Going round in circles re: moving

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Hello wise mumsnetters,

Inspired by the post on AIBU about upsizing, I'm hoping for some advice/outside perspectives on our housing situation!

We live in an expensive part of the SE (commuter-ish town) and bought our house, a 2-bed semi, 5 years ago. We bought the house with the view to living in it 3-5 years. Fast forward to 2021 and 2 children, and we are practically bursting at the seams. After to-ing and fro-ing for a while and viewing some other houses locally, we realised it was far more economical to extend our house than buy. We will hopefully start building a loft extension this summer. This will give DC2 a bedroom and an office space for both me and DH. We do love many things about our house but I don't see us living here in 10 years and I don't want to live in this area forever. It's also unlikely that we could afford to upsize to the kind of house we'd love, as it's so expensive around here.

We've had itchy feet for quite a while and have considered moving area. Pre-Covid, we visited various places within commutable distance of DH's work (I am self-employed so can work anywhere) but nowhere really grabbed us or had a pull factor apart from housing. We'd love to live nearer our families but have ruled out the areas where they live, for various reasons. Thanks to the pandemic, it looks like DH may be able to work much more remotely going forward, which would allow us to move further away. As well as wanting a bigger house, we'd love to be in an area that's a bit less built up, nearer the countryside/coast but also not too rural.

The thing is, the longer we live here the more difficult the thought of uprooting feels. I've lived locally for 15 years and my husband almost all his life. We have a lot of friends here, and since having my DC I've made a really lovely group of mum friends. My DD started school last year and we love her school. I know it'd be easier to move while our children are small but I'm also reluctant to give up what we have right now. I've done two major moves in my life (once moving country) and the thought of starting over again is scary when where we live is comfortable for now, if not the forever ideal. I'm also aware of the grass being greener on the other side, when in fact we do have a nice house that will eventually be bigger, great neighbours, community, friends and excellent amenities on our doorstep.

What would you do if you were us? Bite the bullet and try and find a new area to move to, or stick with what we have here?

You can’t replace the good things, family and friends, children friends etc, they make life worth living

Kids take up less space as they grow with stuff, get rid of the pram , high chairs, sand boxes etc and your house wi feel massive again!

What’s the price difference for a bigger house in your area, V a loft conversion?

I think, as you can afford to extend and that will meet your needs, I'd factor in the whole list of reasons for choosing to stay.

Can you explain why you don't want to live there 'forever', or you 'can't see yourself living there in 10 years' ? As, if they are really true, then I'd say FAR easier / better to move now when the dc are small, than when they are teens. Also, having young children makes it far easier to get to know people even without the fact you won't be dragging them away from anything.

Most of your post shouts out that you love where you live though.

@BluebellsGreenbells That's so true about people making life worth living - I think that's why I feel so conflicted! The loft conversion will cost about 70K. We could also extend outwards on the groundfloor as we have a big garden. The next house bracket up is around £650+ (our house is worth £375-400K but we will obviously add value extending)

@BackforGood Our house is a typical Victorian build, quite narrow, high ceilings etc - lots of character but it feels a bit like we're all on top of each other and just want more space. The extension will certainly help, but we would love to have certain things that are not possible to add to the house like off-street parking (we live on a busy road and finding a space can be a nightmare) a garage, utility room etc.

I do really love lots about where we live - lovely little town, great shops, plenty going on for kids etc - but on the flipside DH and I both love the countryside and it's very built-up where we are. I definitely don't want to retire here - though that's a way off! Like you say, I thought it'd be easier to move with the children being small and make friends now. I moved when I was a teenager and wouldn't want that for my kids. So it feels like a case of move when they're young or wait till they've 18 + and moved out!

We've been in this same round and round in circles routine for years now. We started when our kids were in infant school - now they're at secondary!

It's true that kids take up less space as they get older. It's odd.

Also the size of the garden seems less important - our don't want to go out there anymore.

Living in London and having the friends and familiarity around us, as you describe, has been invaluable. I'm really glad we stayed now.

Our only trouble is we don't have room in the loft to have a loft extension so we're still stuck in the two bedroom house - but that's another story. I think you should extend and stay.

If you really really know you will need to move then try and do it now as it’s much easier to find a new community with young kids. If you wait are there near by areas where larger houses are cheaper. That’s what many with teens do - they are independent and can get the bus or whatever so ferrying around is less of an issue. What are the secondaries like. Tbh sounds like you have a great set up and community so really weigh when and why you would really need to move.

70K is an expensive loft conversion!

Can you draw the current layout?

If you love the neighbourhood and you've got decent neighbours I would stay put and extend

@BluebellsGreenbells

You can’t replace the good things, family and friends, children friends etc, they make life worth living

Kids take up less space as they grow with stuff, get rid of the pram , high chairs, sand boxes etc and your house wi feel massive again!

What’s the price difference for a bigger house in your area, V a loft conversion?

Absolutely true. We had to move areas to get a house with an annexe (for in-laws), add to that 2 consecutive maternity leaves and changing jobs and I've found it very difficult to make friends here.

My family are a minimum of 25 miles away so it's a 45-60 min drive to see them. I do it weekly but it's not the same as having them just around the corner.

I wish we could have extended our house we were in before but the footprint wasn't there.

