What would you do? Buy vs rent? 3 bed vs 4 bed?

ambc

Hello folks.

Myself and my partner are in the position of having to move out of our 4 bed rental because the landlord wants to move back in.

So, that leaves us with a couple of choices.

We can either rent another 4 bed, but the choice is extremely limited where we live, and two of the 3 kids are at schools fairly close and moving schools isn't something I want to do.

Or, we can buy. This option seems attractive to me, because the last 3.5 years have cost me around £35k in rent and I'd much prefer that to be spent on paying off my own mortgage, rather than someone else's.

But that also causes problems, because 4 bed houses for sale are few and far between, and the ones that do come onto the market are generally outside of our price range. However, we could buy a 3 bed that's local and within our price range with the aim of splitting one of the existing bedrooms into two. Obviously, that will mean living in a smaller house (in terms of bedrooms) for a while until the work is done.

For the record, we have one 13 year old, one 10 year old and one 1 year old. The two older kids are only at home for just over half the week, and are at their mum's for the rest of the week.

So, rent again, or buy? 3 bed or 4 bed?

What would you do?

Pixie5740

I'd buy a 3 bedroom house that has the scope to extend it or convert the loft at a later date.