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!

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-42132771.html

This is what your budget buys in our neck of the woods, 20 mins to Victoria......

I don't think houses in North London are value for money to be honest.

I would say the vast majority of primary schools are fine and I've had 3 dcs go through primary with the youngest leaving this year.

There is a huge school places shortage in Barnet so whilst the majority of primary schools in the area you're looking at are pretty good, there are no guarantees of getting into the school of your choice unless you live very close indeed. Best of luck Dariastar!

I think wherever you move to, you want to be fairly sure you're in catchment for a school you're happy with. Yes catchments can shrink year to year, but usually not by too much, so allow a margin, eg if last year the furthest place offered was 500m then you should be reasonably safe in a house 250m away.

Is the Trinity cottage in catchment for a decent state primary?

Regarding the place your DH likes - so he wants to apply to schools that are 0.4m away, but the catchment is smaller than 0.4m? (or in a different direction?) Well that's a bit optimistic...

Moving further out and stretching yourselves to the absolute max with two children to be cared for is pretty stress inducing in my experience. We had similar discussions but it was more about whether or not to live outside London in a big commuter town for more space. The budget was going to be the same so either way we were both going to work FT. It is stressful.

We opted for a closer location, with potential to extend [make sure that you can lower the ceilings - you def can't live in it while that is done btw], certainty on schools and relative surety on being able to get home in time to let the nanny go home/ pick up from the childminder now that they are in school.

Putting you both under the cosh [especially as you have said that you work in an unreliable industry] for space in London is a big ask. It means sharing the burden when the kids are sick, have chickenpox, need you to attend some little school play etc etc. Is your husband fully signed up for that?

Would never over stretch myself financially for the sake of a bigger property. Children really will have no issue not having a massive home. As long as your family are together and have your own home, which you could even extend into the loft, surely that should be enough/ all that matters?

Thanks everyone. miniepie, yes the cottage has a very nice primary nearby. Friends send their kids there...

Good, but is it definitely in catchment?

Yes, minipie- at least it was in 2015 and I've checked the latest catchment map on Barnet council site x

Ah good, you sound clued up - just checking because some people think surely they must be able to get into a school if it's nearby, they don't realise the madness that is London catchments.

I can totally understand why parents get so stressed about it. There's one school where you have to be 0.1m from to be within the catchment. It's insane. Also wary of being complacent about a school 0.6m away being in the catchment because in 3 years that will likely shrink. Are you also a Londoner then?

Blowmybarnacles I agree north London is bad value for houses BUT I get some free childcare and babysitting (my mum nearby) so it's worth it!

One thing I would say is don't rent while you wait for your dream house - that's financial madness. Either buy the Trinity place now, or let go of your buyer and stay in the flat till dream house comes up.

Yup Londoner but South equally mad

I'd base the decision on whether you'd get the money back you'd spend on doing the loft conversion when you have to sell in. 5/6 years.

Also would the rest of the house be big enough. A small downstairs and garden with loads of bedrooms doesn't really work for a family.

We moved into a similar place when DS was a baby. Now, new baby (so perhaps you in a few years).its too small, the disruption of building work is not appealing - and it would still be too small. It's costing us £40,000 in moving costs. Just to give you an idea.

I asked an estate agent about what would add value, that info was useful. Ultimately in our case she felt loft conversion wouldn't add that much.

I'd go for the smaller one....it's nice to be able to have some wiggle room financially, and too stressful having to worry about having enough to pay the mortgage.

Really Cinnamon, how many square ft was your place that you found too small?

I'd agree with Cinnamon to some extent. We've done the loft and ended up with 2 additional bedrooms up there. The pinch point is still the ground floor particularly when the kids are small, we've got plenty of bedrooms but my kids still want to share a room and I desperately want to extend the ground floor. I don't have a spare £50-80k though

• DH's bulky sports equipment, two kids scooters, two kids bikes, toys for playing with downstairs. Two highchairs in the kitchen, a jumperoo took up a ton of space for about 12 months.

For the most part it's all fine until you have a house full of guests for Christmas or whatever and you are all under each others feet. On the upside though - with only two bedrooms you can argue no space to host large overnighters which may well be your preference

Our catchment area went down from 500m to 300 to 110 this year over a 3 yr period. Families have literally crammed into the streets around the Outstanding school either by buying or renting for a few years. I gather that only 4 non siblings got entry this year. We'd made other arrangements so I am very glad now that we weren't depending on it as it would have been very stressful.

If you do but knowing that you intend to sell on in the next few years, be really really certain that the house is likely (as far as anyone can tell) to be easy enough to re-sell, and that any improvements - eg the loft conversion- will add value which you can recoup

The maxim about buying the worst house on the best street still holds true, but from your description this isn't the best street at all, nor the worst house

Make the school catchment areas top of the decision making, but honestly I'd keep looking. In your original post you say you don't want the dream home and he doesn't want the cottage so I think if you go for one or the other either one or both of you will regret it.

The idea that London houses are poor value for money is naïve. Sure you don't get such bang for your buck, but nowhere else in the country will you get such fast and high price rises either.

Buying with a view to moving in 5 years is perfectly normal - it's how people climb the property ladder.

A Victorian cottage in London 1/2mile from the station is always going to sell. If you develop the loft you will add £££ with square footage. So you could definitely make a profit on that within 5 years. But you do have to factor in stamp duty and moving costs.

Equally, five times your joint salary is not actually a big deal, it's normal for London dwellers. The real question is what % of your annual income is the mortgage. And could DH pay it alone if something happened with your job.

Either could work.

Thinking about it - if DH had a house in his preferred area ready to buy right now, I'd probably say go for that. But you could throw a lot of money away in rent waiting for the 'right' house. Given the situation you're in - you might as well crack on, get into this one and get it making some money for you. And plot your next move from there.

Is there room to extend at the back?

What about planning permission? People are saying is there room at the back etc but none of that is any good if it can't get planning.