We live in a nice 5 bed semi in a popular market town in the south east.
We moved here 9 years ago when ds.was 1. We now have dss 16 who lives with us full time and dd who is 7.
Whilst living here we've done lots of work the house and inside/size wise it's great. It's just the garden and the outside space are a bit limited- ds can't really kick a ball around the garden or run in it but we do have a trampoline and big paddling pool up at the moment.
We are about 200m from an amazing park. We also live about 100 m from a main A road and I am finding that I am really affected by the road noise for example I have to sleep with white noise on and couldn't have the windows open last night because of the traffic noise. It's lorries etc until about 2 am and it has started again at 6 am. I hate being in the garden because of the noise.
I also don't like our neighbours who play music in the back garden a lot.
To move to the next jump up and stay in our town is about an additional £400k which we just don't have and can't borrow.
We can borrow an extra £200k but there isn't really anything worth moving to that gives us more than what we already have and I'm not sure I want to put extra on the mortgage.
There is a house which is the same value as us ours which we have been to see. It's absolutely lovely and has everything we could possible want. We couldn't afford that house in our town.
Do we move out of the town? Where pretty much our socail life is. Iltjenotjer house is an 8 minute drive away. I'm worried that the children will miss out on socialising with their friends meeting up in the park etc. I would always happily drive them but am I mad for considering it?