Buying the forever home...

[Huncamuncaa]

I have always moved around a lot and not worried too much about houses being 'forever'. Suddenly all my friends seem to have bought very large houses, in lovely areas, near nice schools, preparing themselves for life as parents and I feel like we didn't plan this forever home thing properly!

Up until recently we could not have afforded to live in certain areas. We have a nice house which we bought because it was midway between the jobs we were doing at the time. We hoped to have children, but didn't know for certain that we would so didn't really have a plan. Now our dc is about to start school. We've got them into a good primary school. The house is fine but we will outgrow it. The area isn't exactly our dream, for petty reasons really. We have to drive to nice places, no coffee shops etc. It's not really a place you want to spend your weekend and I imagine it will be dull for teenagers. It does have good primary schools, we like our neighbours, good for commuting. Not sure what we will do for secondary schools as they're not great so that's a worry.

Anyway, my question is this. Is it incredibly selfish to move your child from a good primary school simply because you want a bigger house and an area where you can walk to coffee shops?! I moved as a child but that was out of necessity for parents jobs. If anything our commutes might be slightly longer.

We have another child on the way and so, although I am a little loathed to move our child away from friends and a lovely school, it seems sensible to do it when he's young and before the other child starts school. We could look for a bigger house in the same area but that seems stupid as neither of us loves this area or sees ourselves here in ten years... This place definitely isn't the dream but I really wish I had planned it better! Everyone around us seems so settled and we are still working out what we want!

It's a tricky one. From what you've said, though, it sounds sensible to move now to be near good secondaries. That way you won't need to move in a few years as it sounds like you will do anyway. It will probably be easier for your DC to move from primary earlier rather than if you leave it until eg. Y5.
Children move school all the time, I wouldn't worry about that too much. But call the primaries in the area you plan to move to and check their policies and availability on mid year admissions and eg. Y2 admissions.
They differ - where we are there are two great primaries , one that rarely has children coming in after reception, and another where it is common because of transient populations around the hospital and university.

I don't think it's unreasonable for you to move your child's school because of house move as he is still very young and will make new friends. You're going to need a bigger place and obviously want to live in a different sort of area.

Good luck to you with your move and your pregnancy.

I'd also move. By the sound of it you'll need to move at some point anyway for a secondary and a bigger house, so you might as well move now. At least on mat leave you'll have somewhere to go for a nice walk and coffee.

Thanks. That's my feeling. It just seems so much for complicated with kids!

I wouldn’t move to an area with crap schools, but absolutely I’d move if the schools in the new area were still decent and we would have more space and stuff to walk to.

And I know how you feel, all of our friends are doing the forever home thing and we’re expats abroad, living in a flat with no idea what country we’ll even be in when DD starts school!

It is more complicated with children.

However, if you want to move for secondaries anyway, you won't be able t time it perfectly. You'll need to be in the new area with the address there in time for applications. You can't leave it too late in case your house sale falls through etc DC will need to move primaries at that point anyway (unless you're moving so close that you can drive them to the old primary).

So there are no benefits to waiting later really.