DH and I feel totally stuck. We've got a 3 (2 big doubles and a smaller single, but not a box) bed terrace on a street and location we really love (London). We've got 2 pre-teens and it's starting to feel cramped- 1 very small bathroom, no home office space. DC2's room is not massive, they're a bit cramped. Garden is smallish but not miniscule. Our mortgage is almost paid off and we bought wisely and have a load of equity. I'm mid 40s, DH mid 50s. I'm the higher earner by some margin. We've got an offer on our house. The street is great, quiet, friendly, near the station on a good line. Easy for teens to get around, less than 20 mins to central.
It's not an easy house to extend because of the roof construction, but a small outrigger loft conversion could be done, which would give us a small double and a shower room, so we'd have a spare/office. It might be possible to do a full mansard but would need planning, which no one on the street has ever tried, and we could do the side return. 150k would get either the full mansard (2 beds and a shower) OR smaller loft and if not a full side return some sort of kitchen works.
Or- we could move. But we can't find a bloody house. Everything is basically our house with a small loft conversion on top, so not worth it for stamp duty of £45k or out of our price range- we could get the mortgage but because of DH age we're wary about a massive one as it relies on me heavily. DC1 has an ehcp so we need to stay close to their school (and ideally in the same borough although that's not essential, we're on the border of 3 boroughs) and DC2 has moved primary school a couple of times, is in year 4, and we don't want to move them again until secondary (they will go to the same secondary).
We've offered on 2, one a great size but in less than ideal location and overpriced (it's still on the market while houses in better nick reduce around it) and one which we really liked but went for over asking price and it had some shortcomings for us so didn't want to go to that amount. DH very adamant about not moving to the suburbs.
So our options are:
- Forget moving, plough 150k remortgage or so into reno and be happy here. This would take us to the ceiling price for the street. House still not perfect but we keep location and save stamp duty.
- Light touch reno- loft and shower, redecorate - say 60k- think about moving again when DC2 is at secondary and we can flex on area more. We'd have to move to a much cheaper area at this juncture I think.
- Suck up a big mortgage and rely on downsizing later. DH might be quite old by then. Will limit disposable income. We're public sector but feel reasonably comfortable at the moment. We're not fancy but a couple of cheaper holidays a year are no problem.
Because we're in London, and because of the SEN, we're expecting young adults at home (forever!?). The house also needs a bit of attention with decor and maintenance so we need to go one way or the other. Also we're quite shit with builders, historically.
What should we do? Argh.