Would I be daft to triple mortgage for a garden?

[mugginsalert]

Please help me with my reality check!

Have a mid size 4 bed victorian terrace with a small yard, convenient for shops, library, work, parks etc. Small kitchen and bathroom but otherwise great. Mortgage of 85k which could pay off in seven years.

Currently looking to sell and move to a semi in same area with a garden, for 4yo ds and 7 mo dd to play and for bbqs etc. This would mean smaller indoor space, dropping to 3 beds of which one would be a box room, and a mortgage of 240k over 25 years.

We are 40, in permanent jobs, but no savings and dh has no pension pot. This feels like the last chance to move as prices are rising steeply round here for gardens but not terraces. we also thought we should perhaps be looking to move up in order to downsize and release equity in retirement.

We both always imagined our kids growing up with a garden to play in, but is it worth 160k for a garden? every sunny day i think it is, and every rainy day i think it isn't.

has anyone else negotiated this dilemma? i know its a nice problem to have but it's doing my head in! thanks all

Is there no middle ground? It's a big difference.

I personally wouldn't do what you are suggesting but we are moving for a larger house & garden not just garden. Bedroom Space is important too.

But I am from NI where house prices are a lot lower than other parts of UK so my opinion may be somewhat skewed.

Thanks SASASI, yes I guess the middle ground would be moving area slightly. I've mostly discounted this because it would mean making school journeys/supermarket trips a car ride rather than a walk, and I don't drive.

It is a very clear choice between indoor and outdoor space round here if you have less than 350k to spend. Some of the people coming to view our house are people with slightly older kids who moved for a garden when they were young and now find they can't manage with the smaller indoor space. They are what have made me wonder if I should just stay where I am!

No 160k is not worth it for a garden, especially if you have to lose a bedroom and a half. I say that as a keen gardener. Box rooms are not proper bedrooms, no matter what the estate agents say.

At least you have a yard, so somewhere to hang washing and keep bikes etc?

What are the parks like near you?

Well how about thinking laterally. Could you rent an allotment? Join the Nstional Trust. Move further afield and learn to drive?

Tripling a mortgage for a smaller house/bigger garden doesn't seem sensible. Your dc won't use the garden in the winter when they're bigger but the will use inside space.

Yes I think it would. Especially if its in a good location and as you are so close to paying off your mortgage. While I have a garden we literally don't use it for about 5 months of the year because it is too cold/rainy (Scotland!), and it is just something else to maintain.

We are a bit older than you with children not much older than yours and we had same amount of mortgage left which we could have paid off in 5 years, but have just upped it to £135k for an extension to get more internal space and less garden. Its not even finished but i keep thinking we could have been mortgage free in a few years and now its going to take ages. however as kids get older and bigger, internal space becomes more important and we figured if the kids are stuck with us longer because they can't afford their own home, at least we will have space to accommodate them, which is something else to think about.

How big is your yard? What's it made up of? Do your garden doors back on to it?

thanks all!

tremolo, parks are great, four between a 12-30 minute walk. We often take food and spend hours there, but it's harder to just pop over for a half hour as they're just that bit too far for 4 year old legs.

Various, our yard is small - the usable space is a rectangle of about 8ft by 10ft. At the moment it's just concrete with a couple of chairs and pots in the sunny corner. I'm thinking about putting fake grass on it to give the baby somewhere soft to roll, and maybe getting a little wendy house but whatever I do I can't see how to make it able to help my four year old burn up his energy!

thanks for the ideas, beaufort. I'd love an allotment when the kids are slightly older, so might stick my name down soon and get in the queue.

I would stay put. It's not just £240k - it's the interest on £240k as well. What if one of you loses your job or becomes ill? With no savings this could put you in a difficult position.

I have a smallish but nice garden, a baby and a schol age child and rarely use the garden. We work FT and the kids get plenty of outdoor play in their childcare setting. At the weekends we want to get out and about - not necessarily sit in the garden. If you have parks nearby then that's fine for outdoor space.

You could also hold on - try and pay off as much of the mortgage as possible, add value or get saving and see if in 3 years a garden might be more of a necessity - the children might then be begging for space for a trampoline. Or they might have plenty of activities that keep them occupied away from the house.

personally I would do it. We lived in a house with v limited garden for two years and I didn't realise how bad it was until we moved to a house with a decent garden my kids are now outside all the time, age 10, 6 and 2. trampoline, netball hoop, bikes and scooters, swings and endless balls of different types. We also have a pool now, not in UK, and that helps but is only available for 5ish months per year....
My dc are fit, active, strong and happy. I don't want them to be indoor kids and as great as it is to go to a park it's just not practical all the time. The garden is used every day after school when I am getting dinner ready and helping with homework etc.
Do you definitely have to increase your mortgage by that much to get a garden? remember also that your house is an investment, the higher the value the more you will benefit from current and future rise in value

I think a garden is lovely, but not £155K plus interest minus one and a half bedrooms lovely.

