Small house - are we making a mistake?

[Dariastar]

We are just about to exchange on our flat in London as we have a one-year-old and are hoping to have another child as soon as possible and need more space.
We found a lovely little Victorian cottage in East Finchley - it's well-priced, because it's half a mile from the station and not the best area (there's a fair amount of traffic on the road, but not an A road or anything like that).
Ultimately it's a two bed with a lovely new kitchen (that's what lured me in the first place!), small south west facing garden, and we would convert the loft to make it a three-bed as soon as we moved in. It's well within our means, even factoring in the loft, but my DH has suddenly got very cold feet and wants to move two stops further away, and stretch ourselves to the absolute max (5 times our joint salary) and buy the "house for life". There's not much available right now, so would mean renting while we wait for the dream home to come up (we don't want to lose our buyer). I really like that cottage, but do see what he means - I am very risk averse, work in an unstable profession, while he has a very stable career that's on the up, with salary rises in coming years. And the thought of another baby put me off stretching ourselves. But will it be ridiculous to buy a small house with small garden now and then have to move in say 6 years? Would we regret buying this small place? Any advice would be most welcome!

Isn't there a happy medium?

The big house osunds a bit of a stech.

How small is the small garden? Can the kids play in it or is it relaly a tiny yard?

I would probably buy the cottage, and do the loft extension to get more room and add value. Then once baby no 2 is getting out of full time nursery and you have more disposable income, go up to a bigger house.

If you are only planning two kids in total or even three why do you need bigger than a three bed?

if it is this one there is plenty of space for two small dc and spare reception room should you need it later...

If it is that one I think it is a nice size for 2 adults 1 child but will be tight with 2 children. Totally aware people bring up children with much less space than that tho!

One thing tho - CAN you actulaly go into the loft? Looks like those flat roofted victorian ones that you can't just go up, you have to build a whole new story and thats expensive nad PP harder.

What is the sq footage?

If you are only planning two kids in total or even three why do you need bigger than a three bed?

Needs and wants are different :-) Nice to have a spare room. for guests.

Garden is 16.5x15 ft. Is that a yard? I'm not sure. Any garden will be wonderful :)
3 bed is fine by me, it's more that the downstairs areas especially the garden could be bigger for two kiddies.
Anyway I grew up half in a flat and half in a big house and honestly wasn't remotely bothered as a child. Husband however isn't from.London and is obsessed with space!

can go into loft but is expensive - ceiling needs lowering. is fine though - have budgeted for it and checked out the neighbours' loft conversions:)

I would never overstretch. My mil attributes a large part of the breakdown of her marriage to the 'big house' they bought. Interest rates went up and they could afford almost nothing bar the mortgage. No nighs out, no treats, they had to economise on everything and the stress led to arguments. We could afford a mortgage for about 700k according to mortgage calculators but the amount of money we would be repaying each month scares me to death. Instead we bought a house for £450k (not in London) and paid off the mortgage in 5 years. We don't have a mansion but we have a good lifestyle!

your dc wont care, not until they older...and even then if they like the area have friends etc they may prefer to stay than move to massive house.

depends on your priorities. but if moving further out for big house involves stretching a lot more financially then why do it?

if for same price further out you getting a lot more than it's a different dilemma as to location

in London small places and sofa bed in lounge for guests are more the norm...

That house linked to above is MUCH bigger than our 3 bed house. I can't believe people think it's too cramped for a family of 4????

I'd go for the cottage personally if you over stretch yourself and then have another baby and go on maternity pay you could end up in debt. Play it safe and you might be able to move into the forever home with a smaller mortgage and sooner in your future. Also less stress and worry.

35 years ago ( gasp ) we lived in a 3 bed semi detached cottage in Trinity Road, not on the railway side. We made two bedrooms out of the large bedroom and the hall in the front. One of bedrooms was v. Small!
We loved the village atmosphere, but Kay have changed. We had our first DC there and could easily have had our second. But the price differential was very different then and we swapped (in price ) our done up cottage for a 3 storey, absolute wreck opposite the station! It was to be our forever home, but once we had done it up, we were off again!
I loved living in our cottage, so much we've just downsized to something similar!

