To move or not to move

[Changymcnamechange]

Hi basically I live in a nice Northern village however my neighbour is a bit of passive aggressive twat and noisy (mostly during the day making the garden not a very nice place to be and working from home a bit irritating) he uses some very loud machinery and tools. I think other neighbours have complained to the council several times but he just says he does it as a hobby (which is a lie) or to do stuff for friends and family, he also keeps it mostly to day light hours although its usually doing this shit on Sundays and bank Holidays too.

I did have my house up for sale but pulled it after 6 months because I was getting loads of viewings but mostly by tyre kickers and it was stressing me out getting my house up to sales viewing standards with preschoolers in the house. (Had 50+ viewings and a couple of offers, one fell through due to their seller getting cold feet, one unproceedable)

I desperately would like to move away however we are mortgage free and in a good position to withstand any financial shit storm as we have no debt and good savings. Joint income £70k although I only work part time and hopefully that will change in a couple of years, my husband also has more earning potential but only if he worked remotely atm he goes to the office to get away from the day time neighbour noise.

My house is probably worth £370k and average houses in our area is £500k+ we could probably afford a house for £600k with current savings and mortgage and get a detatched house in need of cosmetic updating.

I don't know what to do, would happily live here for another 2 or 3 years if it wasn't for the neighbour even though the house is a bit small for us as I do like it and it has loads of great positives.

Would it be mad to put it back on the market and move right now. The raising interest rates are giving me squeaky bum (I'm absolutley kicking myself I didn't do it in 2021 when I first had a mind to, but just thought it was quarantine/cabin fever)

Probably wouldn't notice half as much if I still worked full time at my office job with no kids however I spend more time at the house and garden now I'm a Mum and work from home. X

Wwyd?

I have been watching the market in brackets from 150 to 600 for about three months now. I would say the 300-400 bracket is the one I see the largest number of reductions on and the 550-600 the absolute least.

So it really depends on your financials.

A better investment of not having a mortgage right now might be to make a point of going away for a weekend once or month or so to get away with it, so you feel less stir crazy.

That said, I have no idea how long it will be until the 300-400k market stops falling and stabilises, so maybe the best time to sell is now.

I think the BoE base rate will hit 6.25/.5 by the end of the year before stopping. They're doing a terrible job of controlling inflation.

The current shit show isn’t due to stabilise until March 2024 that was always the plan, no matter what else is going on in the background.

For me, I am hoping to upsize exactly then March 2024, I think any earlier might be a mistake

@KievLoverTwo Thankyou for your reply Kiev I think you're absolutley right in your assessment, there also seems to be alot more choice in my bracket than the one we want to move to too.

At least we have a choice to stay and aren't being forced. I think that's probably the case with alot of the houses in the price bracket we want, mostly owned by older people who are mortgage free if I was to hazard a guess. Absolutley gutted with how its panned out, wish we'd priced it better in the first place (we've reduced the price twice and trusted our EAs initial valuation but they obvs were just trying to get our business) or hit the market earlier.

We already go out as much as possible, which is hitting our ability to save much atm. Its mostly the working from home situation which is proving more difficult. X

I really feel for you.

Is there a reason you can't buy a home for approximately the same value as the house you are selling is worth?

Have you considered selling, renting for a year or two and seeing if you can buy your upsize home cheaper then?

I agree that it's mostly mortgage free boomers in that price bracket, but, surely, after a year or two of seeing 'house prices have fallen 15%' in the news, they're going to have to finally concede to selling their homes at a lower price?

Right now, there's a lot of scare mongering headlines in the news, but until it's actually happened over a sustained period and actual figures are published, I don't think they'll truly believe they need to sell at lower prices. But it has to happen eventually, doesn't it?

I'm really hoping that things work out for you.

Ignore the flak (incoming to me) and check out Moving Home With Charlie videos. Use it as PART of your decision making process, of course also listening to others on here and their thoughts.

@KievLoverTwo "Is there a reason you can't buy a home for approximately the same value as the house you are selling is worth?"

I would if it had the potential to be extended/vastly improved however the house we are in and the ones of the same value are a little bit too small, (ours is approx >700sqft for the main body of the house not including garden office and conservatory) or have postage stamp size gardens and I ideally never want to go through the stress of buying and selling again so want to get "the one" iyswim.

I did see a bungalow with a massive garden for not too much more that had bags of potential for future extentions but unfortunately thats been and gone.

We also can't move out of the area as my Mum who is 79 moved nearly 100 miles to be near us.

@3BSHKATS Thats probably a good call.

@XVGN I think I've seen some of the videos and am absorbing as much info from as many commentators as I can. X

I think be wary of anyone forecasting anything too dramatic - postive or negative. Some YouTubers literally make money out of being as dramatic as possible as it generates hits and I personally think that Charlie is one of them.

In your situation, as hard as it is to put up with such a difficult neighbour, I think I would wait until interest rates start to fall again before moving house. The general consensus is that we are not yet at the top of interest rate rises, but we are close to it. Many predict a lowering of interest rates by the end of 2024.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/money-mentor/article/when-will-interest-rates-go-down-uk/

@KievLoverTwo "Have you considered selling, renting for a year or two and seeing if you can buy your upsize home cheaper then?"

