Forever home

TBagpuss

'fprever home' always sounds a bit odd to me in terms of property, I associate it with children being laced for adoption, where it is distinguished from temporary foster homes.

OP, if you want to move due to a growing family then bear in mind it probably won't be 'forever' - once your children leave home you may well get to a point where you want to downsize and may find things which would currently be positives, such as a decent sized garden, to be disadvantages. and that is without any changes such as job changes, relationship changes or bereavement.

however, if you are looking for a long term home, perhaps with the expectation of staying 10+ years, i think the thing is to consider what are your essentials, in terms of location, property size and amenities, and go from them.

Last time I moved house I went from a 'starter home' to a property where I hope to remain long term. I got stuck in the 'starter' home for much longer than originally planned, due to the recession and to work related stuff. I'm also fairly risk-averse, so I waited until I had built up equity enough for a decent deposit (it worked out at about a 20% on the new house, which enabled me to get a good mortgage deal) and that I had been significantly overpaying on my old mortgage so that when I moved, my actual mortgage repayments didn't change, it was just that significantly less of the monthly payment was an overpayment!

maybe you could do something similar - get a rough idea of what the mortgage and other outgoings would be on the type of property you want to move to, and then for the next 6 months, live to that budget, putting the extras into over payments on your current mortgage and/or into savings. that way, you can see whether it would be do-able for you to make the move, and if you decide to move, you will have built up some savings you can use towards the costs of the move. (and if you decide that it would be too much of a stretch, you can adjust your budget both for the new house, and for how much you set aside each month, so that you are working towards a bigger deposit but at a rate you did manageable.

Including over-payments, about 30% of my take home pay goes into my mortgage.

moneyistooshorttomention

Noticing the comments about whether there is such a thing as a "forever home" - I'll still go with thinking that there is - but it's just that many of us aren't lucky enough and/or got money enough to get it.

But it is a good concept imo - rather than the upheaval and expense of swopping homes one or more times and wasting money/taking Energy away from one's Life one or more times. If one can get such a home - then that's that and one might as well get it exactly as required (in the knowledge that none of that time and money might well get wasted).

Slinky

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Personally, I would regard a "forever home" as one that one never had any intention of moving from - even if a Lottery/premium bond win came up and the choice was therefore available to move.

If you can manage to get a genuine "forever home" - ie all factors are correct and you'd still keep it/live in it if the Lottery/premium bonds came up = then put everything going into getting it.

If it would be a "best you can get" home = be more cautious and protect your security as best you can.

I know somebody whose inlaws won the lottery and moved into their 'dream home' which presumably they planned on living forever in.

However, they have since moved. Don't know the reasons why, but even a lottery win won't guarantee that you make one final move and that's it.

Crashy_Time

How much are you thinking of spending (borrowing?)

Davesnave

Slinky wrote: »

....but even a lottery win won't guarantee that you make one final move and that's it.

Given that most of the people who win large sums of money suddenly find themselves mentally in a place they're not used to occupying, I'd say it would increase the likelihood of an unwise choice immediately after such a huge financial change.

Having piles of money increases the range of choices one can make, but it also allows the idea to form that different choices might be better!

sst1234

Some interesting perspectives. Thanks for sharing. By forever home I certainly didn!!!8217;t mean dream home, that would be just that....a dream. I live in the northeast of England, forever home would be in the region of £400k with about £150k equity transfered and the absolute top of my budget.

Stamp duty alone is so off putting when making that big move.

Mortgage would need to be no more than 17 years with a view to making regular overpayments. I guess, being risk averse means hesitation.

seven-day-weekend

We bought our 'forever home', a three-bed mid terrace with a decent garden in 1976, made some modifications and had paid for it in our mid-40s. It was only three grand in 1976.

We owned that house for almost forty years, although between 2004 and 2011 we lived in Spain and our son lived in that house with some lodgers.

That house certainly owes us nothing.

The Spanish house was never intended to be a 'forever home'.

We sold it in 2015 and bought our second 'forever home' , a semi detached bungalow with a large garden in a nicer area. We do not have a mortgage on this.

It would not be helpful to tell you our mortgage payments on our original home, it was so long ago they will be entirely unrealistic! Also needs change, we moved to the bungalow because we no longer needed a family size home.