This obsession of "moving up the housing ladder"?

[Marghe87]

I am not from the UK. Back home and in many other countries around Europe, families of 4 people happily live all their lives in a 2 bedroom flat. It is considered to be the normality.
In here, I find that people very rarely settle and houses are not for life but rather a way of climbing the property ladder to hopefully end up in a 4 bed property with garden, even for a family of only 4 people.
I have a few main questions and I'd like to hear what other people think:

1 - why this obsession with upgrading? Especially if this often means get a higher mortgage, be in more depth, compromise lifestyle etc...

2 - do you know any family of 4 who have lived in a 2 bed flat/house for life?

3 - do you find yourself wanting to "upgrade" because it is the right thing to do for your family or just to chase a society stereotype (ie: all your friends and colleagues do it so you might as well)?

I can see what you mean op but most 2 bed flats simply are not big enough. Newer houses and flat are getting smaller and smaller, it's horrible.

Some people do keep up with the Joneses and its more about status. But for many, it's just about wanting more space. The only way to gain that space, is to play the market and move up when you can afford to do so.

If they could have afforded the 4 bed first then they may have bought it. But how many people with or without kids can just choose a large house first?

People also move due to change if circumstances.
I've just moved due to divorce and needing to buy without a mortgage pushed me 100 miles from what I know.
I will be moving again in 4 years time maybe to another 3 bed semi but I would like a detached as my daughter is so noisy and then I'm done. I may downsize or I may rent part for retirement income until I take myself off to die.

I understand people wanting to move because they need more space but I don't understand people who move just for the sake of it. People who buy a house, stamp their mark on it and then get bored as there's nothing left to do to it so they move! All that money wasted on stamp duty, estate agents fees, solicitors fees and removal costs.

I am also obsessed with interiors and spend a lot of time and money improving the flat we are currently renting. And of course I would like to have a bigger place - probably a house- once we have kids.
What I mean is that many people seem to "want more" even when they don't actually need more.
A 3 bed decent size house is, in my opinion, perfectly fine for a 4 people family but most would think the opposite.
I like the idea of having a house for life and it is because I want to spend time, money and energy renovating it and making it a home that I don't understand why people would want to change 4-5 properties in their life just for the sake of climbing the ladder.

The 2 bed flat I have mentioned in the OP was just an example - as someone wrote, flats in Europe are way bigger (and usually offer better standards) than here in the UK. Also houses are just less common than here.

Also I am mostly talking about the South East where properties have ridiculous costs. I appreciate in the North things are very different.

I disagree with those who say 'it's just individual personalities' -- the very exact correlation of house with status is very much an ingrained society-wide thing in this country.

A poster up the thread said that although her house was big enough for her and her family, she felt guilty for not bringing up her daughter in a larger and more prestigious space to give her a 'better start'. There have been numerous threads by posters whose social lives and the social lives of their young children have been curtailed by their fears of negative judgements from acquaintances and parents collecting children from a playdate on their small house/flat/HA property/ unprestigious area, as it places them, very precisely, on a class and income 'map' or ladder.

That pressure is not as marked in many other societies I have some rich, sociable Parisian lawyer friends, who live, with their two children, in an unremarkable, small apartment with a small kitchen and balcony and no spare room, in an ugly 1970s block in a suburb where one of them grew up. At one point one of them who is not French, and grew up in a house -- suggested buying a house in the same area, and her husband thought it was a really weird idea, and didn't like the idea of being individually responsible for his own garden, roof repairs etc. They did eventually move, but just to a slightly larger version of the same apartment, with a spare room for the visiting non-French grandparents. There seems to be far less sense in other societies that someone who is a law partner 'should' live in a certain kind of space.

The dream of a garden for your children is quite socially-mandated.

Having said that, many European apartment blocks have individual locked storage for each flat in a basement and/or underground car parking, which solves some of the problems of small space living.

UK house sizes for a given bedroom amount are much much smaller than most other countries. This may be why a 2 bed somewhere else could comfortably house 4 people

@BeGoodTanya you couldn't have explained this better.

I was raised in a 2 bed flat in an European capital and so did most of my friends, even those coming from very wealthy families. Some flats are better than others, some in better areas, but I have never met people so obsessed with this status race.
If you find a place you like and you are comfortable with, you get it and you stay there with your family until the end of time.

The 5 bed detached/SUV car (even if you only use it to pick your kids up at school)/giant diamond on your ring mentality is something I have mostly experienced here in the UK.
If you don't have all this, you haven't "made it".

