What to do next with our relationship and houses...

Wishywashy74

Hi, looking for some advice on what myself and my OH should do with regard to our relationship and houses having been together for over 4 years now.

So i'm divorced with 1 child who lives with my ex, my OH has no kids and never married, we both have very good jobs and owe very small amounts on our mortgages.

We both live close by and have very nice decent sized manageable homes, my OH's is probably better suited to live in than her move into mine, its a very sought after old home in our village and I have tried in the past to buy one.

We are now thinking about our next step and this is where I'm slightly struggling. My OH wants me to sell my home and move into hers and then we would be mortgage free. My OH home is beautiful but its a terraced home, for some reason i've always seen myself in a 4 bed detached home with double garage and then I think I'd be happy not having to worry about parking or neighbour noise through a wall.

But if we did that we would at some point in the future probably downsize and do we really need all that, my OH has a double garage but parking at the rear is cramped and I think it would drive me mad some days having to do a 10 point turn to get in or out depending on neighbouring cars, although we would likely go down to one car which would go in the garage.

Also if we were mortgage free, then we've spoken about me buying into her home so it feels like mine and staying there forever (it really is a nice house and there's only 2 of us as my daughter will stay over less and less going forward as she gets older) and the house is easily big enough and has scope to expand or redevelop.

We also love the outdoors and if we did move into together then it would free up so much more income with regards to bills, no mortgage and maybe we could have our dream of a static caravan in the countryside as somewhere to get away from (which would be great as my OH works from home and I work away then get big lumps of time at home).

Also it would allow us to maybe start planning for retirement with regards to me maybe changing my job and getting a job at home (would pay less) and also my OH could go down to 4 days a week which would totally benefit the work life balance.

But, after saying all that I have it in my head that my dream home is a 4 bed detached house with a driveway and double garage and also has space for an office room for my OH to work from.

What would you do?

gwynlas

A dream of a 4 bed detached is all very well if a joint dream but would it be achievable if you both sold your current homes? You need to write a list of pros and cons re each property including parking costs etc before choosing where to live. Having a static caravan as a bolthole suits some people but might it not be better to own a bricks and mortar asset rather than one of diminishing value?

ouraggie

I read your post with great interest, as it somewhat mirrors my recent situation. My partner of 12 years and I discussed living together. He owned a modern 2 bedroom home in a not nice area of W London. I owned a Victorian 3 bed terrace, in a nicer area ( where he grew up) and near to his mums house. He hated my house and vice versa. 

We looked for houses in various bits of North London for ages but could not find anywhere. His dream was a new build with a garage to put his cycles in. My dream was an old house with loads of character. Eventually i spotted a new build in a coastal area which we often visited and both loved. Although new, it had a traditional style and we both thought it was perfect.
We moved in….sort of, as it was during lockdown. We then spent 3 years with almost no furniture or furnishings, because we could not agree about anything. His taste was the complete and total opposite to mine and we had a totally different vision of what our together home would look like. After 3 years of commuting back and forth and living in this non-home we finally went our  separate ways. I sold my London house to buy him out and am happily making it into my dream home. I sometimes ask myself if we would still be together now if we hadnt bought this house, and had just carried on with our two separate places. Probably not, but who knows.

Questions i would ask myself if i were you:
1. Could you happily live in her current house ( layout, location, furniture, decor etc) if you part-owned it? It sounds as if you could quite happily.

2. Is the 4 bedroom detached thing really that important to you, or is it just a thing such as we all imagine non-seriously, like having an apartment in Spain or a second home in the Cotswolds?
3. How aligned are your ideas on type of house, decor, furniture etc?
4. Re the cost thing, have you sat down and done the maths? eg your council tax is currently only 75% each, so actually you are only going from 150% to 100%, you’re not halving it. Obviously it costs more to run two houses, but how much will you actually save by living together? Presumably you are together in one house a lot of the time, so the fuel usage in both places is already much reduced if one home is unoccupied sometimes. Can you move to a tariff with a low standing charge? Do you really need wifi, Netflix etc in both houses? 
5. is it an idea to move in fully with her for, say, 6 months, and see how it goes? Cancel whatever you can in your old house ( tv licence, broadband, etc) and both pay half each of all remaining utility bills. Or get a lodger in there for 6 months, who pays the bills.

6. Re the second home, is there an area within, say, an hours drive, where houses are cheap and you could already afford a bolthole which is shared? I agree with gwynlas that a caravan depreciates. Bricks and mortar is the way to go. This said, the caravan idea is a cheapish, short-term way of testing out how your WFH vision would work in reality.

7. How much do you want to live together/ have YOUR dream home? Which of these is more important for you? Might you have to compromise on the 4 bed detached in order to get the country bolthole? What do you ( both) really want, and can you achieve it?