You do have outside space, and, as BeaufortBelle says, you would have an awful lot of money you could spend getting out to parks, forests, hills, country parks, etc with what you save on not moving. Then there's an allotment and swimming lessons and all sorts I think you could have money for if you don't move. You could put things like an punch bag or rowing maching in the spare bedroom
I mean, a garden is nice, but not that much better than a whole bedroom and a half plus a yard.

tbh, I think it's a crazy plan. (Maybe because our dc rarely play in their garden!) Think of all the sports clubs/camps, active holidays etc that money can buy you over the years! And it does rain for an awful lot of the year...

Can't you fit a climbing wall and a trampoline in your courtyard?

Rather different, but DD1 is trying to buy her first property in London and is desperate for a garden . It does add a lot to property prices and a flat with a garden is hard to find. But we've told her to 'go for it' (we will be co-owners).My garden was/is important to me, as much as it was to my children; they played in it a lot when little and we would have liked a bigger one. I find it de -stressing to work in it (and my garden is beautiful,though I say it myself) and I love to have somewhere sit outside. I think its rubbed off on her .
But I would not cripple yourselves financially and I would certainly look to pension provision . I would imagine it's not fun being short of money when you retire. And I think some people get very attached to their houses and find it hard to contemplate down- sizing to realise capital.

we have a large garden and it is magical, I adore it. Kids live outside all year round except in worst weather.

But I wouldn't loose 1.5 bedrooms for it.
Indoor space really matters as they get older.

If you moved, could you extend? Or do loft extension? But all = more money.

Actually more expensive house to hold equity until you retire sounds reasonable to me too, given that interest rates are none existence.

Learn to drive and buy a car. Move to a different area,
Far cheaper.

I would move as with an 8 x 10 garden you might as well be living in a flat so I would definitely move for a garden. HOWEVER I would do the middle ground and move area slightly. A bit of driving here and there is worth it for more outside space and if you could afford a £240k mortgage then you could definitely afford driving lessons and a little run around!

No way would I move in your situation! Mortgage free in 7 years - amazing!!

Have you thought about using some of that extra £160k to get a really good landscape gardener in and make something more of your tiny yard? I've seen some lovely little 'gardens' on Pinterest that would give you a nicer outside space and somewhere to put a BBQ.

You don't need a lot of space tbh to make a nice courtyard. You could even build up a second level to create a patio area and have the underneath as a den for the DC and store bikes etch when they're older.

Also, it sounds counterintuitive, but is there any of your downstairs you would sacrifice to make the garden bigger? Usually these houses have been extended out the back downstairs so you could redesign it to make better use of the whole plot.

Both these options would be cheaper than moving imho and you have a lot of possibilities if you call in the experts.

No I wouldn't do it at the sacrifice of inside space. My aim in life is to be mortgage free by your age, so I would say that though!

I absolutely adore my garden but the price is too high especially as you would lose space in the house. I'd either learn to drive then move somewhere else or stay put and try and get an allotment. Also i might think about buying a caravan and storing it somewhere not too far then in the summer going off a weekends for a bit.

I wouldnt personally, i have a small garden, big enough for a bbq, not for football, and its fine for us - we have much more indoor space and if the kids want to go outside, then the parks are close

We did move for a bigger garden and house, with the plan of downsizing once the Dcs leave home. However I wouldn't take on a bigger mortgage for a smaller house.

As the owner of enormous teenagers I'd always go for indoor space as they get older. They both like to spend time in their bedrooms chilling/reading/studying/playing music/their guitars, and our (tiny) 4th bedroom houses a second TV/xbox/DVD player so there are no disagreements about what to watch. We live close enough to a park for them to go out and kick a ball around.

You say your mortgage on your current property is £85K but what would it actually sell for? My current mortgage is £245K but my house would sell for at least double that today. If I wanted to buy a house for say £600K it wouldn't be 2.5 times my current mortgage because of the inbuilt equity more like a smaller uplift of 55K to the original mortgage sum if that makes sense.

If your house will only sell for around what you paid for then i'd move for a garden but not take out a mortgage 3 times what i'm paying now. I'd move to a slightly cheaper area and learn to drive

I wouldn't do it, we had a tiny patio yard when my kids were small. DS had a sandpit out there and a trampet and an easel. Later we took the trampet out and made a playhouse for him. We went swimming and to the park a lot.