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!

The rules of permitted development mean that you can extend your house without planning permission (within certain rules). And anyway, getting planning permission for extensions is not a big deal.

I definitely wouldn't rent whilst waiting for the right house to come along elsewhere... if prices continue to rise in the interim you could struggle to get back on the right rung of the ladder later. Much more sensible to buy the smaller house in the meantime.

I also agree with others that you don't really need a big house while dc are small... we lived in a 3 bed semi with 3dc for years (close to dc's primary), then eventually moved to our current (big) house (closer to secondary) when my eldest was 11 - it worked out perfectly.

Thanks Parrots. I agree about renting being a bad idea.
As for the extension, no need for PP as it'd fit within the rules plus neighbours have done lofts. But it's already been extended out the back so no more space on the ground floor for increasing living space..

Ah wel Dariastar , free childcare...that can be a mortgage in itself!! Lucky you Good luck.

That's the thing Alasalas - sometimes it's not even possible to get on the higher level of the ladder further along. Sigh.

So this is the house my husband has fallen madly in love with. It is beautiful, but expensive and actually in a more suburban area...
www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/40598007#0E3Gz2qVRMChoBkZ.97

Oh I love that house, an an amazing garden for the children.

If you can afford it, I'd go for that, easy decision, school catchment area caveat I suppose.

But low on bathrooms tho - not even a 2nd toilet downstairs and seems silly not to chuck in another shower room when they did the loft conversion.

She'd have to go to a religion school. I'm not into religion but for the sake of a good education... :)

We could rent out the loft room until baby2 for some savings...

What would you realistically get renting out a room to a lodger where they have to share the bathroom with two other adults and a child tho?

Might be a good way to essentially pay for putting a shower room up there tho.

Yep totally ridiculous - we would add shower and toilet ensuite in the loft straight away (in-laws can help with that). The vendors have only been there four years and bought it for 560k! I think we've missed the price boom... Trading cool, buzzy area (east finchley) for very family-friendly suburb and big house and garden... I'm into area, but have to face up to the reality of family life at some point!

Would only have to pay for the shower, toilet and sink - in-laws will install :)

Oh then just do it. It's a lovely house and a loft room with en-suite will have easy lodger appeal.

That feels like the kind of home you can have a family in and they can grow up in. It won't feel too small with hulking teenagers.

Nice to have the separate reception room and the big living diner kitchen space. Seems like it would work well now with little ones when you want to keep an eye on them, and with older kids when you might want a bit of space.

The small bedroom isn't THAT small ether.

Do you think you can have a lodger in the loft room and they use only the kitchen but not the rest of the house?

Ok, so he has got one in the bag.

It's a bargain. That would be £1.6million round me. It's got a good-sized south facing garden, it's got a good dormer & a velux in the attic, so you don't have to do anything up there apart from add a bathroom.

I would knock the reception rooms through to make a double reception, make the kitchen the utility room & downstairs loo, and extend the extension & put a large kitchen/dining/family room.

If you can afford the mortage, I'd go for it.

Yes, probably, people will pay for anything in London.

You could also do airbnb.

I'd go for the bigger one to save moving again in 5 years

If you extend the small house can you sell it on for a profit, other than just the standard rise in prices?

If so I would buy the small house, keep it for a few years, if possible extend it to increase value, use any wage increases to overpay on mortgage (I know ours lets us do 10% a year). That way you have built up further equity to buy your dream home, rather than paying someone else to rent.

We bought our house a year ago, we plan to sell it next spring, it's a nice house but it's not what we want, we've added enough value to allow us to take another step towards what we want, our next house probably won't be our long term home either but we have to let our heads rule our hearts and compromise to get to the end goal.

Saying that the house we currently have we bought as a wreck and have renovated it to a point that we actually really love it, if we had to we would stay here for a few years.

Where are you based Manon?

Great ideas for extensions and new kitchen - I am not a fan of the kitchen but it is functionable and tidy. Won't have money for that for a long while though...

We would make a profit on extending the small house, yes - not masses as the loft would cost a lot. Other than the loft there's no room for extension.
It is sensible to overpay the mortgage and a plan that I had... I don't know if you're in London, Bails, but we are fortunate that generally the more you spend on a house, the more profit - but of course that could all change with the EU situation...

I would buy the bigger house. Have you done the maths on the real cost of moving, especially in London - you could easily waste £60K+ on costs.

We let our London property and bought a modest house in the country. But now we've realised it's smaller than we thought, if we have kids it will be tight, and we're a bit stuck - don't want to spend money on this house, don't feel settled... Wish we'd bought a forever home. Also it's not a house we can add much value to.

Previously I've always stretched myself and bought properties I could do up or extend / improve and it's always worked out. I find we live within our means no matter what the mortgage - we just adapt.

Just work out a budget and take out mortgage insurance it's not that expensive.

Thanks Hillbilly. There's not really any room for improvement here. Could do a big bright kitchen at the front one day and extend the loft space to build a fifth bedroom if it were to increase the value... not that we'd need five bedrooms!

I agree about living within means but it's tough when you're used to meals out with friends

it's not really tough. I mean, I've been really lucky to be able to enjoy meals out. Time to put family lifestyle first 😊

I get it. Middle class problems ;-)

I used to live the life - worked in Media, apartment in centre of Notting Hill... Didn't wire my oven in for 9 months, I ate out so much I just didn't get around to it!

Your real friends will get it, you'll have a lovely house to entertain and they'll return the invite. One less meal out a week could easily save you £400 a month!

Although not north London we are similar in house. We bought 2 bed mid Victoria terrace 10 years ago. It had two double bedrooms which was the key as that meant 2 child room could happily share a bedrom. Original plan was to move to a 3 bed around this time however the price differential is now £150k and it's too much. We are mid loft conversion which will give us an extra bathroom and third bedroom. Our third bedroom will again be a double giving us more space than the 3 bed semis we would have been looking at. I had always wanted to move for more downstairs space but to be honest I think now my dd will have their own bedrooms downstairs space will be less important As all toys etc will be upstairs. We also have an enormous kitchen diner which I love and would hate to lose. We can fit 12 round a table for dinner. I say go for the two bed with. View to doing. Loft conversion. It's only now oldest is 9 we really fee they need own rooms.