Whilst my relatives in Italy do live in fairly compact houses or flats, they all then own other properties, either for rent, or for holiday. Italian's tend to put their money in housing too, but in this slightly different way.

@SilentSister I know very well :) :) :)
Don't you think the main focus is on "owning a property" rather than "climbing a ladder" there though?

Interesting question. We live in a 3 bed ( could be 4) Victorian terrace. It's actually quite a big house but only had a small garden and no off road parking. We love it but primarily chose it for it's location - gorgeous little village, loads going on, good school etc.
My DHs friend is obsessed with the fact we could do better and get a 4/5 bed detached in a nieghbouring (not as nice) village for what we paid for ours - he mentions it every time we see him!!

He doesn't get how important location is to us and that were happy with the compromises we made.

There is a reason the Daily Fail always sticks the price of the victim or perpetrator's house in their articles. It seems to be needed for British people to categorize and label a person or family.

I think there is a space ratio issue with homes in the the UK. We live in a 3 bed semi ... honestly it's tiny! Bedroom 1 just about large enough for one wardrobe and double bed. Bedroom 2 single bed and wardrobe... had to get a high sleeper to get a desk in. Bedroom 3: just about fits a high sleeper and draws underneath... Downstairs: open plan with small kitchen space.
This is what we could afford at the time, with 2 DC.
So naturally people want to move to have some decent space that allows for family living without being in each others pockets. Especially as DC grow and need their own space for homework and having friends over.

they all then own other properties, either for rent, or for holiday. Italians tend to put their money in housing too, but in this slightly different way.

That's true -- same with some of my friends in other European countries (though family houses are sometimes co-owned with a bunch of cousins), but I'd agree nonetheless with the OP, that there still isn't the prescriptive idea of property as some kind of economic/social class ladder to be climbed the way there is in the UK, or that house is automatically better than flat, detached better than semi-detached, semi- better than terraced, three-bedroom house better than two-bedroom, four-bedroom better than three etc etc.

My husband used to have a very high-profile job, and people here were vocally baffled at the fact that we were renting (!) a very simple 1970s house, which they didn't see as commensurate with our perceived income at all. (Or with the grotesque giant car that came as part of the job.) Mind you, they were equally baffled when he quit said high-profile job, and is now earning peanuts working for himself...

Some people always want newer, bigger, brighter, shinier. Car, house, phone, etc. Others prefer to stick with what they've got because it works, and they're happy with it for whatever reason.

Personally I would disagree with this, we are in a 3 bed house and about to have our 2nd child. We would like a bigger house - 4 bedrooms and space for a utility downstairs for a few reasons, mainly storage space as our 3 bed new build has NONE. The house was perfect for us as a couple before DC and we have lived there now for 6 years, finding that there's quite literally nowhere to keep things like ironing board and hoover mean you look for homes where these things can be put away.
However we both drive 10 year old cars, have phones of a few years old and don't tend to be lavish with anything else. I'd much rather put my money into our next home than be upgrading every part of our lives for the sake of it.

There is a reason the Daily Fail always sticks the price of the victim or perpetrator's house in their articles. It seems to be needed for British people to categorize and label a person or family.

Yes, exactly! You get some really odd statements like 'X, victim of a miscarriage of justice/father of a murdered teenager/the drink driver responsible for 5 deaths, locked himself away from the world in his £350,000 house in Xville.'

@BeGoodTanya I have a colleague in her mid/late thirties, single, with a decent but not top income that just bought a 2 bed house for £400K.
Weeks after she signed the contract she said she wanted to "upgrade" in a few years time as her house is tiny. Also definitely wants a new, much bigger car as her fiesta is apparently not good enough for her (to go grocery shopping by herself?). I don't get it?!?!

I'm not sure if that's really the case everywhere. The people I know from baby/toddler groups mostly had their first child when living in a small two bedroomed house. These houses were too small for four people, so at some point between having the first child and the second child becoming a toddler, they all either moved to a bigger house in a less central location or extended the house significantly. Those houses are now treated as "forever" houses, and the people have no intention of moving, unless possibly to downsize in retirement.

Families don't rent if they can possibly help it because renting is so insecure. Everyone I know who rents has been evicted at some point in their children's primary school years, forcing them to change school.

And a standard two bedroom house is very, very cramped for four people - two teens, and boy and a girl sharing a bedroom with no space for a desk, only a small table in the kitchen or dining room, is far from ideal.