@Dustyboots That's good that you're happy with your decision to stay, sounds like it's worked out well. I feel like we've been going round and round for ages...I decide that we'll be happy staying put but the thoughts of moving always come back!

@BluebellsGreenbells Sorry probably should have specified, the 70K also includes renovating some of the other rooms in our house as it's quite dated. Without the redecoration, the extention itself would be 10-15K less. We'll have an extra bedroom, shower room and small office room.

@Lockdowndramaqueen Thanks, yes it's a case of weighing it all up! Areas nearby - not really, we're probably looking 30 mins to an hour drive to go to more affordable areas, so by that point I feel like we may as well move to an area we'd love. The secondaries here are ok, it wouldn't be a major reason to stay!

@EmmaJR1 That sounds difficult, I'm sorry that it's been hard to make friends where you are now. My biggest fear is that we'd move somewhere and end up regreting it because of what we've given up.

That said, we've had quite a few good friends move away in recent years so I know it's not a given things will stay as they are, and we don't have any family locally tying us to this area.

Move sooner rather than later if you think you will definitely be moving.

@ANewDawnANewDay thank you, that’s the conclusion I am coming to

I'm on the side of move. My DD decided not to go to uni, but I always said I'd stay around for a few years until she had her home and friends to come back to rather than some random place where she knew no one, so you might still have trains for dusting when they're 18. Other factors: you'll want more space when they're teens so they can bring friends back, plus it's much easier to make friends (for you) at primary than secondary. We moved when DD was in year 4 and it did take her a while to settle but I'm really glad I'm somewhere I want to be - we're in a market town and it's the perfect combination of everything for us (well, by the sea would be better, but that wasn't possible for family reasons!)

@TabbyStar Thank you, you’ve articulated a lot of my thought processes! My parents moved when I was 18 so I felt I missed out on coming ‘home’ to friends during my holidays from uni. This is making me consider whether where we are now is that place, and I don’t see it. Quite a few people on the thread said teens don’t need as much space as small kids, but like you said I’d like to have more room for them by then. It’s good that you’ve found your ideal place!

Well the room for teens does depend on whether you want a house full of teens I guess! I love it though, I lived in a tiny village and was quite isolated so I wanted to be the place that they could come and hang out (in normal times) though it does have its downsides!

I kept thinking about moving but didn't do anything as DD's school was nice and we had friends, but then I was lying in yoga class and I suddenly thought that if I'd moved when I first thought about it, we'd be there and settled, and I didn't want to look back in a few more years and be thinking the same. It is difficult though, whatever you choose will probably turn out okay, with decisions like these with so many variables it's impossible to predict what might be best.

It's really hard to find property at the moment particularly a 4 or 5 bed house near good schools. Any idea how you change.schools? We want to.move.but.our.kids are in.a good school and the hardest part is.knowing if.they will get in to a school of choice when a move is made

@TabbyStar That’s a great perspective to have...I think a lot of it is just fear holding us back and we need to get on with it. I love the idea of a house full of teens though those words may come back to bite me!!

@MummyShah369 as far as I’m aware, you can apply for a school place once you’ve exchanged contracts. It’s definitely stressful to think about!

Yeah very stressful re kids, the difficulty is.until you exchange you.jusy don't. Know regarding schools so.you could be in the catchment of the school you like but have no guarantee that your child will get in

Hi OP,

Chucking my two pennies in... If there is no other place that has an obvious pull for you then I wouldn't move.

Imagine having the perfect house, but no friends, no familiar spots to go to, taking your child out of a lovely school and on top of that there was nothing really pulling you to the place apart from a bigger house. I think you'd have that horrible feeling your stomach that you wished you'd just stayed where you were and done the work. Who knows in a few years time you may have made money on your current place and could get a bigger place in your area.

Disclaimer: we did bite the bullet about 2 years ago and moved to a part of the country that on paper should be more desirable than where we were, with more affordable housing, but we absolutely hated it. Luckily we were just renting and had flexible jobs and just our wee 1 year old to move. Needless to say we moved back to our town and are so grateful to be "home" albeit in a modest house.

Very similar situation OP, we made the move (albeit only 20 miles but obviously big changes in school and community). I don't regret it, we love the house, however, the school situation is very difficult. I don't like this school as much, it's a bugger of a school run, my eldest misses his friends and we are struggling with after school care.

What I'm trying to tell myself is that the problems we have now will hopefully be short lived, it's a much better area for secondary schools so it'll be fixed by then either way but I have them on the waiting list for a nearer school which I hope could happen and will fix many of our short term problems. I'm hoping kids will settle in a bit better when lockdown lifts, we moved in autumn.

The way I tried to weigh it up was that the problems we had eg much too small house were felt far more frequently and deeply than the problems we have gained, eg working all day in a comfortable office in my new house with 1 hour total of school runs in the day, vs 20 minute total school but full working day in an uncomfortable small space I couldn't close off.

Overall the gains outweighs the losses, and I'm hoping we will improve the losses over time, new friends, nearer school etc.

(Our area is very oversubscribed for school spaces so we didn't get into the ones we wanted, the school we have is still a good school, happy with the standard, but being 4 miles the other side of town has proved much more impractical than I expected, I also miss feeling part of the school community, friends nearby etc, we used to live in a village with a short walk to school so a huge change for us- a big downside to moving post school age and having to apply mid year)