Stretch for forever home or stay put and have more financial security/freedom?

[Birchwoods]

I’m interested to hear what others have done/would do. We live in a lovely four bedroom, detached extended house but with a fairly small garden on a road of 1970s semis. The house is great and size isn’t an issue, but we’ve never seen it as our forever home. We have a good household income, DH is a high earner, and 20 yrs ago would’ve been able to buy a big house on a large plot, but as salaries have not kept up with the cost of living, we’re in a fairly modest property.

There’s a house that we know will be coming in the market soon, less than 50m from ours but overlooking the common, with gates and a huge garden. A proper forever home. But we would stretch ourselves financially if we bought it. It would need some work (garage conversion to create a bigger kitchen) but it would be an investment and 20 yrs ago the owner got planning consent for a building plot at one end of the garden, so that would potentially be an option in the future.

if we stay where we are we will never have the garden we dreamed of and would feel a bit like “is this it?” but if we move we won’t have as much disposable income and we’d have to extend our mortgage term. Although that would probably be reduced in 10-15 years if we got planning for the plot in the garden and sold it. DH will be 45 this year so if we’re going to make the move it really needs to be this year. There aren’t really any other suitable properties in this area, and we’d like to stay here because of schools etc. For info purposes house would probably sell for £575k-ish and the house we like would be around £750k. Any other properties we’ve seen are more expensive than ours but it would be a sideways move as they’re not any bigger and it’s a big leap to the next level of house that would be worth moving to.

Any advice or wisdom appreciated!

Why on earth would you want a big garden?! It just means more maintenance! You're best with a small garden and use local parks to get outdoors. Exercise for everyone.

We are in the same boat. I'd say the trampoline years are short and already with DC aged 10 we wouldn't prioritise a garden because they just wouldn't use it as much as when they were little.

We are staying put because the entire world seems so uncertain. Our current house is good and mortgage will be paid off before DC go to uni which means they might actually be able to go!

This sounds idyllic. If you can afford it, even at a stretch, I think it will be worth it. You’ll feel more settled and the garden sounds so lovely, so nice for your children. As long as finally you won’t be forced to move in say the next decade then it would still be ok financially if you had to downsize eventually as it would grow more in value (most likely) than a slightly less expensive house.

But if it's your "forever home" you will never see the value of any investment you put into it as cash, because you won't ever be selling.

@Birchwoods you've answered all your own questions! 😊
Think the only question left really is whether you can get sale and purchase coordinated so you don't lose out on the bigger house. You may well not be the only people with their eye on it, but if you don't try you'll never know.

Our children would though. We could always downsize when children are grown up as well if we feel we want/need to.

When I say it’s a bigger house it’s not a sprawling country pile or anything, it’s not massively
bigger than our current house and the garden is just less than 0.5 acres.

My thoughts are the same as everyone else’s, which is why I’m so torn! The decision may be taken out of our hands anyway if the owner lists it higher than we can afford and gets a higher offer. Our garden just feels so restrictive in our current house. I’m interested in wildlife and would love to be able to have more wild areas of my garden, but we just can’t do that now. It’s just about the life that we’ve always envisioned for ourselves (albeit I’ve always seen myself in a rural location but we’ve decided against that unfortunately so children can walk to school and be close to friends). We live right on the edge of a country town though by the common so this feels like the next best thing, hence why we have our eye on this other house.

Stay put. Invest the surplus income into an investment fund and by your mid 50s you can retire and be free. Time is more valuable than a bigger house.

We did this. We had a lovely modest house like yours but a bigger house came up down the road with a bigger garden and larger garage for my husband's tinkering.
We went for it.

What frustrated us about the old house was it has very little potential as the space around it was minimal. The garden was tiny and there was no way to make it bigger, no way to extend the house.

Our new house has the space to do whatever we want. We can mould it perfectly to our needs. It works for us now, but there's so much potential for future projects. It's exciting.

Financially though we had paid the mortgage off on our old house so were in a much better position. It's whether the house is worth a sacrifice financially.

If this is how you feel then do it. We have and are so glad we did!

We are currently going through a similar dilemma. So hard to know whether to be cautious and not achieve/have what we always thought we would. Home is everything to us so on one hand it’s where I want to put my money and have the best home we can - but I’m scared of a big mortgage with so much global and economic uncertainty. I’ve never grappled so hard with any big life decision. So no answer from me but I’m reading the replies with interest!

It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind OP!

Buying a bigger house sometimes seems to be couched in terms like 'stretch yourself' like it's a morally good thing to strive for. If you want a bigger house, go for it but I don't think it will bring the happiness you are looking for. I prefer having the disposable income so my kids can do expensive but fulfilling hobbies and we can buy the equipment for that and support them. I also don't think a house is a ' forever ' home either. Don't necessarily want a family sized house in old age.

We’ve just come out of the other side of this dilemma and decided to stay put and make the house we have better.

It wasn’t just the additional mortgage payments that’s put us off, it would have been an extra £20k in fees as well which just wasn’t worth it. So we’ve had a new luxury bathroom and looking at maybe a kitchen extension in a couple of years.

I'm going to be doing this. If the worst comes, you can just sell the house. Having a big house and garden is what I have always dreamed of and I would rather spend my disposable income on the massive mortgage than anything else.

We did it and don’t regret it but as per PP above, it depends on what lifestyle you want. It works for us because we realised during covid that we valued space and quiet over cars, flash holidays and fancy clothes for example. In our old house (4 beds, kitchen extension, small garden, built up suburban area) we felt so hemmed in even though the house was quite spacious. I actually avoided spending a lot of time there and wanted to go away every holiday.
This house is much more of a stretch financially and there is work to do but it’s the best decision we could have made for ourselves. We look forward to coming home, will quite happily have a week off and spend it here rather than booking something and have plenty of room for guests to come and stay. Mortgage won’t be gone until I’m 60 but that’s a compromise I’m happy to make to love where I live.

One hundred percent move. You are both still young enough to take it on and I have just seen you have young children. They will benefit massively from the garden and extra space.

Selling for 575 ish and buying for 750 ish isn’t a huge jump. I would always stretch myself. Every move has paid off.

Go for your forever home, don’t play it safe.

Stretching yourselves to the limit financially is not the path to happiness.

If you’re thinking of what profit you could make by improving and by selling part of the plot, it hardly sounds like a “forever” home anyway.

I couldn’t walk past the house each day if someone else got it. I think you’d be miserable and always be thinking what if

Previously I would have said go for it. But since losing my job and taking a long time to find a new one I wouldn’t. My aim is to pay off my mortgage and retire early.

could you cover an extended period out of work? That would be my question

We went from a 350k to a 700k house and it was a bold move from us (we weren't even actively looking) but we've never looked back.

Was tough financially to begin with but walking downstairs to my fabulous kitchen, having a coffee while looking outside to my lovely big garden and view over the fields and wind farm puts a smile on my face daily.

It comes down to what's the most important to you really, and what you'd have to give up.

How small is your current garden?

Will taking a bigger mortgage compromise your ability to do day trips and holidays with the children?

Big gardens are nice when they children are pre teen but after that they tend to be out more rather than using the garden. Although mine did love their trampoline right up to mid teens.

Big gardens become harder work as you get older too and take a lot of time and money in maintenance.

I would be tempted with a bigger garden but it will depend on what other sacrifices might need making. An honest pro and con list, looking ahead by a decade or two as well.

Find a home with the bigger garden you want, you won't be happy until you try it. :) All the talk of being mortgage free doesn't seem to be what is important to you. If not the property you are thinking of then a.n.other house with a bigger garden.
Reading your comments it sounds like you're trying to talk yourself out of moving. :D

We’ve always gone for the biggest house/garden we could possibly manage and have never regretted it. I don’t think you can have too much space. We’re in the process of moving now, in our late 60s/early 70s, and are moving a short distance out of inner London to buy a larger house, which really is the house of our dreams.

Go for it.

But consider the bills and day to day cost. I moved from a 4 bed semi to a 7 bed detached house and I love it.