Live in a nice house and be skint or stay in a not nice house but have more money?

[Bazinga2022]

So we are currently living in a housing association property, 2 bedroom paying £520 pcm, the neighbours are awful constant loud music, using power tools, lighting fires and smoking drugs. my dd11 and ds9 are still sharing a room. The housing list for a 3 bed housing association property is at least another 3 years wait.
We have seen a 3 bedroom house in a nicer part of town that we love the look of, private rent of £1500 pcm, we can just about afford it if dh ups his hours at work and works a 55 hour week, it would leave us with pretty much no disposable income, but would be our dream house and closer to the new school dd is starting in September.
Would we be mad to consider this or is this our only way out?

Absolutely agree with @IanOsenfrote above.

I work for an HA.

Email your MP, asking them to act on your behalf with the HA. The HA has a statutory duty to respond to MP enquiries and we fall over ourselves to resolve things coming via that medium.

Also ensure you are submitting formal complaints to the complaints team and not just enquiries via customer services.

Email the chief executive directly.

Don't overstretch yourself with a private rent. See what getting your MP involved does, stress the impact on your family's mental health and the overcrowding of your home.

Surely a private 2bed somewhere better or a less nice 3 bed is the compromise?

Is there any other options? Are there any houses for £1000 per month for instance?

What @Spaghettionaplate says is not true - you are overcrowded by the Bedroom Standard if people of the opposite sex are having to share a room over the age of 10. The only exclusion to this is if they are a couple.

The landlord dosent have to wait till your contract is up they can put in a request to evict anytime over 6mths - exactly what my landlord has just done

Literally there’s there has to be some middle ground between the two.

I can relate to having to live in a shitty area even though it’s cheap it wasn’t worth it at all for my mental health and the children safety

You are mad to consider leaving a secure tenancy for private renting.

It's more expensive, it's more unstable. Your partner would need to work more hours. Other costs will increase too.

Stay put, apply for a transfer, save as much as you can but still spend some money to have fun while you can afford it.

Thank you for all your replies. It is the fact it won't be a secure tenancy that puts me off the most.
To reply to the people that are saying can we not rent somewhere cheaper, not within about a 20 mile radius of where we live now no, the cheapest 3 bedroom private rent house I have seen in the area recently is £1400 pcm. We are not willing to move from the area as this is where both myself and dh grew up, where all our family are and my dd is starting secondary school at one of the top state schools in the country in September so now way would I take that away from her.
To buy 3 bedroom houses in the area are £350000 +, according to a mortgage calculator we would need at least a 17500 deposit and then mortgage repayments would be over £1600 pcm, so would struggle even more with a mortgage!
So we have looked into all our options, but I still don't see another way out. It's really not fair on dd to expect her to share much longer

You'd be absolutely mad to give up a secure HA tenancy for the whims of the private rental market.

Keep on keeping on at the HA both regarding antisocial neighbours and getting moved to a bigger property.

But if your prepared to pay and extra £1000 a month to privately rent, that's £12k a year you could save, in under 2 years you would have the deposit, 3 years would be a huge deposit with lower monthly repayments, plus the repayments are only £100 a month more than your planning on spending on rent.
It's a no brainer surely?

But we certainly can't afford the extra £100 a month. In 3 years my dcs will be 12 and 14, surely opposite sex children shouldn't be sharing a room at that age? Thank you for all the advice, but it all means staying put hear for another few years, which just isn't fair on the children. As I said before I can go on at the housing association all I like, but if there isn't any 3 bedroom properties ha properties in the town they can't magic them, there is a waiting list and we are currently 3 years from the top

There are lots of ways you could make the 2 bedroom home work for longer while you save.

Are the DC in the bigger room? If not move them into the bigger room and look online for lots of ideas to split the space to give each child privacy OR you and your DP get a fancy all day sofa, every night sofa bed and sleep in the living space to give the DC a room each.

Look up tiny living for lots of ideas.

It'll buy you longer, maybe even long enough to get a HA swap.

I completely understand it's not ideal but you'd have so many more options.

which area

Don't risk a roof over your children's heads. Sleep in the lounge if you have to, save hard for the next few years, but voluntarily tripling your rent and other costs is seriously unwise.

We are about to downsize and practise 'tiny living' on a daily basis!

The kids have the bedrooms and we will sleep in the lounge. I have two mid century daybed sofas with small single mattress on. Comfortable and practical.

I would choose security over space any day of the week.

Ah this sounds so tough and there clearly isn't a right answer tbh. All options sound really difficult.

Personally, I'd stay put and sleep in the living room so dcs don't have to share

Presumably being in the catchment for this school is part of the reason for a property premium?

In that case make a plan so each month is achieving something to make the time more bearable.

If you save 1k a month for the next 18 months, would you then be able to buy outside catchment as both your kids will be in?

Do you have any savings now? If not, I just don't see how you will manage.

At the very least, save for six months so you have a cushion and another deposit ready if you had to move rental.

I understand you are miserable but you would be taking an enormous risk and putting a huge burden on your husband

Was going to say the same as others, been in the situation of tiny house (two of the bedrooms were literally box rooms) and three teenagers who needed their own space, sofa bed in the lounge for adults is what we did for quite a few years as only 5 minutes from their school.

I would wait a bit longer before doing anything and see the details re what Boris is going to do about allowing people to buy their HA properties at much reduced prices.
If you can buy your property at a very low price for the area it might be better to stay put & sell it as soon as you legally own it. If you’re going down that route you wouldn’t want there to be evidence of an official complaint against your neighbours.