Mortgage free or Big house

EssexHebridean

Better location = one YOU like better? Or one that is perceived as being "better"?
How do you feel about your current home - do you love it? Had you always expected it would be somewhere you would be for a long while, or was there always a degree of transience about it?
Are you "big house" people? Or is this something that you have been told you should aspire to? 

Congrats on being mortgage free by the way - that is such a great feeling, isn't it! 

You say you threw everything into clearing that mortgage - so currently you have no real emergency fund, or indeed money for the sort of jobs you might want to do to the current house? if that is the case, then before you do anything else that needs to be your first priority - because moving house costs serious money! 

One thing to remember is that bigger houses take bigger looking after - I'm finding this now that having gone from a 2 bed flat to a three bed house, just the general day to day houseworky stuff takes us a lot longer than it used to, and that has to be factored in. It's "enough" more to be getting on with for us, but for you guys, with what will then be 2 children (congrats on that too!) that could be worth considering. As said by someone else, we love the space (and the house as a whole, AND the garden!) but it does take time to take care of! 

We were mortgage free too - similar age to the poster above but had paid the mortgage off early then sat tight for a few years while we rebuilt savings etc. We took £115k as a new mortgage - over 16 years, 30%-ish LTV and at 4.03%, interest on ours is currently sitting at around £360 a month but that is obviously on a short term, so I would check the sums on yours as I wouldn't imagine it would be as high as £800 a month just on the interest? 

If I were in your position right now I would be asking myself plenty of fairly searching questions - and the first would be whether that is REALLY what I want, or whether it is what other people have been convincing me I should want. 

thegreenone

Congratulations on the new baby and being mortgage free in your 30s.  

Have you factored in whether your wife will want to return to full-time work after the baby is born?
How much will childcare cost for one and two children?
Will a bigger mortgage be affordable on one full and one part time wage? Even if your wife does return full time, use figures for part-time just in case.  Oh and look at just one full time wage.

Save as much as you can for a year/18 months and start looking for the bigger house but wait until the baby is coming up for one year old.  Moving stress when pregnant is not a good idea.  

Good luck with whatever you decide.

V3cash

Wow mortgage free in your 30’s that’s really awesome going and shows you could do it again if you needed to.
i would enjoy your mortgage free life for a year or two then move because you probably will find it a squeeze. Once we start thinking of moving we tend to. I know I did, hubby and I were mortgage free then invested in a bigger house thinking iwe can downsize at retirement.
i always go new build now as they are really economical and low maintenance.
you will never loose on bricks and mortar in the long run and it’s always a good investment.
Definitely agree with other posts about waiting til baby comes re stress,wages etc.
before I had my daughter (24yrs ago now)I saved about £7000 so i could go part time and have spending money to do nice things together and I was self employed back then so my stat maternity pay was not much. 
i didn’t return to full time work until my daughter was 18 and I’m glad I was able to do that.
Good luck in whatever you choose to do.
i work in healthcare too but hubby doesn’t so i have an emergency fund just in case he got poorly, he had a cardiac arrest 2 years ago so im cautious to factor his health into things financial.

Herzlos

anansesem said:

My wife and I are mid 30s- and have just paid off our mortage- for a fairly small 3 bed house in an average neighbourhood. We threw every penny we had on the house as the interest rates was going to be high at the end of the fixed term. Our plan was to build some emergency funds, and then start investing in the stock market or business (still reading around). We work in health so our jobs are fairly stable. However we just got pleasantly surprised as my wife is pregnant with our second child.

Are you planning on having the kids share a room? If not, you're probably going to need a 4th bedroom at some point.

There's no harm is saving up some money now and moving later though, unless you see the perfect 4 bed in the mean time.

Remember that a bigger house doesn't just mean bigger mortgage - it also means more council tax, higher heating bills, more maintenance, more hoovering and so on.