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)?

Just a point from having lived in a 2 bed flat, an odd 2 bed layout and a traditional 2 bed terrace.

It's not simply the number of bedrooms that make a difference to the size of your house, it's how 'liveable' that space is too.

A 2 bed flat is often easier to live in than a traditional British two bed terrace, purely because every inch of space is much more usable and you are not 'wasting' space on a staircase and hallway. The flow of how you move through the house makes an enormous difference. British style houses are therefore much less practical than more European style housing.

I think the British aversion to flats at all is something of a shame. Single storey living is much more preferable. We don't build as much and what we do build tends to be located only in cities not provisional towns. Its either council flat or luxury central city flats with nothing in the middle income bracket.

So families on a middle income don't tend to really have the choice of a reasonable sized 2 bed flat in many parts of the country.

I think the housing ladder obsession therefore is because they is more of a need to move during different times of your life in the UK than in Europe because of issues with impractical and wasteful housing layout.

The other distant thing is that schools for locations where there are flats have a tendency to not be as good. People in the UK move out of their city centre living to the suburbs in a way that perhaps isn't repeated across Europe. Plus UK drinking culture also is a factor. In Europe family friendly flats in good areas are not the rarity they are here.

I think if you are going to criticise the culture of 'moving up the property ladder' you need to look at what's driving those decision and how British living is different on a practical level as well as due to attitudes and cultural differences.

I don't see anything wrong in aspiring to live in the best house you can afford. As long as you aren't stretching yourself financially and leaving yourself with no spare income.

Living in a detached house with lots of space and a garden is great. Why would you settle for a small flat if you can afford more and it makes your life more enjoyable?

Our first home as buyers was a very small flat with no outside space in a fairly run down area - all we could afford. We then moved (for work) to a similar sized property in a nicer area. Next move was for work. Next move was to have enough room, some outdoor space and good childcare provision locally so we could start a family. Although this wasn’t huge, it was fine for a young family and we were here for a number of years. We did then upsize a few years later because a) the children were moving towards their teenage years and we wanted them to have their own rooms and b) once they were at the stage of needing wraparound and holiday care only, and I had stepped back up to full time hours, we had loads more disposable income. So taking out a bigger mortgage was still more affordable than when we’d had a smaller mortgage and nursery fees.

We’ve remained in this house but once the youngest has finished uni we’ll probably downsize to release equity.

So to return to the OP, I think you’ve made an observation about home ownership in the U.K. but are barking up the wrong tree in your assumptions about why people move. There have been numerous explanations on here as to how the U.K. housing market is fundamentally very different from other countries. If more spacious, practical, affordable housing options were available here then people wouldn’t need to move so frequently. If tenancy agreements were as favourable as they are in some other countries then more people would be happy to rent long term too. But given the U.K. market and All the other factors mentioned such as working patterns nowadays, it’s pretty clear that people do need to move. To be in the position as a first time buyer of being able to afford a property big enough for any future partner and children, with childcare and school options on the doorstep, and with a guarantee that you’ll continue working in that area in the future ... well, I haven’t yet come across anyone who’s been able to do that!

We upgraded from our small (but gorgeous) 1.5 bedroom flat to a 3 bed house once we were married because we wanted to TTC. We have since completely renovated it into a 4 bed & are fortunate to be mortgage free. DS2 will be here in September & the local school is excellent so I can’t imagine us “upgrading” for a while yet. It’ll take a big upgrade to top this house for us

We live in a detached house with a garden because it's much nicer to have lot of space and no noisy party wall issues. We could afford an even better house (we aren't in the se) but we have stuck with this one as it's quite affordable. I don't know anyone who lives in a flat by choice and those in terraced houses dream of more space

Ps my 5 bed detached is worth less than the average central London 1 bed flat!

Larger spaces and each having their own room plus a guest room does certainly make for easier living and less squabbling. Enforcing sleep hygiene, sleepovers and grandparents stayiing are all facilitated by more space.
Moving up in younger adulthood also gives you the option to scale back and invest excess cash or remain and make money from your house in retirement.

Our first house was a 3 bed terrace. It would have worked, but it had a cramped living space downstairs. We stayed for 3 years and recently moved to a 3 bed semi. We now have a large 1.5 garage, workshop for DH, large south facing garden and an additional playroom/4 bedroom. It's also 200m from our town precinct, which is amazing.

There was no reason to move other than I didn't like our old house. It was a rational purchase as was value for money, whereas our current house is exactly what I dreamed of raising my family in, without winning the lottery.

We won't be moving again, and if we needed more space this house came with planning permission for a wrap around extension and a 4th bedroom with en-suite over the garage.

Location is also key for us. We have just lucked out with where we ended up as it is perfect. First house was a 5 minute walk to the shops, whereas now it is about 90 seconds.

In terms of growing up in a 2 bed flat... unfortunately I just hate the idea of a flat full stop. I don't like the idea of someone stomping above and/or below me and additional ground rent/service charge costs I would rather pay towards a mortgage of a house.

We bought our first house age 29 and saved a decent deposit so that we could skip the 2bed house stage. I knew I wanted at least a 3bed and didn't want to move again.

We are perfectly happy in our 3bed semi. It was a fixer upper and over the years we have had to make decisions about whether we stay and spend money or move to the next grade up.

Made sense to stay and do it up instead of paying fees. Most of my friends are always working towards the big house. I'm letting go of that now and just making where we are lovely. We will never earn enough money to buy the dream home and I don't want all my money going on a mortgage.