To move or not to move......?

mclaren32

To paint a picture we bought our home 5 years ago and have refurbished it over that time to something we are proud of and nothing needs doing. It is a 4-bed semi (extended 3 bed) and whilst big enough for a family (we have a newborn) it isn't what we would consider to be a forever home because the garden is somewhat small and their is no hallway so you enter straight into the living room through a small porch.

The house is worth approximately £370k with an outstanding mortgage of £106,500 so assuming nothing changes we could clear the mortgage in 9 years when I would be 40 with all the benefits that would bring. On the flip side this level of equity would obviously go a long way to get us into a forever home which is realistically going to be £500-£550k (Oxon, Bucks border) and push the mortgage back to 25 years.

A very personal decision to make but I'm interested to see what people think.

ellie27

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ellie27

I would move now.

If you wait another 9 years or so, although you will then be mortgage free your house will not work for you as you say you already know now that its not your forever house.

If you then try to get a mortgage in 9/10 years time from now it may be a lot more difficult depending on your age and how much mortgage you are looking for.

I would do it now!

Hoploz

Prices only go one way (normally) so my advice is always to move up the ladder as soon as you can.

You know where you are financially right now, you have a plan, you have an idea whether you could get your dream home and if you can now, you might not be able to in a few years time.

We were in a similar position to you. We took one last leap of the ladder and bought our dream forever home last year. We could have stayed put and been mortgage free at 40, but what's the point of that? We decided we couldn't retire and disappear off on a cruise for three months anyway, as we have children (6&9) at school so we could only do things around them, so there would be little to gain except spend money on a few expensive holidays. We decided to stretch for the dream home, work hard for another 5-10 years to get the new mortgage down, then relax a bit after that.

mclaren32

The time to do it will be in 18 months to 2 years as our 5 year fixed rate is up, my wife will be back to work by then and a leased car will have been returned. I'm hopeful that our free income will have increased and mortgage rates remain largely the same.

If there could be a softening of prices over that period than marvellous, I don't want a £150k cost to change to dramatically increase.

phoebe1989seb

ellie27 wrote: »

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I keep replying to threads and getting logged out, anyone else the same?

Yes.....me ;)

I'd go for it now in your position OP......although in our case we paid off the mortgage at a similar age to what you are thinking and downsized (from a mahoosive house, lol!) but our only DS had just gone to uni so a slightly smaller house made sense for us

Hoploz

Yes we will eventually downsize, we could get a fab home for half the value of our current dream house so that is the plan.

Except I am expecting our kids to be home for a while as they will be very comfortable here as adults!

jimpix12

I really cannot abide the phrase "forever home". It was bad enough when dog breeders started to overuse it, now I see it on here it makes my toes curl. Anyway, rant over....

I wonder if these random people who are advising you to up your mortgage now will be around to offer their guidance when the market crashes and you're in negative equity? Hoploz probably won't lend you his/her crystal ball - oh wait they don't have one as the market is going to rise forever. But seriously 25 years is a hell of a long time.

I'd overpay as much as possible and live mortgage free while the child is still a baby. I can't imagine the stress of finding & moving home and raising a baby. Plus I'd imagine it would be so much easier to raise a baby knowing that you don't have a massive mortgage round your neck all the time. Then I'd start to look in a few years time when the child/children are looking at starting school.

The idea of a "forever home" (gah) doesn't really exist when you have children anyway. They will eventually move out, or you'll have more and decide you need more space, or you will want to move nearer to a better school, etc etc. And when that happens you'll probably want to move again...

sxcizme3010

I wouldnt move - not with only 9 years left. You would be taking a huge gamble and I dont think it would be worth it. You have a lovely home - why not try adapting the house to fit your needs :-)

mclaren32

sxcizme3010 wrote: »

I wouldnt move - not with only 9 years left. You would be taking a huge gamble and I dont think it would be worth it. You have a lovely home - why not try adapting the house to fit your needs :-)

Not much that can be done now, it has already had a 400 square feet 2 storey extension so options are limited. We do have what we consider to be a lovely home, £150k would actually get us precious little in the scheme of things.

mclaren32

spunko2010 wrote: »

I really cannot abide the phrase "forever home". It was bad enough when dog breeders started to overuse it, now I see it on here it makes my toes curl. Anyway, rant over....

I wonder if these random people who are advising you to up your mortgage now will be around to offer their guidance when the market crashes and you're in negative equity? Hoploz probably won't lend you his/her crystal ball - oh wait they don't have one as the market is going to rise forever. But seriously 25 years is a hell of a long time.

I'd overpay as much as possible and live mortgage free while the child is still a baby. I can't imagine the stress of finding & moving home and raising a baby. Plus I'd imagine it would be so much easier to raise a baby knowing that you don't have a massive mortgage round your neck all the time. Then I'd start to look in a few years time when the child/children are looking at starting school.

The idea of a "forever home" (gah) doesn't really exist when you have children anyway. They will eventually move out, or you'll have more and decide you need more space, or you will want to move nearer to a better school, etc etc. And when that happens you'll probably want to move again...

Thank you for an alternative view, you are of course right on a number of levels. I am in general somewhat risk averse so continuing to overpay the mortgage and clearing it before the age of 40 is very attractive. It would take huge pressure off myself and wife to continue having to work as hard as we are for essentially material goods.

Point taken about forever home, in reality the last 8 years have been about setting ourselves up for the birth of our son and rightly or wrongly I want to bring children up in a nice house in a nice area that we can be proud of. We are in a great place already but I can't help but look for what we can do to "better" that situation.