Would you move, if you were us?

[GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal]

Our wee terrace was meant to be our starter home when we bought 9 years ago. It was 750 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, though two aren't much bigger than box rooms. No parking, tiny courtyard garden (which is an absolute sun trap!), fantastic central location in the conservation area.

We're still here, we've had two DC, one of each, and we've extended a bit - knocked through and into the side return to make a large kitchen diner instead of a galley kitchen, and put in a downstairs loo.

We genuinely love it, it feels like home. We've been on the market twice in the last nine years, but never went through with the sale. We love the location - it's so handy for everything (school, transport, city centre, shops, entertainment, countryside - it really couldn't be better situated).

We'd always assumed we'd have to move as the DC got older as they'd need more space - but do we really have to? They do have a room each, albeit small. As they get towards adolescence, they'll be walking distance to school and town and the train to London. Would that compensate for a bedroom you can't swing a cat in?

We're in our mid 40s, and I'm not thrilled about the thought of starting a new 25 year mortgage. We've got £175k to pay on our current house, and we've been able to make regular overpayments. In the current climate I'm just not sure taking on a bigger mortgage is a great idea - not to mention rising fuel costs and having to heat a bigger house. Our current house is a mid-terrace, and we could definitely make it more energy efficient.

We could possibly extend a bit further, into the loft, though it's not big enough to make a dramatic difference.

If you've got this far, well done, and what do you think? Would we be doing a disservice to the DC to not get them more space as they grow? Or are we best staying in our little home and making the best of it?

Stay - we've pretty much done the same but mine are older. Dd (20) now at uni and DS (18) has room only for a bed in his box room but he doesn't want his sister's larger room. He has a workbench in there for his hobby. He goes out with his mates - one friend actually has a lock-up garage as a meeting place because their house is little and he likes to do mechanics. Honestly, you may find an amazing bigger place but for me location and community is everything.

Get an architect in to take a look at the loft. I bet you could get a 4th bed (to be used as a teen den) and a shower room up there. We’re in natural 3 bed mid terrace too with 2 DC and are nearing the end of a side return extension and loft conversion to maximise the space. Then I’m adamant we won’t be moving.

@Newgirls

Could you move to the outskirts of the town and get more space for similar price? No harm at looking at a couple. Only costs would be stamp duty etc

But - when the kids are at uni suddenly you will wonder why you are not in the centre?

It feels like you could do with more space for age 12-18 and then won’t need it after that.

We absolutely could, but we'd hate living on the outskirts.

The two occasions we've nearly sold before have been when we've seen the "perfect" house. The first one was a four bed semi round the corner from us, which was beautifully done out, with a drive and a huge (in hindsight too big, I'd never have coped!) garden. We got outbid on that one, and as we'd only gone on the market to try and get it, we just came off again.

The second one was basically what we've got now - a 3 bed Victorian terrace in a conservation area - but bigger, and with a larger garden (though not too large) and a garden office that would have come in sooooo handy over the last two years when DH has been working from home. They accepted our offer, but sadly our chain collapsed and the vendor couldn't wait for us to find another buyer. It was in a gorgeous location too - other side of town from us, but still walking distance to the centre, and near the river and the park and the theatre. I still yearn slightly for that house, and would be very tempted it ever came back on the market.

I keep an eye on Rightmove, but it's been a long time since I've seen anything that I like as much as our house - at least not within our price range.

Stay. Pay off your mortgage. Dump money into pensions!

If your DM suddenly needs to recover for surgery - for a week or two the kids could share.
In 10 yrs - your kids will be adults and potentially moved out.
If you take out a new mortgage now you'll still have 15 yrs left to pay after they've left.

Their friends in their teenage years are more likely to want to hang out depending on how welcome they feel than the square footage.

I think it’s natural that when they’re teens, if they do have access to a city centre etc that they might be out quite a bit, but that’s probably a good thing if the alternative for them will be screens. It all depends on your kids’ other options and interests.

Also the adults in the house will need to be quite flexible around making themselves scarce sometimes for your teens as they get older and vice versa. If you can make a garden hangout table with a big umbrella for rain that can be an extra outdoor place to socialise or hide from the others in the house on a warm day/evening.

