Is it silly to consider extending our mortgage for a new house?

[mumtomaxwell]

We’re both 40, I can get my occupational pension at 68, and DH can get his at 65.
We currently own a 3 storey 5 bed detached and have a mortgage which is approx 70% and has 21 years to go.
The house I’ve seen and want is a 2 storey 4 bed but has better downstairs space and a much bigger garden - we have 3 young DCs.
It’s quite expensive and would mean extending our mortgage by about 35-40k. If we sold ours for a decent price we could pay off our credit cards and still have a 20% deposit.
Is this madness at our age?!

Would you be losing a lot of money to stamp duty? Potentially that could be used to extend downstairs...?

If you can afford it and it’s the right property for your family, why not. As you get older having a 3 storey house may prove difficult and mean you have to move anyway.
I’m a couple years younger than you, DH older. We have just bought what I hope is our forever home. It has added 100k to our mortgage which will make things tight but we would never be able to afford a similar property later. (It had a big reduction otherwise we could never afford it).

We’ve already got a downstairs extension that previous owners did so can’t do that - it’s in the wrong place IMO but I don’t think it can be changed easily!
We’re getting our house valued at the weekend so that will give us a better idea how affordable it might be.

We had our house valued today, and it is worth a lot more than we expected! So on the one hand it makes our original plan very affordable.... we could also look at more expensive houses. Or we could be sensible and stay put and enjoy the low mortgage rates (we could get 60% ltv based on today’s valuation).

I wish there was more on the market but there is nothing much coming on in this area.

I think you need a house which fits your needs now. We're in a similar situation but nothing much coming into the market. If I found something suitable I'd definitely do it.

You've got 25 years to pay off the mortgage (and enjoy living in a nicer house)- move!

Plenty of people only start getting mortgages and getting on the property ladder at 40! You shouldn’t worry about your age at all, unless either of you is in ill health.

If having a bigger, nicer house is going to make you all happier and won’t make you completely broke I would go for it.

My mum took out a small mortgage at 60 to move and she hasn’t regretted it at all.

Not at all, you’ve still got plenty of working years ahead of you both. If you can improve your quality of life and pay off some debt why not ?! Don’t look back in 5 or 10 years and wish you’d done it!