How to decide to move if you don’t NEED to

[UnknownDecisions]

Changed name to hide history.

WWYD - first house, has lots of compromises (nothing is terrible but nothing is perfect).

would you move and take on the risk of a much bigger mortgage for a better house (which might still need work) that still doesn’t give you everything you want (‘dream house’ in the area is out of reach and we don’t want to buy a shell to renovate).

Based on some recent listings:

Things we would get

• DETACHED!! (our neighbours are noisy but not terrible. nothing like some of the horror stories we’ve read)
• larger rooms
• maybe a garage
• downstairs toilet

things we want but wouldn’t get:

• second bathroom
• utility
• Large south facing garden
• big kitchen diner

info-
combined income: 95k, fairly secure jobs
ages: 35, no plan to have children
current mortgage: 60k (will be mortgage free in less than 5years)
New mortgage approx: 300-350k
(depending on what the house sells for and cost of new house)

The term would be as long as we can get (so 30+years) to minimise repayment

Personally, for just two of us, I wouldn't take on that kind of debt over an additional 25 years and still not end up with so much of my wish list.

Have you looked at remodelling the house you have, extending, maybe a loft conversion for a new master bedroom and ensuite, adding on a small utility room? or are those just not possibilities?

@martinisforeveryone we could build a garage/ brick store for outdoor gear. extending is limited because there just isn’t much space. There’s no easy access to the loft. Kirstie modified a house similar to ours on Love it or list it by doing a dormer loft extension/ conversion with the stairs in the box room. So the no. of bedrooms stayed the same and box box room became corridor/ storage. it costed them so much money and I just don’t think it’s worth it. And we’d still be attached.

im not sure. I don’t want us to be pressured to work until we drop. Before my illness I had a very well paid job and between our salaries we aimed for early retirement or at least early moving to part time.

With the extra debt, we’d have to work for such a long time.

but we are spending more time at home. And i don’t like noisy neighbours and would like more space/ storage.

I think I’d stay put for a bit and try to save a bit more so you have to make fewer compromises. The more times you move the more stamp duty you’ll pay. Plus as others have said it’s not a great time to take on a new mortgage- rates will probably fall over the next year or so.

Could you try six months of putting that mortgage amount away and see how comfortable it is to live on what’s left?

I say go for it on the proviso that you're not going to regret it if/when an actual 'dream house' pops up.
You might not be able to completely retire early, but on those salaries you can still downgrade in, say 20 years, at the age of 55, if you plan carefully and overpay. Which you should be able to do easily on that income and no children.

Furthermore a detached is likely to be in a nice area and so hold its value. The problem with all these endless extensions is that you reach the 'ceiling value' for the street and might not make the money back. Unless you have absolutely no choice or bought the worst house in a good street I'd look to buy rather than extend.

Also again OP looking at your list depending on your detached it could presumably be modified - not the South Facing garden but maybe the kitchen/utility?
Detached generally have a larger footprint anyway,
A second bathroom for 2 people IME just adds more cleaning. Maybe you have a lot of guests over or something but again with a lot of space you can probably add a shower stall somewhere.
I viewed one house in Gorton that had a shower stall in the corner of the (not particularly large) dining room 😂Odd, but functional! Family with 4 kids.
I wouldn't recommend doing that but to give you another idea the en-suite in a previous house I live in was tiny, just the stall and a small sink. It still worked.

Is it possible to hold out for a detached place that isn’t too enormous/expensive? I agree that being detached is amazing. If that’s the key thing for you I’d be aiming to go detached at the lowest possible cost.

A cheaper detached would be ideal, even if we don’t have the other things. It’s just in the 3 years that we’ve been looking, there aren’t any detached houses under the 550-600k mark. It’s also not a very common style of house that comes up. It’s mostly terraced and semi’s around here.

New mortgage 300-350k

😱

5 x your current mortgage with interest rates going up again soon...

Slight overreaction!

Normally you compare mortgage costs to income. I mean anyone can lose their job so by that logic no one should buy as current prices means people typically can't buy a house for what they earn. 🙄

My point is that £300-£350k is about 5+ times more than their current mortgage of £60k. So current repayment must be about £650/month, the new mortgage would be 5 times that = £3,500. Maybe my numbers are a bit out, but it's that order of magnitude.

Just a bit 😆

I’m in a similar position. And we are staying put for now. An extra £1000 a month in the mortgage is so much to still be in a house with compromises. To move I’d want to be from terraced to semi, with a garage, an extra room for wfh, and a bigger garden. All those things are going to cost me an extra 3-400k and then the massive increase in mortgage payments will impact negatively on my day to day life and so overall just not worth it. I’m going to spend a lot less on getting my existing house as nice as possible. Getting some decent storage, French doors, maybe a garden office. All that will cost about the same as stamp duty would if we moved! @

Can you port your current mortgage deal when increasing it?