I’d agree with researching what’s available towards the outskirts of your city in case you like it and if finding school places won’t be a problem.

The outskirts are absolutely not an option! Honestly, we'd hate it. My mum's there, several friends have moved out for more space, but it's absolutely not for us.

If we were going to have the inconvenience of needing to drive everywhere and run a second car, then I'd go all the way out to one of the pretty villages nearby. That would be vastly preferable to a soulless suburb.

I'd be a bit nervous about the 8x6 room but suppose you could put in a bunk with desk under? I think as long as you've got enough bedrooms though you're probably ok. Could you put a shower in the downstairs loo?

I would stay put unless an "ideal" property comes up. Would probably mean marketing yours cheaply to sell super quick to secure it. Sounds like any other options is a huge compromise.

Have you got a cellar? If not go for the loft send room. We converted our cellar to a office/2nd living room. Teens love it down there, sofa, TV, mini fridge etc. We've also turned our mini courtyard (also a sun trap) into a magical little place, fairy lights, plants and bay/fir trees etc. My teens are happy to stay as we are a 10 min walk from school/college/shops/trail station etc.

They have appreciated the holidays, trips away, school trips and money for tech and hobbies that staying in our mid terrace has afforded us. Looking forward to being mortgage free by our mid 50s too.

It’s personal choice. I personally would move to get more space and because property has always been a good financial investment for us. The next mortgage doesn’t need to be 25 years it can be less. I would look at bigger houses in your area to see how much more money a bigger house would cost and then talk to a building society or free broker about how much extra that would cost you over 20 years say

It sounds like you love your neighbourhood. Could you get an architect to have a kick round and give you some ideas on tweaks and storage solutions to really maximise space? A well designed smaller home feels much bigger. And the teen den sounds great!

We're in exactly the same position as you, OP! Children aged 9 and 11, small 3-bed house that is very, very close to the centre of town in a very quiet, friendly street. We've extended a bit - knocking through into half of the garage to turn it into a study (very handy since both DH and I have WFH over the last 2 years!) - but it's still not huge. But we've put so much work into getting high-quality built-in storage and lovely decoration that the house works really well for us as a family now and anything we moved to would have to be really great to outweigh that.

Every now and then, I look wistfully at bigger houses, and imagine how we could have a lovely kitchen diner (not just a tiny 4-person table crammed into our dining room that means we can't really have people round for dinner), or how the DCs could have a trampoline, or how DC2 wouldn't have to be in the tiny box room. In fact, we went to look at an AMAZING new build yesterday, which would have transformed our living space ... but I came back to our house and felt really depressed at the prospect of moving so much further out from the centre of town. We don't need to use the car at the moment, so just being half an hour's walk away from the shops would make a huge difference to the way we live our lives. And the development felt really soulless and car-dominated compared with the more establish street where we currently live. So, although it's a lovely house, I don't think it's right for our family. But I still feel a twinge of guilt that we're not maxing out our opportunities!

On the plus side, because of ridiculous house inflation over the 12 years that we've owned our house, we only have £50k left on our mortgage and could be mortgage free by the time we're 50. Taking on another £300k of debt isn't very appealing right now! And our cheaper living costs mean that we're able to spend more disposable income in things like clubs and music lessons for the DCs (and they can walk to them quickly without having to be ferried around in the car!). So I've concluded that location is clearly much more important to me than I thought it was, and that's ok (although I wouldn't say no if an affordable 4-bed came up in our area...)

I could have written this post! We've mid-40s, have lived in our mid-terrace 3-bed house for 9 years, done lots of work on it and we have LOVELY neighbours, and we're close to town. We only have one child but we've been feeling this pressure that everyone needs to move on to bigger and better things in life. But we absolutely love our house. (We don't love that we can't park outside it very easily but that's Victorian terraces for you!).

We've been planning to go on the market since January. Last week we had all our valuations in, got the extra borrowing figures nailed down for our remortgage and instructed an estate agent.

