Can I talk through the math please ?

[Inliverpool1]

Have a house worth £330,000
Mortgage is £230,000
Ex has a charge that’ll need clearing of £17,000
Have seen a house literally in the next toad for £210,000 but it needs everything doing. Mine is done, this new one has one less bedroom, not the end of the world.

But I’m worried are the difference in payments £200 a month less actually worth all the hassle of moving plus the need to renovate from top to bottom.
Does that make sense to anyone else ?

Will you get all the sale proceeds, minus mortgage repayment, £17k and fees, etc. or will you be splitting them with your ex?

Can you afford to keep paying the £200 extra a month? If so surely it's worth staying where you are to save paying out on stamp duty, solicitors fees, estate agent fees, removal lorry, and all the costs of doing it up which I assume will be more than £200 a month at first? Also if you have an extra bedroom then your current house is a better more valuable asset?

All the proceeds are mine. At the moment we are living like church mice but that £200 as mentioned will soon be swallowed up in fees etc won’t it.

I have a friend always nagging me to move, you can’t afford that house etc. but I can and it makes sense doesn’t it ?

Work out the costs of the move - mine has come to around £15k including stamp duty on new property. For my new mortgage, every £10k extra I borrowed (or didn't borrow) affected my repayment by about £60 a month - I think!

Whether you can afford it is down to your personal money management skills and beliefs!! Do your figures and trust your own judgement.

I think you need to work out moving costs and the cost of how much the house would cost to renovate then take that off the difference between the two, then look at the monthly saving and see what it is.

You're probably going to have to borrow more than you think in order to do the renovation work.

Maths *

There's always one 🙄

Say it costs £15k to move. Then you'll take 15000/200= 75 months to break even before you actually save any money to put towards renovations. That is 6.25 years.

Not worth moving in my view.

What rollercoaster says plus all the faff of refurbing the new one and the cost of doing that.

Sounds like you're at the grit my teeth stage. Stick with it

Make that two Wow!!

It may be worth remortgaging depending what interest rate you are currently on.

What do you mean BettyBoo? No one else has commented on that.

If I was in your position I would definitely stay where you are. I know you say you'e living like church mice, but if you're just about managing, things will only get better in future, once you can factor in pay rises, etc. Having work done is so hard to budget for, things always cost more than you think and you have to live through the hassle of constant workmen and disruption. We've moved recently - our house was a similar value to yours and costs were about £15k. You can basically write off up to six months of your life once you get embedded into this very stressful process. So I would say stay where you are. I'm sure your friend is well meaning, but it's your life and it will be better lived in a nice house where everything's done!!!

I would look into remortgaging to see if you can get a better deal. Start with London and Country (still recommended by MoneySavingExpert) and plug some numbers into their calculator to see what your new payments would be.

As someone who bought a house that needed everything doing (not structurally) but cosmetically and new boiler, new windows etc your £200 a month will not get you very far at all. Much better to stay in your completely done house and see if you can remortgage or cut corners elsewhere to reduce your outgoings.

Plan B is just sell the big house, which tbf I don’t need right now. Be mortgage free in 5 years and then with £200,000 of assets I’m hoping I’d be able to get the house I want but my two concerns there are my age, I’d be 49 and also the rising prices might push the forever home out of reach.

You’re so right though. I don’t want to move I like this house

If you have spare rooms , why not get a lodger , I did term time mature student from local uni ? If it’s still the same they call it rent a room and you can earn 6000 without incurring tax ... just a thought

That’s definitely the long term plan. I’ve been advertising on SpareRoom for a few months and had no interest whatsoever, maybe I need to up my game there

We’ve recently got one. She did come Spareroom in the end but DD decided to put ad on Facebook as I wasn’t doing well for ages. Big response , invited 3 to look and had to turn loads away. All 3 wanted it.

It was just a little a joke Wow it meant count me in with older “make that two”

See if you can move to a better mortgage rate, or extend the term. Get a lodger or Airbnb a room sometimes.

So I found out I’m paying 4.9%. Is that typical ? Also found out there’s £5,000 of arrears I knew nothing about and have to clear those before they will enter into discussion which is frustrating

That's a pretty high rate. Have a read up about mortgages somewhere like Money Saving Expert so that you are better informed.

Thank you