Wait for "forever" home or upsize now

[plugin12]

Husband due to receive early inheritance in 6/7 years , current house too small, would you upsize now knowing the costs involved (around 25k for us) and the mortgage (not huge) or stay put and make do in current home knowing that in 6/7 years (plus time it took to find somewhere) we would be in position to buy the house we want long term (this would still require a mortgage on top of the inheritance)

Any thoughts ? Thanks!

Are the 25k costs including interest from mortgage? I'd work out the total extra cost over 8 years and then determine if it's worth it to move now (that money you could instead spend on retirement or something else)

@MrsMikeDrop the 25k is mostly stamp duty and the estate agent fees etc. , we don't have a mortgage currently , the upsize we could do now would give us the extra space and bedroom we want but not the land and space we would need for our extended family long term - we would have to wait for inheritance for that.

Do it now.... We moved when we anticipated we would need more space and moved into a home that has become our forever home. We contemplated extending but dithered and doubt we ever extend now and will live with the house as is

How old are you/ your kids and how much will you need the extra space for the next 6 to 7 years? How long will you be in your forever home before you downsize?

@GOODCAT we are early 30s, the bedrooms would be the main issue , teenager in tiny box room and 2 that share the bigger room are both under 5 but are opposite sex so I guess would get tricky there , forever home would be until all our children had left home and we retired I guess.

In your situation I think I would move unless the teenager is realistically going to move out before the under 5s need to stop sharing. £25k is a lot but over 6 to 7 years that is under £4k a year for that extra bedroom.

We upsized purely because we moved to a closer location for everything we did and couldn't get what we had before in terms of being able to park and be safe for the cat without upsizing. I treated it as though the money we paid to move, the extra mortgage and the extra council tax as if we were renting that extra space. In our case we didn't need the extra space and felt that I could offset some of that cost in terms of less money spent on travel and less time spent travelling. For me it was worth it, even though if we hadn't moved, we would have been mortgage free by now.

@GOODCAT Yes actually thinking about it like that my teenager could be starting uni /a job, maybe still living at home though, so they will all definitely need more space before that time is up - at a push maybe 4 years max so I suppose in that case better to go asap and get the most time out of the move ! Thanks

@plugin12 if teen will go to uni then add 3 years for them returning home in the holidays. My uni Dc is currently away for 30 weeks of the year but home for the other 22. Also Dc has plans to work and save whilst living at home after uni so add on another 3-5 years for that. Even if they are working they may want to live at home for several years to allow them to save for buying.

I would look to move now. You never know what the future holds so plan for what you need now and look again when the inheritance comes through.

Oh then do it, 25k is nothing 🙂

Are you absolutely certain your DH will actually receive the inheritance? That would influence my decision.

It’s quite unusual to have such a definite time frame, I’m guessing trust fund.

personlly I’d move now.

Stay put so that you can weather out the cost of living crisis easily