Oops auto correct, who's 'Kay?' It should have read may!

We had 3 DC one with severe disabilities in a 2 bed house for 3 years .... Worked fine .... Only reason for move was kids getting older and DC with disabilities requiring more equipment!

JT05 - amazing! Where's your new cottage?
So was the Trinity Road cottage a 2 bed before you converted the large front room?

I always roll my eyes at my dad a bit when I talk about wanting to buy a house one day and he reminds me of the days of 15% interest rates and widespread repossessions (he worked for a building society and saw a lot of misery), and tells me I can't afford a house unless I could manage to pay the mortgage if the same happened again. But he's right. Even if no one thinks we'll go back to the days of rates that high, they are likely to go up. It wouldn't matter whether I was looking in the £100k or £1 million range- I wouldn't think it was affordable unless I could cope with a sharp rise in interest rates.

we live in a small house (fairly similar to that posted below) with 2 primary aged DC for lots of reasons
I'm very risk-averse, and so prefer to have a small mortgage
we like to be near the city centre, which means prices here are a little higher than further out, but the commute is significantly better, making after-school club collection much more feasible.
plus we like character properties and locally these are all the little Victorian 2-3 bed terraces and semis.

DH and I both grew up in families of 5 in small houses, so we don't miss what we've never had. Smaller houses are cheaper to heat and maintain, and easier to clean and decorate. Plus we have plenty of cash left over for holidays and days out. Might see about squeezing in a second loo before the DC are teenagers, mind .

I'm with Cakescakescakes. It's not what I'd class as a smakkanimalssmall house (though it's not big). Mostly because there's a kitchen and two other reception rooms. My house is smaller and houses more people - the extra rooms down stairs make a LOT of difference.

I think it's gorgeous (presuming it's the one your considering, it fits the description you've given anyway).

over-stretching is dangerous, you can loose your house altogether.
3 bedroom is more than plenty for family of 4. If you children share a room you will still have a space for guest room. I am one of 3, growing up I always shared a room with my sisters, when we immigrated from our country of origin we lived in a studio apartment, yes a family of 5, my sisters and I shared a something that is called lanai, which is essentially shattered in balcony, we lived in tropical place. In all honesty everyone's standards are different but if there any way to keep things flexible financially it is the best way forward as you can't predict the future.

We bought a small house last year, it was an urgent move as I was 7 months pregnant and we were renting somewhere totally unsuitable. We didn't have to money for a bigger house (and still don't!) so there was no choice but I still regret buying this tiny house sometimes! I would love another baby soon and we are ttc but we would need to move as soon as we had more than one at about school age.

I would wait and buy the bigger house.

Dariastar the Trinity Road cottage was 2 bed, but had a large upstairs hall with a window and we we're able to span the stairwell and still have head height. Thus making a small, baby sized, third bedroom.

Our current cottage is an East Midlands village, a little larger than Trinity Road, but we bought it because it felt very similar. I hope you resolve your dilemma soon and are happy in whatever you choose.

Really sorry to ask another question since you've all been so helpful (thank you!) but if DH's dream house (forgetting the affordability right now) were just outside the catchment for outstanding schools (that weren't faith schools - I want to avoid those), is that a bad idea? There is one outstanding school in the catchment that's vaguely religious but not overly, but since it's 0.6m away, is there a risk that the admissions catchment might shrink by the time we apply for my daughter? My husband says we could apply to one of the nearby outstanding schools whose catchment the house isn't actually in despite being just 0.4m away... I'm not sure we'd get anywhere since it was oversubscribed in 2015... Using Rightmove for schools info btw

There is no guarantee with schools and catchment because you could hit a year where every child has a sibling already in the schoool and the other places are filled with priority children in need.

But if most of the local schools are good then it should not be too much of a problem

Don't rely on rightmove for schools info. Look up admission criteria on the LA and schools websites, and bear in mind that criteria can and do change, Ofsted ratings go up and down etc.