What would you do??

rob78

Hi, I would like some opinions please. I am 31 and my wife is 30 and we have paid off our mortgage on our our £195,000 3 bed semi. The dilema is do I remain mortgage free for the rest of my life and spend/enjoy as well as invest the extra money. Or do I get a mortgage for around 80,000 to purchase a 4 bed detached worth £290,000 that we have always liked. Our 3 bed semi is fine - not massive but just about big enough for a family. What would you do? I love the security and feeling of not having a mortgage but I also really like this house? Any thoughts??

tinkerbel

I have no 'professional opinion' but I think - you've managed it once, why not get the bigger house and do it again?! Then you will have a bigger house and (if you have kids) when they get bigger there will be more space!

dimbo61

as someone who moved from a 3 bed house to a much bigger 4 bed three
storey house I have not regretted it for one second.
If you can afford the mortgage and the bigger bills, council tax, gas & elec,
insurance etc then buy the home you want.
dont forget the costs involved in moving and consider a large extension
on your 3 bed semi if possible !
GOOD LUCK in whatever your decision

rob78

Extension is not an option (not enough room). Just a bit concerned with the housing market and the state of the mortgage siuation. Thanks for your thoughts. I am still unsure?

Ma77hew

Tough call as you'll be going over the stamp duty threshold, it will cost around £16k just for the move.

I personnally would start saving for the new house and would wait for the housing market to hot up a bit. Not for prices to increase just for buyers to come out as its very slow at the moment, give it 12-18 months to see where the market goes and to boost your savings (and enjoy being mortgage free) and then see where things stand.

I went to an independant EA last week, who was extremely good, he told me that he is advising people not to put there houses up for sale at the moment because there are no buyers and those that are around are putting in really low offers that aren;t being accepted, he said to delay 12 months unless you have to move.

But I would definatly move up in the future, if I were in your position.

Daz1

Hi

Well done on the mortgage free bit, must be a huge weight off your shoulders. Like all posters have mentioned, wait and see for a while....no one knows whats going to happen but things will become clearer soon, giving you a better idea of what to do. If I were you, I would hang back a bit, use the money that would have been used for mortgage payments and stash it in a good investment/savings etc. Once the smoke clears, having that extra cash "buffer" will increase your options by a great deal

Good luck

alanobrien

I did something similar myself three years ago and am well on the way to paying off half the additional mortgage needed to buy the bigger place (and i am somewhat older than you) so if you really like it go for it. You have the advantage of age and a clear determination to get rid of any mortgage.

oompahloompah

Well done paying off your mortgage!
.

owitemisermusa

rob78 wrote: »

Hi, I would like some opinions please. I am 31 and my wife is 30 and we have paid off our mortgage on our our £195,000 3 bed semi. The dilema is do I remain mortgage free for the rest of my life and spend/enjoy as well as invest the extra money. Or do I get a mortgage for around 80,000 to purchase a 4 bed detached worth £290,000 that we have always liked. Our 3 bed semi is fine - not massive but just about big enough for a family. What would you do? I love the security and feeling of not having a mortgage but I also really like this house? Any thoughts??

Congratulations on your feat.

This is an aside, but, HOW DID YOU DO IT? Awesome achievement.

WRT buying another, why not wait awhile and see what happens? If you HAVE to move now, then go for it.

Please, how did you do it?

rob78

We have always been careful with money, not tight but careful. Always look for the best deals on everything you buy etc just not wasting money really. Don't get me wrong we had to sacrifice some things but not much. Secondly we overpaid about £100 each month as standard and then rather than saving money in IASs etc we always paid off the maximum we could without penalties at the start of each year and we always reduced the term NEVER JUST REDUCE THE PAYMENT and in the early years this cuts loads of time and interest off your mortgage. My final piece of advice would be to shop around for mortgages there is loads of good free advice.
Remember the key is in my opinion if you have a mortgage dont have savings put them down on yout mortgage and reduce the term.

Nala

Rob78 your question was 'what would you do?' - so ok, here goes this is what we did.....

Married DH in 1988 - I was 18, OH 27. He had bought the house in '86 with a 40% mortgage and rented it out for 2 years. By the time we married there wasn't a big mortgage. We would save my wages (came out with about £60 a week!) and as soon as I had saved £1000 we would part-redeem....DH had to argue with the building society manager the 1st time we did this...manager was quite adamant that no-one pays off their mortgage....er hello!

So anyway, bit by bit we manged to chip away at it - I changed jobs in 1990 and earnt a bit more, not a lot, but it enable us to keep chipping away until we'd paid the mortgage off in 1991.

So now we owned the house and in 1993 when our 1st kidlet was a few months old we took a £45,000 mortgage (repayment) out to use as a deposit on a buy-to-let. We're lucky because we have a university here so rental is good, touch wood.

Paid the £45,000 off in 1996. By 1998 we were a bit ermmmm what do we do now? Moved from our 3 bed semi to a 4 bed detached with a £65,000 mortgage.

Remortgaged the buy-to-let to give us deposits on 2 others houses and the rentals covered all the mortgages.

A couple of years ago we sold the 1st buy-to-let, cleared that mortgage and cleared the mortgage on our house - we had the Oneaccount so we didn't have separate savings it all went in there and it had become an obsession to watch the years come down on the statement by this point!

We have always been careful with money, not tight but careful. Always look for the best deals on everything you buy etc just not wasting money really. Don't get me wrong we had to sacrifice some things but not much.

That's exactly what we were like and to some extent still are....habits don't change easily. We've never felt the 'need' to compete with others to have the best clothes/cars/kids' things etc When we first were married I got carried away...1st cheque book and credit card, and DH flipped and made me cry that the bank account was £30 overdrawn! Seems so silly now lol

Don't get me wrong we swapped cars a few times when we were younger and every now and again we have the omg how much did we spend conversations! This car we've had since 2000 and all our friends/family have swapped cars umpteen times since then....that's why we can go on holiday and not bang in on the credit card

So what you going to do?