We have an accepted an offer on our home from cash buyers moving back to the UK, they are happy to wait (for now) but we are having so much trouble finding an onwards purchase. The main reason for moving in the first place is to be in catchment area for a well regarded secondary school. Although, we could get in from our current house (it's not always a guarantee). Looking around I actually see what we already have is so much nicer than extending our mortgage and paying £££ more to move up the road to a very expensive town but having to make sacrifices on the house (i.e. major renovation work or smaller garden and bedrooms).
There are a few things I'd like that we don't already have like a garage and a bit more space downstairs (we have already extended) but we back onto woods and live on a lovely quiet road. There are still some things we could do to improve our current home and be mortgage free a lot sooner. The secondary near us has made vast improvements in recent years and I hear a lot of good things about it. The academic results aren't as strong as the other school however. But the school is definitely on the up. There has been a lot of snobbery in the past with most children from the primary choosing the very academic school.
The alternative is looking at another town to open up our choices but I will still have a younger child in primary for a number of years and don't want to be driving back and forth if I can help it.
Has anyone in a similar situation decided to stay and hedge your bets on school places? The town we'd be looking to move to is not necessarily where I'd choose to live, were it not for school places. Anything actually worth moving to is far too expensive.