To move house and pay off mortgage at 31 years old?

[Hales02]

So our house is currently on the market,
We brought it 10 years ago and it was a wreck, spent the last 10 years renovating it and building extension (while raising our children)
We now have a beautiful family home, it is now worth nearly 4x what we brought it for.
This has ment we have a lot of equity in the house around £235,000.
A house has come up for sale, for £210,000 in the same village that we would love to stay in, it's comparable in size, has a large garden and drive. It's liveable, but would need a lot of work to get it how we like it but he house is less disarable overall, semi detached, not much curb appeal.
Basically, we can sell our house, buy this new house, pay the fees and pay off debts and be able to buy it outright.
We are only in our early 30's, and we initially went on the market with a view to moving up the ladder, (bigger, detached)
But the draw off being mortgage free is now really tempting.

We currently have £140,000 left to pay over 28 years.

What would you do?

It depends how you feel about doing another load of refurbishment.

You know what that’s like - some people can deal with it, some absolutely couldn’t.

The cost of refurbishment has almost doubled I would leave you lovely house to start another one

your home is never really yours until its actually all bought and paid for, so I'd be really attracted to the idea of being mortage free and not paying any fecker . I'm a renter so I'd love to be in your position 🤩

I think you need to take your house back off the market and have a better think about what you really want and why.
You were planning to up size and presumably increase mortgage, and now thinking of doing the opposite. Why? I get that it sounds good to be mortgage free, but were you struggling to pay the mortgage? Or would you plan to save more to retire early or for kids uni costs or what?
You spend a lot of time in your home. I'm not sure it is worth compromising to such an extent without understanding the upsides better

So if your mortgage interest rate is 4%, then you're paying just under £700 a month? Selling up and being mortgage free in a less good house would be worth less than the £700 a month saving for me, but each to their own. Remember you'll have to fund the renovations on the new house.

Agree with PP - why is your house on the market?

If it's because you want a bigger or fancier place, then moving somewhere smaller and less desirable doesn't sound like a great move.

Would being mortgage-free enable you to do something you otherwise wouldn't risk, like starting a business or switching careers? If so, I can see the appeal. But if it's just for the feeling of owning outright, I don't think it's worth it.

Stay where you are. The money you think you'll save by being mortgage free you'll just end up borrowing again at a higher rate to do up a house you don't love, in an area that you don't like. Make a big effort to pay off your current mortgage earlier. This also leaves you with option later on life to down size in similar way and possibly retire early on the capital released.

Wait for the detached.

We paid our first house off at 30 , 3 bed detached and then took out a small mortgage for a much larger 4 bed detached . Personally I wouldn’t buy anything other than detached irrespective of the mortgage / lack of .

I would never move back into a semi unless I absolutely had to.
The toil of living next door to neighbours who tv blared through the wall day and night was too much.

I agree with @PosiePerkinPootleFlump

Personally, if I'd spent 10 years making a house just as I wanted it, I wouldn't want to start over again 'just because'.
Even more so when the cost of work, and the difficulty of getting tradesmen has gone through the roof.

I 100% wouldn't move from a detached to a semi.

You are very young to be thinking about being mortgage free. Lovely though it is, unless one of you is no longer able to work or one of you are thinking of setting up your own business or something, it seems an odd choice if you aren't really struggling with living costs (which I presume you would have mentioned in OP if you were).

Don't forget it actually costs quite a lot to move house. If you've got your house just as you want it, and you don't need more room at this stage of your lives, it seems an odd choice to make.

Going on the information given, I'd stay where I was.

I'd do it

Depends on how much it will cost you to renovate the cheaper house and if that value will be returned once finished.

You made your current house as you wanted. Why bother moving?

I would stay in your lovely home and start to focus on paying down your mortgage. If you look at an online mortgage calculator you will be surprised how much you can reduce the mortgage by overpaying a set amount per month. Moving is so expensive…add up the cost of estate agent fees, legal fees, stamp duty, removal company etc and then the cost of refurbishing the other property and I expect that sum could reduce your current mortgage by a huge amount. Plus take account of the time that you will lose renovating another property that you could be spending with your loved ones.

I am saying this to give a different perspective. I am a lot older than you and still have a mortgage. With the benefit of hindsight I would be in a much better position if I had maxed out my pension contributions throughout. My priorities changed and now the freedom to retire when I am ready or need to is far more appealing than moving up the ladder.

We moved once and I don't regret that because it was important for work life balance to reduce my commute, but it came at a cost to pension.

Use the equity to by another property and rent it out

How would you pay for the refurbishment?

Look very carefully into refurb costs for the new place. Unless you’re doing a huge amount of the work yourself, costs have risen horrifically over the last few years

Don’t understand the appeal of being mortgage free at your age unless you are struggling financially or want to max out pension contributions.

I downsized twice and retired at 50. Do it!

Redirect mortgage payments to pension - SIPP if possible/sensible after maximising any employer contributions.

The ability to retire at 55 will make the possibility of staying in work at 55 that much more enjoyable - no need to take any more corporate shit!

Location, location, location.
Refurb costs? Materials have gone up massively.
Detached to semi detached?
Don’t do it. Just don’t.

Bide your time and just make over payments on your current mortgage. You’ll be surprised how quickly that helps to pay it off.

I don't think it's a priority to be mortgage free at 31. I would only move to a bigger and better house.

Don't look at the mortgage as being a noose round your neck, but rather, a loan to help you maximise your property. As a PP suggested, stay where you are, buy a doer-upper, and then rent it out. It's as good as a pension. So long as you can still pay your mortgage, it's win-win. If there's ever a problem you have a property you can sell.

Costs of refurbing have doubled IMO. You'd also be moving from a desirable to less desirable house - is it worth it? I'd focus on paying down the mortgage.

I can’t understand why you’d want to move unless absolutely necessary which it doesn’t seem to be? Stamp duty, solicitor, survey all cost so much. And renovation costs are very high now