Maybe if we were selling at the height of the market however the market is too unstable and I'd be frightened of losing the security of a mortgage free home or if houses started doing a crazy uptick again. I might consider moving in with my Mum for a month or 2 for the sake of preventing a chain collapse.

"I agree that it's mostly mortgage free boomers in that price bracket, but, surely, after a year or two of seeing 'house prices have fallen 15%' in the news, they're going to have to finally concede to selling their homes at a lower price?"

Agree and this makes me feel I should wait until then and see it reflected in rightmove asking prices.

"Right now, there's a lot of scare mongering headlines in the news, but until it's actually happened over a sustained period and actual figures are published, I don't think they'll truly believe they need to sell at lower prices. But it has to happen eventually, doesn't it?"

Heres hoping, because I'm not sure we can borrow what we could a year ago to make the jump we really want. I starting to think we should just batten down the hatches for a bit.

Could you look into renting a spot in a home working hub, might be worth it for a day or two a week. Is there a time of the year that the neighbour is less involved in his hobby or it is inside so less noisy to market your house?

Have you considered selling up, getting mum to sell up and moving into a bigger house together with pooled finances?

You can put 'annexe' into Rightmove as a search term. Some of the kind of upsize houses in the bracket you are looking at might have them.

Just be wary that if the building isn't attached to the house, it can sometimes attract a second council tax (and, of course, EAs NEVER say that in their adverts, having gone out of my way to find the CT of a few!).

That was an option we were exploring when she moved up in 2021 to pool and buy a bigger house we could divvy up. However I have 2 siblings and if anything were to happen to Mum I wouldn't want any resentment to form if they thought I was trying to deprive them of inheritance or any pressure to magic up £200k suddenly to give them their share of her estate if anything were to happen. So we (stupidly) decided to stay put until she moved up.

There is no way I would put my Mum through the stress of selling/moving again so soon after her move now though (she lost 10 pounds over it). Also my Mum needs lots of space for her hobby so would need a very large annex. So really not an option and I'd only have my Mum move in with me if she needed me to care for her. I think shes really happy, has nice neighbours and has already spent over £5k on improvements including replacing the boiler so I really don't want to rock her boat as shes happy and settled. X

Its outside tool noise (powered by a bastard air compressor) but I built a garden studio before the pandemic so feel very vexxed to have to pay to rent an office space. Also my work is art related so I also have lots of equipment like wacom cintiqs and drafting tables when I work from home, I can't just do my work on a laptop apart from the odd bit of admin or writing down ideas. X

The noise is intermittent (although some days in can feel like all day) but its been going on for so long now during lockdown and beyond I think I've got PTSD for air compressors and start nearly having a panic attack as soon as I hear it power on even if he only uses it for 15 minutes. I was on holiday in spain last year and bought a lilo and they used an aircompressor to blow it up for me, it took every fibre of my being not to scream and run out of the shop lol.

Maybe I should get myself some proper noise cancelling earphones...

Maybe I should get myself some proper noise cancelling earphones...

That would be a good step.

Would it be impossible for you to work at night, after he's finished his daytime noise?

The neighbour noise disturbance sounds really annoying, but I think I would try your idea of some decent noise cancelling headphones first before anything drastic.

Being mortgage free is a huge advantage in the current climate. You can continue to save towards your next house by putting what would be your monthly mortgage payment into a high interest account.

I would try the headphones, give it a few more months and if things are still intolerable put it on the market in the autumn? If you market it now your neighbour is more like to be outdoors and making noise that might put viewers off.

Yes get headphones!

With our noisy neighbours many years ago I got an outdoor speaker and played ambient relaxation nature sounds really loudly in our garden...

You could try that too! :) Layer up your alternative soundscape and see how that goes.

Wish you all the best. No bastard neighbour is worth taking a mega mortgage hit for.

Sounds like you can afford a much better quality of life than what you currently have. You only live once OP, get it on the market, now’s the time.

Tell the estate agent to properly vet their prospective buyers, and only allow viewings if the buyer is proceedable and serious. Good luck!

I could do a bit of my personal and freelance work at night and sometimes do (although I'm knackered and its the only alone time I get with my husband when he comes home from work and my preschooler is in bed) Also my nursery charges £75 a day 3 days a week so begrudge wasting that window of time if wfh.

Also I have a part time job (related to my field) 2 days a week that is office hours and when I don't travel into the city to be at the actual work premises I have to be available 9-5 if wfh. Xx

I do have a little portable bose speaker that I do sometimes use in the garden when playing with my little one or trying to eat lunch on a sunny day. Its so gutting as its a nice little garden space, I am so angry that he ruins the enjoyment of spending time outside for these few short years before my child goes to school.

I think we could probably afford it better in a couple of years but I agree with the only live once mantra to a certain extent and if its effecting my husband and my mental health staying it may be worth moving even in the face of a crash.

I also realise how bloody fortunate we are to be in such a privileged position that we have a choice though, 15 years ago we were on the bones of our arse, up to our eyeballs in debt and we were stuck renting a pokey ground floor flat that was built by cowboys, burglarised, with constant teen antisocial abuse outside our windows and my car constantly getting vandalised in one of the most deprived towns in the North.

That me would laugh in this me's face and I try to remember that timtoof my life to give myself some bloody perspective. (Either that or maybe I'm traumatised by previous nightmare living situations so this house is now the trigger equivilent of me hearing a air compressor in a Menorcan Lilo shop...😅)