Last night, we opened our estimated gas and electric bill for next year (wow... that was a shocker) and watched the news about Ukraine with heavy hearts. We both looked at each other and said 'lets stay put.' I'm a big believer in gut instinct and I get a real sense from you that you adore your house and your community. That is something that money cannot always buy and I feel that we're very lucky to have that. Good luck with your decision

I think you should stay. Your house is bigger than mine and has an extra loo (and did I read utility room as well?) ah. Bliss!

What you have that I don't is the perfect location. I'm just a wee bit further out from the centre than I'd like to be. My town is aiming to become a 20 minute town and investing in some new walking/cycling routes so that might help. When I say further out I'm only 10 minutes further out than I'd like to be and can walk to my friend's house in 25 minutes.

We have truly excellent neighbours that is so important.

Even though our house is the smallest of the friends and slightly more awkward to get to, our house is where all the friends of both DC tend to congregate.

We've made a few tweaks in the house so that we can give the DC space when they have friends round.

We have a sofa bed in the living room and despite having the least space in terms of family nearby...our house is where people sleep over! When we've had more staying over some hardy friends/relatives have pitched a tent in our back garden.

The love for your home is obvious. Stay and make it work.

Look up the tiny house movement online for ideas about how to use the space creatively.

Any chance of building upwards with dormers in the loft?

Your house sounds very much like mine, which I love. So I vote stay!
I have a thing about smaller houses though. Big houses with those huge kitchen extensions do nothing for me.

I have made a loft room (no planning or building regs) which is my teen's room. He can just about stand up in the middle 😄
I took a section out of my bedroom to make room for the little staircase. It works well for us and only cost 5k to do.

I have recently been feeling like you OP. We bought a smallish 3 bedroom newbuild to get on the ladder with the view to move on once our DS needed more space. We have only been there a few years but the more I think about it the more I think we would be mad to move to something bigger. We are in the perfect location, right by DS school, by family and friends. He is an only child and as previous posters have stated will more likely need less space as he gets older and his toys start disappearing.

I think we are conditioned into believing that everyone needs massive houses and loads of stuff now by social media when we don't. Our mortgage is small and manageable so we can afford to go on holidays and days outs and clubs for DS. We are lucky.

I would stay put if I were you. You clearly love your house and area.

@ellerman

Did you see George Clarke's programme where he created a sleeping platform into the loft, leaving the floor space of a small bedroom for the child. No need for a staircase, just a safe ladder. It was a great solution.

@ellerman any chance you might know the series and episode number and name of this show please? (Not asking for much am I?) I'm really keen to see it...

We are in a fairly similar situation (no sun trap sadly). About a year ago we started to worry about lack of secondary schools around here and decided to look at moving. Without the schools issue, we would stay for sure. We lack garden space, but we are very close to lovely parks. We don't have off road parking, but we can get by with one car because we have great public transport and lots of things we need are within walking distance
Also we are in the middle of trying to move and it's been horrible!

I'm impressed that you are managing to live as a family of 4 in that space. Kind of envious in a way. If you are happy, why change it? You don't have to move to a bigger house just because it is the done thing. And think of all the fun you can have with the money you are not spending!

It sounds like a great location that meets your needs, so I'd stay in your position.

We have more space than you downstairs but small bedrooms for DC. They don't have much in them except for clothes and tech now they are teens. Both did lockdown schooling in their rooms with no problems. Neither use a desk for homework etc its all completed lounging on their beds. TBH by the time they were 13 they were glad they lived in a smaller central house rather than a big one further out as they can walk into the West End or jump on a tube to Westfield etc

It sounds like you really love it so I'd stay if I were in your shoes.

We moved for a bigger house but DH in particular really, really wanted more space and got fed up in our old place. We actually did choose a pretty village, as like you we weren't tempted by a suburb.

I once read a theory that extroverts are happier in a smaller house because they're out and about all the time anyway. And introverts need more space because they like to spend more time at home

"I once read a theory that extroverts are happier in a smaller house because they're out and about all the time anyway. And introverts need more space because they like to spend more time at home"

Oh god, this makes so much sense! Introvert DH is the one who thinks we need more space, whereas I think we can make it work. We have one of each DC in extroversion/introversion types too, so it could go either way...