Sorry for the massive essay but I feel like the decision is quite finely balanced and I'm tired and emotional about the whole process and not thinking at my clearest so I would really appreciate opinions on what you would do in this situation...
We have a pretty much brand new 4 bed 3 bath house it's a town house so there are things about the layout I would change and would cost about £25k to do it very nicely, we would do this straight away if we stay. When we bought said house dh and I shared the childcare drop offs/pick ups but since then he has got a better job but one that means he commutes into London every days so now it takes me 30 mins to drop 3 dc's at various places in the morning before my 1 hour drive to work. 3 hours total travelling every day pretty much.
So we decided to sell, have been under offer for 2 months and we were aiming to exchange last week and after about 1 million phone calls to the solicitors and estate agents because it went so quiet it turns our buyer had lied about having their mortgage offer and when a surveyor finally did come round last week he down-valued our house by about 10% (too much for us to move), so on Friday our buyer pulled out. According to the EA this is very rare and because none of the others in our development had been sold yet and he would not take any other sold prices in the area into consideration. EA also thinks we would be very, very unlucky for this to happen again and that it would sell quickly and even for slightly more than it was under off for before.
In the meantime we had found a house in a perfect location, older dc's can get themselves to school/school bus and the house, though it is more expensive, would be a better investment in the long run even though holidays and disposable income would be in short supply for at least the next 5 years. It would be like a building site for 3-6 months at least for stage one and even when it's all done we'd still be down a bathroom. The buyers have said they would wait (they were on for a long time because of the work needed) and we are ready to exchange which is all sunk cost now. Also had storage, temporary accommodation and all trades lined up to do all the work which I've spent the weekend undoing!
Despite my EA saying that it could all be back on in a week (I guess he would say that!) I have found the process incredibly stressful especially over the last few weeks and not sure, (even if it does sell quickly) I could go through another couple of months and related solicitor cost not knowing if it would just be down-valued again. I've actually started to think that getting another job locally would be less stressful than trying to move and would certainly be better off financially.
If you've made it this far, thanks! Any opinions welcome.