I don't feel any 'obsession'. We were living in a 4 bed detached house for 12 years, and we just moved to another one. Because its bigger and suits us better. We started off as 2 and a bump. We are now 4. And the bump is now a hulking great thing.
Its nothing to do with anyone else.
Essentially, there were aspects of our living situation we wanted to improve, and we were in a position financially to do so, so we did it. There was nothing wrong with the old house, other than it was a house we moved into as a couple with no idea of what our requirements would be 12 years down the line.
So we moved.
List of requirements for us:
Same town. We like where we live.
Bigger hallway
Both kids get double room
sewing room for me
Spare bedroom for visitors.
Play / music room for kids
Kitchen big enough for a four seater table
two parking spaces side by side
bigger garage
garden same or smaller
not overlooked
not near main road
no work needed doing (new build)
part exchange (again, new build)
extra bathroom
walk in wardrobe. actually that wasn't on my list, but we got one anyway.
neighbours just as nice as the last lot - unfortunately couldn't guarantee this, but they all seem lovely so far. Plus the old ones came for a visit!

I'm not obsessed with either status or moving up any ladder - but I don't want to live in a flat. So I don't. Many flats in this country are poky and shoddily made with poor outdoor space.

We have been in a (fairly big) 3 bed terrace for 16 years. There are certain things I would like if and when we move, one thing being I would like to not live in a narrow long house. So whilst a bit more space would be nice, it would be a different layout that I'd be really interested in - a difference way of living.

We had our first child in our twenties in a small two bed terrace. We were lucky to have a nice back garden and front drive (most don’t round here, they just have a yard and you step straight off the street into the house). It was okay when we lived there as a couple but I felt like we were living very closely with our neighbours. If you sat out in the garden you felt like you were part of their conversation and I hated it.

Anyway the bedrooms were big enough and we bought when the property crash happened so we tried to put up with it. Then we had awful issues with one of the neighbors maliciously reporting us to social services and I almost had a nervous breakdown because of it.

Thankfully my dad refurbishes and rents properties out and he’d just finished a three bed semi with a huge garden which he’d bought for peanuts due to it being in such a poor state. He moved us in and we immediately felt so much happier.

We’ve since bought it off him and I genuinely love it as much as you can possibly love a house. I wouldn’t move if we won the lottery.

Because it’s an end of the row semi it has a wrap around garden so you have no need to see neighbours. When I look out all I see is the garden. I don’t feel claustrophobic anymore. We’ve added a big back extension too which gives more living space and a playroom for the kids.

We could have stayed in our old house at a push but there was no need to really. I won’t be moving again until I’m ready for a retirement home.

Bigger hallway
Both kids get double room
Sewing room for me
Spare bedroom for visitors
Play / music room for kids

It's great that you can afford this but I am sure you will agree these are not that essential for most families?
That's exactly what I am talking about. The fact that having a couple of spare rooms for hobbies and a garden is considered a normal thing to aspire to.

Again, not sure which part of the country you are from but around London this sounds a bit too much for most.

I think it’s normal to aspire to more space if you find that more comfortable. I don’t think that means your desire for a larger house is inherently status based.

We lived in Germany for 4 years but I wouldn't say most families where happy with the smaller space they have just adapted to it as some parts of Europe is really expensive to live.

We are are a family of 3 DD is 3, plus medium sized dog and large cat. We love in a two bedroom terrace in a really nice area (we could have got bigger but we wanted the area so we compromised on driveway and extra bedroom) we look at others with bigger houses and wonder how they cope with the extra heating, cleaning, maintenance not to mention things like council tax! Got my bill today for band B £1349!! I dread to think what it would be on a higher band.

We are fairly minimalist, spend a lot of time outside walking the dog and have really thought out the layout of the house to make it work. We may look to do a loft conversion or add an en-suite so we have two bathrooms but we are happy where we are as it's affordable and we are not stressed about affording it and maintaining it.

d Europe, families of 4 people happily live all their lives in a 2 bedroom flat. It is considered to be the normality.

Surely this is the normality in countries with better weather than the UK? It's easier to live smaller if you can be outside more. I live in a european country with similar weather as the UK and wanting a bigger house is pretty normal here too. I'd say that outside of city centres terraced houses are the norm here. And yes, bloody expensive as well.

@Marghe87 what's to not get? Upsize when you have a family and need the space, downsize in retirement when there are 2 of you (and less able to upkeep a bigger house potentially!) and benefit from the cash lump sum in retirement from selling a bigger place? It's really not complicated.