Without going into too much detail, we moved house 8 weeks ago as we needed more space. My main question is in bold at the bottom of the thread but for more context feel free to keep reading.
The house itself is great, using air heat pump technology so no gas/oil bills, and provides us with all the space we could need and wouldn’t necessarily ever outgrow it without being too big.
The issue being is that my husband isn’t 100% in love with the location (it’s about 10 minutes drive from where he would ideally like to live and where we recently moved from). It’s not even further out of the city really, just different area, one that we are just as familiar with. In terms of desirability it’s still great and close to great schools, just not within walking distance to shops, cafes, restaurants or schools which I think we are missing a little already. Our children aren’t in school yet but we will be applying for places in the next two years.
The issue if we move back is that we would get a little bit less value for money, so it will be a smaller property and much older (probably between 90-120 years old) which compared to our new build means we will end up adding an extra £200+ in heating bills each month which will only rise. The home energy rating right now is A and we have no oil/gas concerns to worry about but if we move the properties are all between D/E energy ratings as so old. We will also likely need to spend more renovating and doing up the properties to some extent.
Financially it can be done, we would just be saving less and spending it on energy compared to now, but this is not going to be uncommon these days either.
On paper it would seem nonsensical to move from one great house in a desirable location to another house and add on significant costs and lose space, but my husband really values the convenience and location and is feeling down about where we are living at the moment and just wants to be back where we were. He is genuinely trying to be open minded and adapt but we are probably both struggling a little with just how different it is not to be within walking distance to things! Our nearest shop is now a 40 min round trip walk away, whereas previously we could walk to the shop in under 30 seconds! There are plenty of shops, cafes and and shopping centre nearby, they just all generally involve getting into the car for a 5 minute drive, so not far at all either way.
Nevermind the increase in mortgage rates and all the other costs and fees associated with moving house, would you move to a smaller, older house for purely location & convenience even if it costed you a significant amount more in living expenses to do so but still affordable? Or if you’ve had similar experiences do you have any tips how you maybe moved past and learnt to love living in different area?