44 have I left it to late to buy a big family home?

[Icantfindausername]

I live in a decent sized house and my children are 12 and 16, we are looking at moving but then think when children leave we will probably downsize as a 4 bed detached would be too big.

Cant decide whether to stay or enjoy a bigger house for a while.

How old were you when you bought your forever home?

Have we left it too late to enjoy a big house, had we might as well stay put now the kids are that age and just downsize when they leave home?

I think when both our dc are at uni etc we will downsize the house in terms of value but upsize the garden by moving out of London. I dont want a huge mortgage well into my sixties.

I’d also consider op what kind of family you are and how you view your children

As long as you can afford it, then do you want your kids to come and stay with you, with friends, with partners? What about grandkids?

As said for me our home is our daughters home, she has always come back, alone, with friends, with a partner, and as long as we could afford it, I’d always want that space available to her. Maybe also for grandkids one day.

Some folks don’t really want their kids to come back and stay, they don’t take into account what if they aren’t local, they don’t really think about partners, or grand kids, or big family occasions. Others do. Some don’t socialise or wouldn’t have friends to stay, others do.

You need to consider what you want for the future and how your relationship is with your kids, what your social life is like or how you wish it to be, this dictates what kind of house you need, as well as your finances.

We bought a big house and the kids have come back to live with their partners, mixed blessings !

One of my coworkers has just bought a 5 bed detached at age 50, with his new wife & 2nd set of kids to grow up in. He was in a flat 3 years ago. Personally I'd be daunted by taking on a big mortgage liability at that age, but you can always sell. Go for it.

Well I’m 41 and will be buying my forever home in two years.

The house will be for family Xmas’s, Easter, stay overs, grandkids visiting ect.. I’m lucky I have three girls who I know will always be back and forth.

We are in our 40's and are making the big move into a bigger house.
Our DC are still small though.

My MIL has stayed in a 4 bed house and it is great - we can come and stay without having to camp out and as a result we see her much more. When we are not there she uses the rooms for her hobbies anyway and she loves being able to spread out.
It is really the hub of the family, we always gather there with my ILs and the cousins etc.

I am hoping for the same in my new home.

Not read whole thread but we bought our big house recently at 45 and 48. Kids are teens.

We bought somewhere that would work with kids with us as young adults because that's the reality for a lot of young adults these days and I don't see that situation improving soon.

If anything you need a bit more space when your all adults trying to live together.

44 have a big house and a big mortgage. Makes us happier to have lots of space with the four children than having that money sitting in the bank. Will be 60 when mortgage paid. We were mortgage free before taking the plunge.

Depends how easy it is the pay the mortgage.

We're mid forties and stuff has gone wrong recently (covid) so paying down the mortgage and reducing our outgoings is more important to us than extra space at the moment. Especially as we are hoping to be able to help our kids out with university costs if they decide to go. However I'm sure I'd feel differently if our current house was a real squeeze and/or we were both keen to work FT for the foreseeable.

Just buying a 4 bed despite kids at university, they keep coming home remember!

Moved into a large house with huge garden at 31 with a 1 and 4 year old. At the time the house was too big and we had a huge mortgage! (quite scary) Ten years on and 2 more kids later no regrets and might be able to build on the extra garden space for the kids in the future. But no way would I want to stay in this house when I am old, too much maintenance/gardening/high heating cost but for now it is perfect. So I would say pick something that you would happily stay in for at least 10 years. My dad always told us to get the biggest mortgage possible when we are young and can get it and it has worked out so far. But I would be too scared to get something that is not paid off fully by retirement age.

We’re taking out a 20 year mortgage in our late 40s. Neither of us ever entertained early retirement but we were mortgage free. Fingers crossed we’ll be able to overpay and get rid by early 60s. We have low loan to value so can always downsize to release equity if needed.

We are in our early 40s about to buy a big house with a massive mortgage. We have a fair wack of equity in the house and plan to do an interest only mortgage for 20 years and downsize at the end of the term. Our youngest is only two so he would hopefully have left home by then! It is a risk - if we had to sell early for any reason we may loose some money.