Wishywashy74

ouraggie said:

I read your post with great interest, as it somewhat mirrors my recent situation. My partner of 12 years and I discussed living together. He owned a modern 2 bedroom home in a not nice area of W London. I owned a Victorian 3 bed terrace, in a nicer area ( where he grew up) and near to his mums house. He hated my house and vice versa. 

We looked for houses in various bits of North London for ages but could not find anywhere. His dream was a new build with a garage to put his cycles in. My dream was an old house with loads of character. Eventually i spotted a new build in a coastal area which we often visited and both loved. Although new, it had a traditional style and we both thought it was perfect.
We moved in….sort of, as it was during lockdown. We then spent 3 years with almost no furniture or furnishings, because we could not agree about anything. His taste was the complete and total opposite to mine and we had a totally different vision of what our together home would look like. After 3 years of commuting back and forth and living in this non-home we finally went our  separate ways. I sold my London house to buy him out and am happily making it into my dream home. I sometimes ask myself if we would still be together now if we hadnt bought this house, and had just carried on with our two separate places. Probably not, but who knows.

Questions i would ask myself if i were you:
1. Could you happily live in her current house ( layout, location, furniture, decor etc) if you part-owned it? It sounds as if you could quite happily.

2. Is the 4 bedroom detached thing really that important to you, or is it just a thing such as we all imagine non-seriously, like having an apartment in Spain or a second home in the Cotswolds?
3. How aligned are your ideas on type of house, decor, furniture etc?
4. Re the cost thing, have you sat down and done the maths? eg your council tax is currently only 75% each, so actually you are only going from 150% to 100%, you’re not halving it. Obviously it costs more to run two houses, but how much will you actually save by living together? Presumably you are together in one house a lot of the time, so the fuel usage in both places is already much reduced if one home is unoccupied sometimes. Can you move to a tariff with a low standing charge? Do you really need wifi, Netflix etc in both houses? 
5. is it an idea to move in fully with her for, say, 6 months, and see how it goes? Cancel whatever you can in your old house ( tv licence, broadband, etc) and both pay half each of all remaining utility bills. Or get a lodger in there for 6 months, who pays the bills.

6. Re the second home, is there an area within, say, an hours drive, where houses are cheap and you could already afford a bolthole which is shared? I agree with gwynlas that a caravan depreciates. Bricks and mortar is the way to go. This said, the caravan idea is a cheapish, short-term way of testing out how your WFH vision would work in reality.

7. How much do you want to live together/ have YOUR dream home? Which of these is more important for you? Might you have to compromise on the 4 bed detached in order to get the country bolthole? What do you ( both) really want, and can you achieve it?

Thanks for the post, I can see you have experience of our dilemma.

1, Yes, just maybe re-do the kitchen and dining room and maybe add some better storage in some of the bedrooms and it would be perfect.

2, I don't know, I just always thought about having a few spare rooms, 1 for my daughter and maybe one as an office for my OH, its a good point, I just always thought a nice detached house and no neighbours though the walls, own parking etc etc, not that its that much of an issue tbh.

3, Our tastes are very similar tbh with regard to decor and colours and furniture.

4, We'd have no concerns over utility bills as we both ear a good living tbh, if we both sold and put our money in we could easily afford my dream home (and be mortgage free) but do we really need all that?

5, Not a bad idea and something we could look at.

6, We don't want a second home but maybe a static caravan in the area we love visiting, it would get so much use and would add to our work, life balance.

7, Yes we both want to move on, and moving forward with other plans then we could eventually make significant lifestyle changes about our jobs as we would't need to earn as much in a few years time.

Pollycat

Wishywashy74 said:

But if we did that we would at some point in the future probably downsize and do we really need all that, my OH has a double garage but parking at the rear is cramped and I think it would drive me mad some days having to do a 10 point turn to get in or out depending on neighbouring cars, although we would likely go down to one car which would go in the garage.



What would you do?

Why would you downsize?
A lot of people downsize because their kids leave home.
You would not be in that position.
We moved into a new 4 bed detached house over 30 years ago.
Just me and OH. No kids and no plans to have any.
We've grown into the house.
I can't imagine having less space.
When we can't manage the stairs, we'll have a stair lift.

But it was our dream.

thegreenone

Have you factored in the yearly maintenance cost of a Static Caravan.  Some can be £9k a year.

WYSPECIAL

You don’t say what you currently live in compared to your dream of a four bed detached but you do mention that you have tried to buy o e like your partners in the past, so it must be something you like.

What are your ages and pension provisions? Downsizing usually raises far less money than people plan for when they actually do it.

Is there a contingency plan if it doesn’t work out?