Do rising house prices make you feel stressed?

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DH and I were lucky enough to move to what was an up and coming London suburb 5 years ago. We have 2 DDs and bought a typical 2 bedroom and 1 box room type terraced house (smallest bed is 2m x3m but with an awkward chimney). It's a great house, we've extended downstairs but can't go into the loft (conservation area and no turning space).

Since we moved, I've gone back to work FT and both our careers have taken off. our earnings are more than double what they were 5 yrs ago. In theory this would all mean we could move to a slightly bigger house right? But not in London where house prices have gone crazy, it seems. Even with the equity we now have, we'd need to more than double our mortgage to move to the next house up.

DH is not keen to increase our debt, I thought we could save and then it wouldn't seem like such a jump. But does the stupid London market make this impossible?

We're in a similar position but not London. We've decided to wait 3-5 years to move (due to schools) but if house prices continue to rise as they have been, houses we were looking at this year when thinking of moving will cost 100-200 k more 😔

I understand "best practice" to be to move as big as you can as quickly as you can for just this reason especially if your jobs are relatively secure. Interest rates are benign. If you wait you may find you have to do an intermediate move to afford it and the stamp duty makes that prohibitive.

We were in a similar position and we made the jump - big, big mortgage but I think (hope) it's been the right thing.

We are in the same position and will be stuck in our starter flat until the end of time it seems. The jump to a 2 bed terrace is circa £100k. As it doesn't offer any more space it isn't worth it. It's awful for the people waiting for a FTB place too because the people in these starter flats can't afford to move up so there is nothing available for the people looking to take the first step.

Similar position. DP and I would like to live together and blend families, but we couldn't afford the house we'd need without moving about a hundred miles out of our city (not London), which wouldn't be fair on the DC.

And where are the DC going to live in the future? Sheds?

Yes, pretty much house price increases means your just saving the increase amount and you're always in the same boat. Whereas if you owned it would be your property increasing in value.

Even though you say it's double your current mortgage, what does that mean in real terms, what percentage x your joint earnings would it be and could you afford to pay it? If the answer is yes, it's worth taking the leap.

Thanks everyone for replying. It's so frustrating. I try to be happy where we are - as we've made it into a great house and it suits us perfectly for now. But, I'm aware our DDs probably won't move out until they're 30. Occasionally, I'll take a peek at Rightmove and then start to feel stressed and anxious again.

If we took the jump we'd double our mortgage to 400k. This is just under our x4 salary, we could easily afford the repayments .

But... and there are 2 big buts... I'm a consultant (so job well paid but never secure) and DH doesn't want the financial risk of a bigger mortgage.

I think a £400k mortgage at 4x salary for two working adults in their late 30s/early 40s is not unreasonable.

Does DH work?

TBH you're in a much better situation than most and it's your DHs issue about not wanting to leverage up to 'typical' levels that is stopping you getting a larger house, not house prices as it sounds perfectly affordable for you. (Unless one or you both have health problems, only work PT, or on insecure industries)

Thanks for replying. We're both 40. DH works, v secure job but earns less than me. I suppose his biggest fear is that the mortgage would be too much to pay in his salary alone if I was out of work. I tend to take on 6-12m contracts.

Stamp duty is a bugger in the kinds of properties I'm looking at too (almost 30k )

Stamp duty is a bugger

Yeah I'm with you on that :-( Stamp duty on a move is half way to the cost of a loft extension!

Are you sure you can't go into the loft? Generally you can have a mansard extension in a conservation area? Might be worth sacrificing some of a bedroom for the turning to get a big double plus shower room upstairs?

I don't think this issue is confined to London. Certainly our experience in Birmingham is that the housing stock dictates huge jumps. Starter two beds are still available for less than £200k (but not for much longer I suspect) but the only other houses in the area are large three and four bed terraces or semis which are priced nearer to £400k. We've just tripled our mortgage!

Yeah we're shared ownership and prices have actually doubled here since we bought in the late 2000s. I mean DOUBLED from already high prices, WTF???? It's great we have security of tenure but there's no way we'll ever be able to buy the whole house like I had wanted to. We'd have to double our mortgage to get a one bed flat here now! Feels pretty spirit crushing tbh.

I think.its really stress inducing if you have children. I really worry about what they are going to do.

We moved to our current house in 2011 and thought it would be a 5 year house. Well its doubled in value but we actually cant afford the next house as that has also doubled so the gap is just bigger.

Luckily its a good house and we have done a lot of work to it to make it lovely but if i had known it.was forever i might have bought differently.

I look.on right and.2 bed flats are £300k amd i lie in bed worrying about my children. Im now looking at starting a savings plan so that we can give them a deposit each but not actually sure what help that will be.