bigger house V mortgage free? 22 August 2007 at 7:48PM in Mortgage-free wannabe 25 replies 17.1K views

money-savvy-suzy

I've been a lurker for a while and I have always loved the idea of being mortgage free. However I have been putting off doing anything about it because I feel in my head that I should be moving to a bigger better house. I have a nice 2 bed house with a £70k mortgage and feel extremely lucky to have bought at the right time, but I'm in 2 minds about whether I should be trying to climb the property ladder or staying put and paying off my mortgage earlier (currently has 18 years left to run).

On the plus side my small 2 bed house is really lovely and just the right size for us and I know that moving would mean a substantial bigger mortgage with no chance of paying it off early.

Does anyone else feel in a bit of a dilema about this?

A_Nice_Englishman

I would stay put and pay the mortgage off as quickly as you can. That way you will reduce the amount you are giving away in interest.

I have paid off my mortgage and own my relatively modest house outright which is a great feeling.

Should your circumstances change and you need a bigger house or you see and fall in love with a more expensive property it will more affordable.

comping_cat

If you have seen a house that you really want, then i would go for it, you can always aim to pay that mortgage off ASAP, however, if you are happy where you are, why burden yourself with a bigger mortgage over a longer term?
As a nice Englishman said, if you fall in love with a bigger property later, having already made overpayments will put you in a much better position.

Elliesmum

If you are happy where you are and your house is the right size, why move?

I love our house, we have just extended to get it the right size so we are now concentrating on getting the mortgage down. We don't see us moving for a long, long time - unless of course our circumstances change

EM xx

Pinklepurr

I feel the same too. Have an average sized mortgage and a lovely 4 bed detached house (small detached though) and would love to move to a more spacious detached house with bigger garden etc - we have two growing kids to consider. However, the mortgage required is just too scary so we are concentrating on lowering our existing debt. It's nice to dream though!

vikingaero

We have a nice 3 bed semi and as of last year managed to pay it all off. Mrs Viking sometimes yearns for a 4/5 bed house especially after visiting her friends houses.

But most of her friends are mortgaged up to the hilt and only go on holiday once a year. In fact 50% of them don't go on holidays and don't even go anywhere except stay at home! We take 4-6 holidays a year, take the kids somewhere every half term, go on endless weekend breaks and days out.

I'm not sure I'd want to ever return to a mortgage situation.

ailuro2

Stay in the house you love that also meets your needs. Why pay higher fuel bills, higher council tax etc. for the foreseeable future when you are happy where you are?

Our house isn't my 'ideal' home but it is the right size, in the right area, and we too have an affordable mortgage (soon to be none)

We also enjoyed a wonderful holiday to Canada this year, can afford to replace our car every few years and pay cash for it, etc. We never argue about money because we have enough to meet our needs.


The only thing that would get me to move from here would be a stone built,detached,with a real fireplace, not far from where we are now, away from a main road, next to the right school for DD, walking distance to work.
One of those days it might happen, but right now I'm happy to have my cake and eat it.:beer:

Cazzdevil

I'm in exactly the same dilemma! I have a 2 bed semi which is more than adequate for myself & OH, 17 years left on a £48k mortgage, and we've decided that the best thing to do is get this mortgage paid off as soon as possible.

If we can make the overpayments we can afford the mortgage will be paid off in about 8 years. By this time we might have kids and will want somewhere bigger, but I'd rather pay off as much as possible on this one so it frees up more equity to plough into somewhere else, thus meaning we can take out a smaller mortgage on the next house if you see what I mean...

silvercar

We reached the point where we could pay off the mortgage and decided to move to a bigger house.

Money is tighter but we do enjoy the bigger house & garden. One thing to remember is bigger houses cost more to maintain.

When considering the extra mortgage against more holidays etc we decided that you live in a house for 48+ weeks of the year so it was more important than the holidays BUT we say that knowing that we will still have a couple of holidays a year unless things got tough.

money-savvy-suzy

Hi guys,
Thanks for all your advice. I know it's the sensible thing to stay in this house. I'm always moaning that I don't get enough time to clean etc and this would only be more with a larger house.

I think if I really weigh up the pros and cons and think what is more important to me, having a nice lifestyle and the money to live life to the full generally comes top of my list.

Long term I would like to eventually live a slower more simpler way of life and work less and this is definately possible once the mortgage is paid off. I guess we all just want something better than what we've got now. I have to remind myself that keeping up with the 'Joneses' leads to evil debt.

Thanks again guys I think you have confirmed what my sensible head has been telling me along. Maybe I will be able to join the MFW club - can't do this just yet as I'm tied into a deal until next year. After that I definately want to start overpaying : )

Cazzdevil

money-savvy-suzy wrote: »

keeping up with the 'Joneses' leads to evil debt.

They're probably up to their eyeballs in it anyway :rolleyes: