Do we move or do we stay?

Sensible_Jess

Hi All

My OH and I are thinking about moving house, due to some changes in the area.
We're still not decided at what might be the best course of action and at the moment we are very torn between moving or staying put.

Over the last month or so we have been investigating moving:

1) Spoken to our lender who will let us 'port' our mortgage with no charges. Got an AIP for the extra borrowing needed and checked we could afford the payments
2) Calculated a 'moving' budget - we can afford this
5) Looked at houses on Rightmove and drawn up a shortlist
6) Driven around to the houses on the shortlist to check area, neighbours etc (which crossed a few off the list!)

What we have left to do is:
7) get the house 'up to sale spec' - only a couple of cosmetic jobs (shower screen being one....:rotfl:)
8) getting an estate agent round to value the house.
9) get it on the market
10) start viewing houses

the reason we've left (8) to last is that we bought about a year ago, so have a pretty good idea what it might sell for.

So we now have to make the decision, to move or not, as once we get to (9), I feel there's no going back. I want to be committed to moving, if that's what we decide to do, as I know how horrible it is to be let down be a seller who 'changed their mind'.....

To move 'up' the ladder, we'd be looking at moving away from where we are now as houses that fit our criteria are mostly outside our price range in our local area. We don't want to spend a large amount of money moving to the same type of house as we have now (hope this makes sense?) This would not be too far away (about 5-10 miles), but when you have everything on the doorstep (shops, family, cinema, pubs, restaurants etc), might it be a bigger wrench than we realise? We both commute, that's been taken into account.

Also, we're now looking at houses around a stamp duty threshold which is a bit of an issue issue. Making the assumption that we stay in the 'new house' for 5 years, would this be a big hurdle when selling? (As a house has to be priced at a fair amount above a threshold before buyers see it is 'worth' paying the extra duty - an issue we are facing when buying!)

I don't know how to decide! One day I'll wake up and see the benefits in moving, (bigger house, better layout, better garden etc), the next I don't want to go (we have nice neighbours, it's a lovely house, good area, close to transport links and family etc)

Improving the house (according to my OH) is not an option for him as he sees it as wasted money we could spend to move instead.


To make it more complicated, one of my lovely neighbours next door (not joined) sadly has recently been moved to a care home. So her house will have a lot of work going on by either the family before it is sold, or by new people, which might be a pain for months (and you never know who might move in...)

Has anyone any idea of how we can get to a decision making point? OH says he's the same, one minute wants to stay, the next want to move on...

So confused!
Thanks for reading the long post

hcb42

write down how you want to see yourselves in five years time.

write down pros and cons of moving

Got to say it seems expensive to be moving again so soon, and the potential issues with the house next door may never even materialise, but equally could materialise where you move to...!