Bigger House Vs Mortgage Free

[Owlgirl14]

We had the option to either stay in our 3 bed semi with only 4.5 years left on the mortgage and would be paid off by the time we're 41/42.

However we now have a baby and needed more downstairs space so are moving. At the beginning I reluctantly wanted to move but I know it will enhance our life and we can afford it.

Just out of interest I wondered what people would have chosen given the same situation.

We were in the exact same situation and decided to do a small extension to our current 3 bed so we now have a living room, kitchen-diner and a small snug.
We have 2 dc and it's manageable.
We are due to be mortgage free in by 41/42 with the current set up and felt the money that would have gone on stamp duty/ solicitors fees we used for our extension.

We are in a similar situation but our kids are 17 and 11.

We've decided to stay put. Our mortgage will be paid off by time we are 44 (38 now).

DD likely to be going to uni next year so us staying here means we will be able to help her more.

As much as we could afford a detached house with an extra bedroom now, we won't need one soon, so no point paying out for a bigger house!

If I was only just starting out with my first child, I'd go for the bigger house.

We moved for extra space, more garden etc but the mortgage was still very affordable. Personally, I'd dread staying in the same house with the mortgage paid off in my 30s. I'd find it dull and I'd end up wasting my money on many holidays a year and expensive cars that I didn't need. But that's the ideal for many and good luck to them.

For me it depends how much disposable income you’d have with the new house, and how much in savings/investments. If you will be comfortable and able to save still, and save for your DC’s future then I’d move. If not then stay in your current house mortgage free and use the money to build savings etc.

I would be swayed by primary school catchment but also secondary school choice too so looking far ahead. We moved for both but were nowhere near mortgage free so it was never a consideration to stay put and the house would have been too small long term due to layout that we couldn't change.

You need to imagine that any children you have become adult sized around 13/14 so consider what you have and how you would make that work. We moved for a secondary when the children were turning 7 and 4 and it gave us choices. They are now 21 and 18 but we knew the house had room to grow with us.

Thanks everyone, it's been interesting to read your thoughts on this.

Just for some further context we will be going from a 40k mortgage to £195k mortgage. The equity in our current house has helped a lot to put down a good deposit on the new house.

I think when you're so close to paying your mortgage off and moving will mean a bigger mortgage than what we started off with it, it can be quite daunting. Plus I don't think working in finance helps as we're always cautious around money and budgeting!

But I sat and worked through all the sums, it's affordable and we'll be able to get it paid off by the time we're about 55.

Also I'm not sure what we would do with the extra income other than save for our daughters future and our retirement which is a long way off.

There are a lot of positives to the move, bigger detached house which means more space, we get a snug room, utility and downstairs loo which we don't currently have. It's round the corner from the primary school, close to woods/green space/park/leisure centre and nursery is walkable. Closer to work for both of us and near to our main grandparents too.

I'm really coming round to the move and although it will cost us more money it will provide us and our daughter with a better quality of life.

How are people paying off mortgages at the young ages given 😭

High incomes, inheritances, priority of savings over other things, shares, family money. One or more of those.

It can be a very sound investment. We moved from our mortgage free home to a much bigger property taking out a £200k mortgage. But the property has already increased in value £100k (over 3 years) our previous property could never have achieved that. At some point we will likely downsize again and be mortgage free once more.

I'm 37 (though husband is older - late 40s). We are in a similar position in that we are on course to pay our mortgage off in the next year or so (exact date tbc depending on the magnitude of our overpayments). We plan to stay put. Our house is a little smaller than we'd like, but it's functional (each child has their own bedroom) and the money we will save means that we'll have a better quality of life overall - not only in terms of meals out and holidays, but also in terms of savings and being able to retire early, not to mention supporting our children through university and as young adults.

Also cheap houses in the North.

We've always paid as much as we can afford from the beginning and also made some overpayments when we could. It's just been from our incomes and we haven't had any children until now.

I’m always surprised by that on Mumsnet. No one I know has paid off a mortgage before their 50s. Maybe because I live in the South, I don’t know.

We moved to the bigger house and got a bigger mortgage.

Lot of people don’t tell others if they’ve paid off their mortgage so you may just not know. We’re in the south too, there’s a number of us in my circle who will have paid off our mortgages by 40ish. We will get a new mortgage though for a bigger house at some point. We only talk to certain friends about it, those who we know are on a position to pay theirs off soon too, we would never talk about it to our friends who won’t be able to.

This. I’ve not anyone in real life other than my parents.

That’s not it as I do discuss stuff like that with good friends and family too. Most of us are in a position to pay it off in our 50s and consider ourselves very lucky in that respect compared to the younger generation. We worry about our children because they struggle to get on the property ladder or have taken out longer mortgages than we had to, like 30 or 35 years.

I would always live in a detached house if affordable, so that would be a reason for me to move. I don't mind paying a mortgage - it is cheaper than rent and as long as it is paid off before you retire it is worth it to live in a detached house with a garden, to me.

We made this decision 3yrs ago and decided to move to a bigger house. Doubled our mortgage loan. Absolutely no regrets other than we should have done it years ago. We have done some renovations and now working on paying off the mortgage over the next 3yrs before our rate shoots up.

Our thinking behind our decision was that it was our last chance to level up mortgage wise as we are in our 40s (based on 25yr mortgages). I wfh and needed space for that so our old house no longer served its purpose. I love our new home, it's detached with a good garden and loads of parking. The rooms are pretty spacious with big windows.

We were older than you when we moved from a big 3 bed to a bigger 4 bed with lots of downstairs space and a big garden (we only had a small courtyard garden before) a year before the pandemic. We have 3DC and I am happy every single day that we moved, the first year the new house made me feel like I was on holiday every day (and in the pandemic I was so glad we were not still in the old house). We'll be paying off the mortgage until we retire but I'm quite happy with that, we have only ever borrowed 2.5x our income so it's not a stretch to pay, we save more to our pensions than we pay on the mortgage.

Don't worry about it. You always get people who paid off their mortgage early on these threads. In real life most people don't buy ahouse until their mid 30s, 30 % of people use part of their pension to pay off their mortgage at retirement and most mortgages are paid off late 50s, early 60s.

Edited to add: Also, we've had a long period of very low interest rates (and still, despite the hysteria, have historically low interest rates), it makes no sense to prioritise paying off a secured debt with low interest rates faster than you need to when you could be investing the same money in, e.g. your pension.

Thanks for those stats @JaninaDuszejko makes me feel better.

The main reason we will pay of our mortgage young is... the house is in Yorkshire. Our family house is working around 200k...
You wouldn't get a garage, le alone a flat, in some city centres for that!

I stayed and extended twice. I'll be mortgage free by 48 and I can't wait. No chance I'd be going back to all that debt. (3 bed, 2 DC).