Should we stay or should we go?!

[MusicMother]

Hi all,

I would really appreciate your advice as I’m totally stuck!

We own a 1 bed + box room top floor flat in the city centre. We bought it 2 years ago, the market has slowed and it’s possible that we will sell for less than we paid.

We are expecting DC2 in 2 weeks and the flat is just too small. However, after mat leave I plan to leave my job to work with my husband in our business. This means this year is the last one we can use my salary to apply for a mortgage.

Right now, we can't afford anything in our chosen areas (near to our business) or near to a primary school as good as our current catchment. The options I am toying with are:

1. Stay in our current home, hope that the business becomes more profitable with both of us working in it and accept that if the business does not go well then we will be stuck there for at least 3 more years.
2. Move to something more suitable but less desirable. Estate agent is pressuring us to put it on the market next week, doesn’t see a problem with fitting viewings round newborn and ELCS recovery!!
3. Remortgage our home to a larger mortgage that we can then choose to port at a later time, in the hope that we will have been able to save more and move to a better area?

I would be so grateful for any advice/ better ideas!

Many thanks 😀

You sound crowded & know it.

I think I would try to move now, good luck with your choice.

Shame you haven't moved while you were still pregnant. I'd probably move now. 3 more years with 2 children in a small flat sounds challenging.

Wait until you've recovered from the birth. I say that as someone who waited 12 weeks after the birth and viewings were still chaotic but there's no way I could have done it soon after the birth.

I would stay put but I'm risk adverse and would worry having a bigger mortgage when you're leaving your job.

How is old is your DC? We all slept in the same bed until both mine went to school, so if you have enough room for a king size bed I would stay put.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone, much appreciated!

@JoJoSM2, couldn’t agree more! We had planned to move last summer but things didn’t work out.

Thanks very much for sharing a timeframe @namechanged2000, couldn’t remember when things started to feel manageable again after DS 😂

DS is 3, hadn’t thought of the shared bed option. Not sure if we could cope but definitely a great idea to consider!

Wish we had moved sooner/ rented when we first moved here 2 years ago but no use looking back!

Could you keep options open by renting out your current place and renting a new larger place? Risks are voids and how you cover new rent if flat is empty but otherwise may be an option?

Renting in the suburbs would be a great way to check it's for us @PettsWoodParadise, thanks! I'd looked into it before to cover renting a bigger central flat and decided it was too expensive but think we might be able to find more manageable rents outside the centre...

I'd stay put (we did in your situation, and sold up when DC2 was 8 months- a property which we thought couldn't possibly exist in our budget magically appeared and we leapt).
I think getting a flat ready for sale and viewable with a newborn sounds utterly horrific.

I would stay put for now.

Are either of the rooms big enough for the kids to share (with a double in the other for you and DP)? If so I'd stay out for now. Or go for the renting option. I know quite a lot of people who have ended up renting out flats they've owned from their single / childless days and then rented a larger family home in the suburbs.

Yes, we can just get a toddler bed and cot into the box room (and bunk beds eventually) although there's no window so no ventilation. I keep thinking that if we renovate and add good built-in storage we could stay but it wouldn't solve the no garden/ parking 5 mins away/ 3 flights of stairs parts... Great to hear that lots of others have gone down the renting route, maybe not so crazy as it seems!

Your box room doesn’t sound that small if you can get bunk beds in. Could you add a window in there? I would stay out until I found a house I liked and could afford. Hopefully you can get a mortgage from husbands buisness.

Yes, we chose the flat for the bigger than usual box room! Having said that, the bunk bed would take up the whole floor space 😂 We could have a fancy electric window put into the ceiling I think... Would have to open with a remote or similar as the ceiling is so high.

The idea behind both working in DH's business is to make it more profitable, couldn't borrow against his income yet. 🤞..

Thank you so much for all of your thoughts! One last question (I promise!): the entire flat is 70sqm. If we stay and renovate does that seem like a reasonable amount of space to work with? I know it's not huge but some of the houses we've looked at aren't a huge amount bigger.

Re the remortgage question. If the property value has stayed the same or eve hone down the I doubt you can raise anymore money, unless your original LTV was particularly low. Your property will need to be valued now & so you may not be able to increase your mortgage in any case.

If it were me (and I'm a mortgage brokrr) I would move now when you know what your income is. Moving when you & your husband are both employed by or partners in the same business may be problematic if the business is not doing as well as you thought it would. Also a lot of lenders will want to see 2 or 3 years rrad8ng figures.....and an increasing profit at that. If the 3rd year shows less than the 2nd then am average will be taken or even declined as the lender will think your business is failing.

I own a two bedroom flat that is 55sq m and it has two double bedrooms, decent size bathroom, galley kitchen and living room large enough for dining table! Not a lot of storage but it would fit two kids for first few years. So you have the square footage if you could reorganise the space. I am wondering if your box room is even a legal bedroom without a window.
Also I thought it was not recommended to co sleep with babies.

Thank you very much for the advice @hadthesnip2, really appreciate it. Our LTV was in the lowest band but good to know that remortgaging wouldn't be as straightforward as I naively imagined. Great to get some expert thoughts on borrowing once we're working together too - it's a really up and down industry (big sakes when they happen but not hugely frequent) so we might never manage to show a steady increase!

@Pipandmum great to hear that we might manage to carve out something suitable yet! You're right, the box room isn't described as a bedroom when buying/selling but they're very standard for our city. Re co-sleeping, not something we're planning though I'm pretty tempted by the lovely SnuzPods!

In your current situation I’d be really wary of giving up your salaried job because your options become so much narrower. Is there any way it would be an option to return to your current job after mat leave until the business has enough history to support a mortgage application, just in case living in you current place with 2 dc really drives you insane?

Generally I’m of the opinion that it’s always more cost-effective to stay put and save until you can afford what you really want rather than climbing the ladder rung by rung because moving is so expensive. But your hand might be forced if you genuinely don’t all fit in your current place.

@Fortheloveofscience I know that the plan is really risky and am seriously worried about it. The issue is that DH has really struggled in his own (he's amazing at his specialism but struggles hugely with organisation and admin) so we took the decision that things couldn't go on as they are as it's taking such a toll on him and on our relationship. Totally agree that moving several times is stressful and not cost effective!

Is it more expensive for you to leave your job or for him to take on an admin? And do you actually want to be his admin??

Ps we were four in 50m2 for 8 months, it was fine, nice even, but clearly wasn't going to last in the medium term (given we had options! Plenty of people do manage just fine!)
I'd not be keen on children sleeping in a room with no windows though.

Great question - much more expensive for me to leave my job than him to take on admin support. But it would be v tricky to find someone with the required skills and knowledge who could work for the salary I plan to take! Not keen to leave my job just to do admin support but am planning a much more involved role as we have built this business together and always planned to work together on it as soon as we could...