bigger house V mortgage free?

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there

Im so glad this thread has been started....im gonna make hubby read this - once the Grand Prix has finished:rolleyes: -it may convince him, you see :-

At the moment we have a 3 bed terrace that we only took on 2 years ago.... it cost 63k and our mortgage was for 57K....yes i know its cheap by most standards now:D ..and the house next door(which is smaller) has just sold for 90k:j .. we have never lived in it as hubby is in the forces but was due out now as he hs done his 22years only he is now doing an extra 5years:T ... so by the time we are ready to move in someone else will have paid 7 years off our mortgage .... and hubbies pension lump sum is enough to pay off the rest :j ..... which to me is about as good as it could get....now for the other bit....
Hubby has decided that he would like somewhere with more outdoor space and not terraced...im quite happy to stay with what we have... we have no kids at present and we may well never have... so im trying to convince him that we could be mortgage free at 47him...41me.... and then he wont have to take on a job just based on the wages but because he wants to do it... and at 55 he receives his full army pension and could probably retire then (if he wanted to..or at least reduce his hours) as we will be debt free too by the time he leaves the army:j :j

So thankyou to all you posters...i will convince him......:rotfl:

Redbedhead

I could have written your post! Nearly down to the length of mortgage to run (17.5 years) and the level of debt (£62k).

We have decided to move to a larger house however that is primarily because we are starting a family. If we weren't going to have the family we would have stayed where we are now as we have lots of good pubs and restaurants around, we generally like the neighbourhood and love our house.

A number of people have commented shouldn't we be buying a bigger house as we both earn good salaries but it doesn't really bother me. If we didn't need more space we would be happy where we are and have got the mortgage paid off in about 3 years which would have meant we were MF by our mid 30's and could have spent the money on a fantastic standard of living. Whatever other people think about you, you need to be happy with your decisions - if you like your house and it suits your needs, I would stay, get MF and the live the life of riley!

zekepes

We seem to keep coming back to this exact same dilema!

18 months ago we extended it (from a 4 bed with 2 doubles and 2 singles to a 4 bed all doubles and added a large conservatory) after realising we were looking at an additional 200K (at least) to move up the property ladder. This increased out mortgage from 86K to 120K but it was definately worth it.

Yesterday we had somebody round to talk about converting the loft (which would mean we could extend the downstairs a bit - I won't go into details!) - pure madness really when we really don't need the space and have £120K of debt already!! We can always do it when we have paid off the mortgage early.

We still keep looking at bigger houses as well....

My DH keeps kicking himself for not making the big house move 7 years ago when he could afford it easily. Houses he was interested in then are now way out of our reach, despite our income being higher! That's what we worry about isn't it? Missing out of a big rise.

Well, I am all for paying off the mortgage early if your house is comfortable for your needs. I must join the wannabes club and focus my mind so I don't become distracted! The bigger house probably won't bring as much pleasure as that, if you are fine where you are really.

MissScarlett_3

Well I am of the opinion of move up and often. My mistake was to stay put with a comfortable mortgage that was going to be paid off sooner than anticipated. HUGE mistake. My neighbour moved up twice while I was still sitting pretty with my nice little mortgage. I have now moved and I would say we now have the same size mortgage but their house is worth twice as much as mine. Unless a 2 bed is going to suit you forever my advice would be to move up, increase your mortgage while you're young enough and earn enough to repay it.

moneysavingwannabe

Hi,

I've been thinking along the same lines as most people.

We really like our house and easily manage the mortgage. It is a 3 bed semi, however the house attached to ours has just been sold and we are dreading the new neighbours. I'm sure they will be fine but I suppose living in a semi you are always reliant on having "nice" neighbours.

I think they are a young family, so should be ok (was dreading students-I know what I was like!!)

Anyway we are extending at the moment and then I am intending to become mortgage free - we have a £57,000 mortgage and house next door sold for £190,000 so I suppose we can see it as gaining more equity too!?

I don't think we will want to move - unless I have triplets or something in a couple of years LOL.