I would say focus on getting mortgage free first - that's if you don't really need to move. Then you can cut out the mid step property you mentioned and go straight to what you really want with second bathroom and south facing garden etc.

Watching with interest, we are in similar situation but one DC, no more planned. It's hard to get the motivation and risk appetite for adding so much to a mortgage that is going down nicely. But I really think we need the second bathroom and one more reception room.. it's just getting the oomph to do it

In a similar position and staying put. Mortgages have gone up loads and the extra money doesn't seem worth it for what we would get. It depends what matters the most to you, we have decided to pay off the mortgage earlier and lose that pressure instead of moving to a bigger house with some of the things on the wish list. We couldn't get everything if we moved either. With health issues, I would be cautious, just decide what matters the most to you.

We went from mortgage free in our 50s to a mortgage to get away from noisy neighbours (terrace to a semi), get a bigger garden, off road parking....

The only real beef with the old house was the garden size and the neighbours being noisy next door.

TBH it's not quite the right house, too much house not enough garden, and we had to spend a lot on it. But moving was absolutely the right thing to do.

I don't know. We moved from a semi to another semi just after the first lockdown in 2020. I don't think we needed to move but we did nonetheless. We wanted that 4th bedroom as we wanted another child. I was working from home in what would be the babies room. Our old place had the scope for such an extension and it would probably have worked out cheaper but the worry of exceeding ceiling prices for the road (ex-council) was always there. The difference in prices for the same sqm for a place 5 minutes walk away was about 150k-200k. The road was also a busy one so whilst we had a big front garden, my heart skipped a few times when DD wandered out there without us.

We moved to a much quieter road, cul-de-sac so barely any traffic and whilst we had fewer rooms than previous, they were all bigger. We had moved with a view to extend in a year or two. We increased our mortgage but still under the 60% LTV. We have since completed a loft conversion so everyone has their own room and I have an office and plan to extend downstairs in a few years time.

if you have had health problems I would be wanting to be mortgage free by 55 at latest 60 so going part time at least was an option, you don't want to cut back on pension payments for a larger house, but I agree detached s great. I'm a bit deaf and don't want to spend my life listening on headphones or subtitles( I do sometimes) so that rules out a semi or terraced for me as I need volume just a bit louder than most folks not party levels
it is what is most important to you, and if detached is the most important above retiring early being mortgage free then that is the way to go but I would go with shortest possible mortgage term that you can afford with the idea of repaying early rather than longest you are allowed. you will save tens of thousands from less interest etc

I think that's a pretty normal mortgage amount in your 30s. We had a flat in london, sold last year. Now buying a house in a south east town and our mortgage is £365k. I wouldn't fixate on a 'dream house', but if you want to move do it. you don't have to 'need' to move.

Just get income protection!

that amount of debt is completely normal for lots of people, especially in London. as long as you can pay it on two (or even one) salary, then you're fine. your 30s is no time to settle for a house you don't like if you've got a better option - life's too short!

I would do it only on the proviso that I could extend the next property in the future so that I could get the kitchen diner, utility and second bathroom, there is so much on your list that you won’t be getting, the house you buy could really feel a bit of a let down, but if you know you can make it the house you really want in time I think it could be a good move.

I don’t think that’s a huge mortgage - we got a 300k mortgage for our first property with a 20% deposit, luckily in 2021 so managed to fix at 1.99%.

Would you consider a well-soundproofed semi? We NEVER hear our neighbours through the wall, at least not normal sounds like voices/TV/doors - the only thing I ever hear is when they play piano, which is once in a blue moon. Actually the biggest noise bugbear for me is kids playing in gardens, and detached wouldn’t help with that anyway unless it was truly in the middle of nowhere. Sound seems to travel across like 8 gardens.

We also want to move but more for location - ours is shite, where hopes and dreams go to die. However our current repayments are £995 a month - with current rates, borrowing an extra 80-100k will be an extra £500 a month! Plus stamp duty and fees. So not sure about it at the minute unless it was a “dream home”.

Thanks everyone. It’s such a good mix of opinions.

we’re generally not materialistic people but see so many of our friends and relatives having really lovely houses and do get jealous.

to those who said ‘life’s short’, we’re really torn with how to view this. On one hand, life is short, and I had a really bad health scare so we should go and do as much as we can instead of worrying about the house

but on the other, we are at home more and because I make less money, we’ll probably be working longer and travelling less, so why not put the money into a nicer house…

my health problems are better but I’m not the same as I was before(hence change of job and lower salary). I’m now able to work and make an average salary but I do worry that things can take a turn for the worse again and I wouldn’t even be able to do that.

he’s really easy going, and says we can make the best of whichever option.