Should we move to have more money 😀

[Rom8]

Hello I hoped to get some insight in to something we have been thinking about doing

We have a mortgage on a house £170,000
The house is now worth £600,000

We could sell and pay off the mortgage and get something in roughly the same area for about £400,000ish it would be a downsize but we only have one child so only need a 2 bed (currently in a 2bed)

And the reason behind it, is we feel we have no quality of life, we can’t afford to go on holidays or buy anything big or go on fun days out that often as my partner is always working and is so tired

I work part time (own business) and do 90% of the childcare ( he’s 5)

If we moved and payed off mortgage we wouldn’t have so much money pressures and could do more things ( even go travelling and rent out the house if we wanted to)

All my money goes to food and paying off old debt and all my partners money goes to paying all the other bills so at the end of the month we are not left with much!

I know this is pretty standard for the times we are living in… but I wonder if anyone else has done this?

To have more freedom to live life a bit more to the fullest and not just chasing money to pay the bills ?

If we lived mortgaged free we would be saving 3k spare a month todo the good things in life?

Sorry I no that’s long and thank you if anyone read it all and has any advice 😆☺️💗

Oh my God I would do this in a flash! Do you intend to have any more children? What kind of house can you buy for that kind of money and what kind of area would it be in? Would it allow your child to go to the schools you want them to go to? Would those be two good sized bedrooms?

I would move in these circumstances :).

If you can stay in an area you like but get a cheaper property that still meets your need then I think it is the way to go!

Of course, why wouldn’t you? It’ll be life changing for you all!

How is it downsizing if you're in a 2 bed and moving to a 2 bed?

Yes, I would sell an expensive house and buy a cheaper one if it was in the area I liked. I've been mortgage free and it really is a great feeling.

We'll have this house paid off in a year but we have an absolute psycho arsehole for a neighbour so will sell as soon as we can.

And we'll likely be paying a mortgage again because of the move. I can't despise my neighbour enough.

How will you be £3k better off if your mortgage is only £170k? That seems like a very large payment for that level of mortgage.

I would consider it but if the reason you would save £3k per month is because you are overpaying a lot or have taken a short term for the mortgage, I would also consider extending the term of the mortgage to reduce the monthly payments. Then you still have the option of downsizing in the future when you want to retire.

How is 170k mortgage 3k a month?!

Sorry I wrote this out in haste this morning 😆
so if we sold this and paid off all our debt and cleared the mortgage we would probably have about 2.5 more a month!

no more kids

we have a big 2 bedroom, 2 reception rooms open plan kitchen bifold doors on to a garden with a office/outhouse space at the bottom we did it all a few years ago hence why’s it’s worth more now!

so we could stay with a mile of here so could stay in the school / near family etc it just wouldn’t be on the nicest road so to speak 😀

we are just fed up of working to live and I can’t see what the point of all this if we can never save or book holidays etc 🫣

we have 20 years left on the mortgage and the fixed rate is going up next year !

I do love this house and the next one could be half the size but I think I would rather be able to book a few holiday a year than having just a bigger house 😆😆

Do it, will be such a relief no mortgage. Be careful of your early redemption fee but it sounds like it’ll be worth it. Or if it a lot, see if you’ll be better off waiting until the mortgage needs renewing next year. Then pay it off without ERC.

Do it, we never moved up the ladder and stayed in our 3 bed house as we paid mortgage off in our thirties. We have now retired, both of us at 55 and 58. No housing costs at all does over 20 years meant lots of lovely holidays and no money worries. Just been away for over 3 weeks to Cornwall and a little bit of Devon as we bought a Motorhome and love travelling about.

Sounds like your debt might be the issue?
How much debt and how much longer to run on it? Could that be rescheduled?
(Never run it up again!).

Personally I would rather live in a nice house that I loved and that we had done up to our taste, in a nice area and enjoy that every day, than go on a couple of holidays each year which are nice but over so quickly. I prefer to spend money on my day to day quality of life. But that’s just my preference.
however I agree with pp that the debt must be the issue. Is there another way of sorting that?
Also if your dc is 5 then can you increase your working hours a bit?