Lots of factors involved that I'll try to describe.
The factor that's prompted me to consider moving is that DS started secondary school in Sept & bus journey is taking an hour each way, sometimes longer in the evening, 1hr 45 is record so far. There have been a couple of emergency morning calls to parents when the bus hasn't stopped and they would've been late had they not been rescued. This has been mildly stressful, it's only about 3-4 miles away. I don't want him to cycle, there's no cycle paths, the roads are busy and he carries large bags.
So I started to wonder about moving to within walking distance of school. Saving DS 2 hours a day for the next 7 years seems kind of worthwhile.
There is one beautiful house for sale that is actually backs on to the school and is next door to one of the lesser used entrances. & I can really imagine us living in the house, I like it a lot, really like it. However, I think it is overpriced plus it is priced about £85k more than our current home (worth about £600k) and we don't want to extend the mortgage (DH hopes to retire in 7 years; we are overpaying to try to pay off by this date). It is difficult to work out if the house is overpriced, nothing's sold in the street since last summer and nothing's ever sold for more than £300k, yet this house is on for £685k (though they'll pay stamp duty). However, the other houses are all 30s 3 bed semis but this is a large detached 30s property. Not perfect layout/decor but v nice. It's been on the market for a while and reduced from £700k to £685k to £685k with stamp duty paid so far. DH reckons it is worth less than ours, even though it is larger, the location is much less desirable & it is further from the station. I can't imagine it being reduced by another £100k though?
No other houses are currently on the market within 20-30 mins walk that I like. I will keep my eye on the situation though and wonder if ours should be on the market in case anything comes up. My worry with this plan though is that houses in my road tend to sell quickly & I don't want to sell with nowhere I love to go to!
I'm thinking we could move now with a plan to down-size back to our current area when DS leaves school (uni?) so don't want to make a bad move property wise at this time.
Other smaller factors are whilst we love our current location, I don't love our immediate neighbours on one side, they're very noisy. But there's no guarantees this would be solved on moving! Who knows what other problems we'd be introducing!
My parents live within walking distance currently too which is great, though off peak it is only a 10-15 min drive. It's the same distance from DH's mother and would have no impact on DH's journey to work, might add 10 mins or so to mine but I only travel 2-3x a week so less of a concern.
Well done if you've got this far & any thoughts/ wise words are welcomed!