Moving up the property ladder

[Misty9]

What prompted you to move up the ladder from your first property? More space? Nicer location/school catchment etc? We’re in our first family home and whilst it is big enough, 3 bed semi for 4 of us, I feel claustrophobic and overwhelmed with clutter frequently. I would like more space but am I just being greedy?

Do people even move up the ladder these days, with property prices gone crazy and the costs of moving? How long do you stay in a property on average?

Hi, we're moving this thread over to our Property/DIY topic at the OP's request.

In our case, more space and a much better school catchment.

For us it was work. We have moved 5 times in 26 years. We sold our first house 18 years ago, so lived there for eight years. Each time work related (mine) and each time we've moved up, because we could afford more.

We moved for a combination of reasons but namely we were desperately in need of more space (an extra bedroom, reception room and general storage space) plus we wanted to get into a good school catchment area.

We are desperate to move from our first property but cannot afford to for probably at least another 5 years. We feel utterly trapped.

The reasons are:

I cannot cope living far away from my parents, with 2 young children whilst studying and suffering with PND.
To be in a catchment area with decent schools
To not have to grapple with stairs with a baby and a toddler every day (2nd floor)
To not have to use our car boot as pram storage (to heavy to carry upstairs, and not allowed to leave it in communal areas)
To have our own garden
To be able to own a dog
To hopefully live in an area with less miserable bastards.

First time more space, second time school catchments. We won't be able to move up any further, the next rung is too much of a leap financially.

More space, wanted a garden, better schools, had a house where upstairs/ downstairs space wasn't balanced. Had plenty of bedroom space but downstairs space squashed and no way to extend.

Argeles you sound so unhappy and some of your situation I can really relate to.

I hope your situation improves, I had to wait an extra 5 years after the point when I was mentally ready to move. On the plus side now that I'm stripping off naff wallpaper in my new place nothing can dampen my enthusiasm having waited so long

I want to move up the ladder at the moment because our salaries have shot up since we bought our first place and we could afford something nicer. Unfortunately nothing is shifting in our area and I refuse to sell this place for less than I bought it for.

we moved up two rungs in one go (well i think we did), wanted more reception rooms and parking. moved from 3 bed semi at 1350 sq to 5 bed detached at 2500 sq ft - we have a bonkers scarily big mortgage now which makes me feel a bit when i stop and think about it.

is it worth it - well the financial pressure is ON now like it never was before. considering bank balance before spending was never a thing that i had to worry about before - egcould drop £250 at Charlotte Tilbury counter for example and know there would be money still to pay bills.

To save up for the move (needed to raise a much bigger deposit to get a better mortgage rate) and to live here, we had to hugely change our whole lifestyle: no holidays abroad in 5 years, no sofas or dining table/chairs for our huge new reception rooms, no cars under 14 years old sitting on driveway but i dont compromise on everything, just cant justify a £4k holiday in spain when i have a new kitchen to save up for.

we could have just jumped up one ring to get a detached at 1500sq ft and had £100k less mortgage but an extra 250sq ft didnt seem worth moving for especially when that would have been a huge mortgage increase in itself.

think very carefully. can you declutter , can you extend even if it just adds a teeny bit.

space is great but we are paying a fucking huge mortgage each month and extended our term back up to 25 years now. dh is the main earner and i feel he must have the weight of the world on him

More space, bigger and more rooms.
Better parking- before we had to park one behind the other with only on street parking for visitors. Now we have a large drive and no one around here parks on the road.
Much nicer location.
Neighbours have enormous gardens so we are a long way from them.
We had paid off our mortgage and could easily afford a bigger house.
I don't mind moving but would want to be somewhere for minimum 7 years.

Thanks for replies. argeles hope things improve for you.

We’ve been here 5 years and can’t extend any further than it has been. Tiny bathroom and very uneven sized bedrooms are a bugbear of mine, along with nowhere to keep my things (sewing machine etc) but a whole room for the kids’ toys! They’re only young and won’t play upstairs so need a playroom for now.

Dh doesn’t want to move though...

Our first property is a 3 bed detached. (Cheap area, bought before the boom) and we have 3 children so would like 4 rooms and the layout doesn't work for us with ds (autism).

