visits have dropped off somewhat after the initial excitement of us moving here plus my parents prefer (and me ) to meet half way and go in holiday in Asia. It's going to save us thousands in housing and for that I'm ok with peeing off my in laws a bit!

Us too. We live in HK where spare rooms just aren't justifiable. Cheaper to pay for a hotel and makes long visits so much happier for all concerned. My parents can sleep in and eat breakfast without having dd thrust books in their face and ds insist of telling them about his latest poo and I can get myself together and not have to make anyone breakfast that isn't Cheerios