Never too late. We brought our big family home a few years back, we are now relocating & hopefully when we find it! Buying a large bungalow.

We bought our family home before we had a family (we were older parents) and are now considering moving to a house with an easier garden. Ours is large and on a hill, so very hard physical work. We still want large rooms but fewer would be fine. It's like the search for the grail.

I moved to a large house at 40, and am considering an even larger one because I want that lifestyle. If you want something go for it - don’t let what others expect you to do hold you back. Life’s too short.

We're in a four bed that we are planning to extend to give us some bigger rooms. DC are 8 and 11 and we live in an expensive city so it may be some time before they move out. With the bigger house (and two living rooms), they could even move partners in at some point to save up for their own homes.

DH and I still have 20 years on the mortgage and are well aware that we might pay it off by downsizing before then.

Assuming that in the long term houses appreciate in value, a bigger house will generally appreciate more.

I don't believe in the concept of a 'forever home', and it absolutely baffles me when couples post on Facebook pictures of 'our forever home', when they have no idea what life is going to hold. I mean, a 3 bedroom house might SEEM like a good place to settle, but what if you have 4 kids or more because you just love parenting that much, or what if you never have kids and it's too big, or you decide you don't like the area, or you come into money and could afford something else ..

Life and where we live is never a decision of you have to stay there FOREVER once you've bought it. Do what's right for you now. If you like your house and enjoy living there, and it's affordable for you to do so, I don't understand why you'd leave.

It's like my uncle lived in his childhood home his whole life because he never married and just took it on when his mum died - we suggested he move because a 3 bedroom house seemed silly for a single man but as he said, why should he? He was happy there, his friends were there, it had always been home. He never even touched two of the bedrooms. Literally closed the door on them and never opened them for the last 30 years of his life. He lived simply but comfortably, using the downstairs and his bedroom, bathroom and gardens. He was happy.

You've not left it too late to buy anything, so long as you'd enjoy living there, nor should you feel pressure to downsize - nor pressure to stay where you are if you want to move!

Up until 2018 we lived in a 3 bed flat, with 5 children (aged between 3 and 15). We only had 1 bathroom, and it felt more than cramped.

Last year, aged 45, we bought a 5 bed, 5 bath, detached house and every single morning and evening I count my blessings and appreciate the additional space and finally being able to create a proper 'home' for our family.

So no, it's not too late.

(Our eldest will be going off to university next year, but it's good to know he'll always have a home to return to.).

We didn’t keep the bedrooms as DDs had them. They come back when they want snd it’s home: we keep bedrooms for them. Just decorated by me. They are ok with that. They have homes elsewhere and they don’t want their bedrooms as they were. They grew up moved on.

Forgot: a child at university comes home. For months in the summer. Downsizing before they get a job and move out is a risk.

We bought a 4 bed with 2 living rooms at 47. But our DC were younger than yours: 6, 9 and 10. We assume we'll be here until we retire at 70ish then will downsize to a 3 bed again. Although it might be hard to get used to less living space by then!

I'm going to buy mine in the new year, I am 40, and intend to be in that home for at least 25 or more years.

We bought what should be our long term home mid/early 40s, going from mortgage free to a very large mortgage. We didn't like our old area anymore, the old house was too small for a growing family but the main push was the lack of secondary schools. It did and still does feel daunting (we moved at the end of last year), but we felt that waiting any longer would make things even more difficult, and we had the secondary school deadline date looming. The idea of losing the freedom of being mortgage free, and with it the empowering feeling of not having to maintain high salaries in very pressurised jobs, was very scary but the combined reasons for the move were stronger. We are happy in the new home and area and hope that it will work out, but we realise every big decision in life has element of risk. We are trying to overpay and hope for the best.

It is my intention to upsize as the children get older. Currently in 4 bed, would like 5-6 beds within next 10 years. Children don't leave at 18, if anything they come back (when they do eventually leave) with spouses and children. I can't wait!