New house is 3 doubled beds and dd1. will be sleeping downstairs in the converted garage (also detached garage) New house much closer to secondary school which will be an advantage with ds when he goes next year. It has the slight advantage that we are now actually in the catchment for the school.

Reclaim the playroom and then see how you feel. DC grow up very fast and need less communal space once they are at school full time.
When they are teens they seldom emerge from their rooms.

Among our circle of friends downsizing is now the topic of the day. We were too lazy to get round to upsizing so don't have this issue. Downside is that it would be pretty impractical for our older DC to boomerang but the upside is that we have more scope to help them become independent.

Also wouldn't be in a rush to extend as one of the reasons we have never moved is that too many of the options we have looked at were extended / adapted to suit the particular family selling but don't work with the underlying style and size of the house and grounds.

@photoroseframe I could have written your post word for word. I can't quite think about how much we owe without feeling a bit sick. It is manageable though and by making that move it means we'll never have to move again as we won't outgrow this house.

We desperately needed more space. Really though, I fell in love with the house and fortunately it ticked enough of our boxes that we bought it (location/size/parking etc).

Moved from a 3 bed terrace with tiny living room to a 3 bed semi with additional dining room, double garage, 100ft South facing garden, bigger kitchen and additional play room/4th bedroom.

We actually moved in preparation of having kids, as our affordability will go through the floor once we have them and would have been stuck in our old cramped house.

The downstairs is now sufficiently big enough for children to play and spread out with an amazing garden for barbeques.

This is definitely my home. Last house was functional, but this is home

We were in this dilemma last year, had a house that was perfectly fine for us (3 bed terrace) and that we could have paid mortgage off in next 5 years or so but ideally we wanted parking, a bit more space and a better garden for the dc to play in.

We deliberated for ages but in the end decided to move and as soon as we were in the new place knew it was absolutely the right decision. Yes we will now be paying a mortgage for a lot longer but we will never outgrow this house and seeing the dc running in & out to the garden is amazing.

Space! We kept our old place so ended up owing a scary amount but have sold it now and I’m glad we made the move. Never moving again with London stamp duty as it is currently!!

We moved for more space, nicer area. My advice is move for more space for people, not stuff! We regularly de clutter rather than make more storage space. The extra bedroom is used for visitors.

Hi everyone. So pleased to see this thread on here. We are thinking of doing the same thing. Our mortgage would be double what it is now and our lifestyle would have to change quite a bit for us to be able to afford it.
My kids are young and at the minute they won't miss getting the latest gadget etc. I just don't know if we are being silly by mortgaging ourselves up to the hilt when what we have now is fine. (Albeit not s forever home)
Reading this thread I think it seems 50/50 as to weather it's been a successful move or not.
Anyone a few years into a huge move you can share there opinions?? Thanks X

I'm only one year in but go for it. It is only from having the space around me in our bigger house that I now realise how cramped we were in our old house, and how depressing it was. We spent a lot of time going out and not being at home because we were so on top of each other.

Having the space to spread out is utterly invaluable. My son has been revising for exams this year and wouldn't have had the space to do that in our old house.

And honestly, the knowledge that never again will I have to share a bathroom with a child/teenager is a wonderful thing 😂

I absolutely love my house, our mortgage doubled but I have no regrets and genuinely it is the best thing we've ever done.

Thanks user1484830599! Lovely to hear, and the thought of never sharing a bathroom again sounds amazing!!! Haha

We had a really tiny 2 bed that was always just a starter home. The market was crazy in 2007 so by the time we'd been there 2 years we had made £20k and both Dh and I had been promoted. We used the profit to move to our family home and really stretched ourselves to do so. After 11 years there we'd paid off a chunk of mortgage so that plus reduced interest rates and profit of £35k on the house meant we could afford another move last summer. We had planned to stay in the last house but it didn't have a garage and the garden was a bit small. I did love it though. We planned 2 dc but dd2 was id twins and we wanted them to have their own rooms by secondary school but also didn't want to start a new mortgage with 25 years after we were 40. I'm 36 and dtds are 6 so it all fell into place. We had an estate agent round and thought we'd "test the market". It went on on the Friday, we had 3 viewings on the Saturday then the offer on the Monday. It was all very quick. Now we have a 4 bed detached home with garage and garden and I love it. Gradually putting our stamp on it.