How important is the area you live in
Discussion
We live in a £160k house with about £90k on the mortgage, earn £70k between us. We love the house, the area is perfectly safe (e.g. no drug dealers) but rough around the edges and not that well educated on the whole; the schools are fine for kids who pay attention and want to be there but plenty of opportunities for those kids to get distracted by tearaways and ne'er-do-wells.
We don't want to be slaves to a mortgage and plan on paying it off in 8 years time, before we reach our 50s, to have more money to do things and provide for the child(ren). Are we crazy to do this? Shouldn't we be getting the biggest mortgage we can and getting the benefit of higher house value later on in life? We could probably move to another 3-bed house in a better area for £250k+ but that's a huge chunk of money (including the extra interest) that could be spent on family holidays, hobbies, trips, toys, uni fees, pensions/ISAs etc.
For those that live in a rougher area than you'd like, particularly if you have children, how do you deal with it? Do you even think about it?
We don't want to be slaves to a mortgage and plan on paying it off in 8 years time, before we reach our 50s, to have more money to do things and provide for the child(ren). Are we crazy to do this? Shouldn't we be getting the biggest mortgage we can and getting the benefit of higher house value later on in life? We could probably move to another 3-bed house in a better area for £250k+ but that's a huge chunk of money (including the extra interest) that could be spent on family holidays, hobbies, trips, toys, uni fees, pensions/ISAs etc.
For those that live in a rougher area than you'd like, particularly if you have children, how do you deal with it? Do you even think about it?
I appraise the area every time I walk to the local Tesco - let's just say there's not many people I see that I would invite into my house for a cup of tea. 
There's a certain element of snobbery now in that comment, but I wasn't really bothered by it all before a child came on the scene (well in two months time anyway), you don't want your kids to think that's the norm and not to stretch themselves.
If interest rates stayed the same (I know they won't) we'd pay off our current house in 10 years at £800 a month. To move to a house in a better area (around £100k more, most of the inbetween are flats or the area isn't significantly better to warrant moving) would mean paying the same for an extra 13 YEARS, or paying £1740 A MONTH to pay it off in the same time. When interest rates go up it will be even more, just doesn't add up.
The right-time thing above is probably key to a lot of this - a lot of the people who live in the areas we might look to probably bought their houses a few decades ago or more when the sums were different.
The local schools, although their results aren't as good as others and things like absenteeism is higher, still get 1 in 4 pupils leaving with 5 highers (probably 3-4 A levels in England) so you just have to assume that you do well by your child and they will be one of those 4.
There's a certain element of snobbery now in that comment, but I wasn't really bothered by it all before a child came on the scene (well in two months time anyway), you don't want your kids to think that's the norm and not to stretch themselves.If interest rates stayed the same (I know they won't) we'd pay off our current house in 10 years at £800 a month. To move to a house in a better area (around £100k more, most of the inbetween are flats or the area isn't significantly better to warrant moving) would mean paying the same for an extra 13 YEARS, or paying £1740 A MONTH to pay it off in the same time. When interest rates go up it will be even more, just doesn't add up.
The right-time thing above is probably key to a lot of this - a lot of the people who live in the areas we might look to probably bought their houses a few decades ago or more when the sums were different.
The local schools, although their results aren't as good as others and things like absenteeism is higher, still get 1 in 4 pupils leaving with 5 highers (probably 3-4 A levels in England) so you just have to assume that you do well by your child and they will be one of those 4.
boyse7en said:
Sorry, not much to offer on whether you should move house, but this bit intrigued me.
25% of pupils getting the equivalent of 4 A-levels sounds amazing to me. Unless things have changed dramatically since I was at school, very few pupils do four A-levels - I was one of only three pupils to do four A-levels in my school (out of a year group of about 200) and had to ask special permission to do so (ordinary large Comprehensive school, in case that makes any difference)
I probably miscalculated the equivalence between Scotland and England - one of the figures was 1 in 4 pupils get 5 or more Highers, but I forgot there are such things as Advanced Highers, so I don't really know what 5 Highers is the equivalent of. 50% of pupils got no Highers at all, but then I guess at my English comp less than half did A levels at the local sixth form, and I don't know where vocational training kicks in in the Scottish system.25% of pupils getting the equivalent of 4 A-levels sounds amazing to me. Unless things have changed dramatically since I was at school, very few pupils do four A-levels - I was one of only three pupils to do four A-levels in my school (out of a year group of about 200) and had to ask special permission to do so (ordinary large Comprehensive school, in case that makes any difference)
Either way there are a lot of schools doing significantly better, but then like I said, if your child is the one doing very well then does it really matter which school they're in?
Why the f
k do threads keep getting moved out of the lounge where they will get a diverse audience and into the niche forums where only the geeks hang out? If anything this was more about a philosophy of life than house prices, if people weren't interested it would have quickly dropped down the pages. Mods need to do something I suppose. :/
k do threads keep getting moved out of the lounge where they will get a diverse audience and into the niche forums where only the geeks hang out? If anything this was more about a philosophy of life than house prices, if people weren't interested it would have quickly dropped down the pages. Mods need to do something I suppose. :/ScotHill said:
We live in a £160k house with about £90k on the mortgage, earn £70k between us. We love the house, the area is perfectly safe (e.g. no drug dealers) but rough around the edges and not that well educated on the whole; the schools are fine for kids who pay attention and want to be there but plenty of opportunities for those kids to get distracted by tearaways and ne'er-do-wells.
We don't want to be slaves to a mortgage and plan on paying it off in 8 years time, before we reach our 50s, to have more money to do things and provide for the child(ren). Are we crazy to do this? Shouldn't we be getting the biggest mortgage we can and getting the benefit of higher house value later on in life? We could probably move to another 3-bed house in a better area for £250k+ but that's a huge chunk of money (including the extra interest) that could be spent on family holidays, hobbies, trips, toys, uni fees, pensions/ISAs etc.
For those that live in a rougher area than you'd like, particularly if you have children, how do you deal with it? Do you even think about it?
So the wee boy is just over a year old now and is starting to change my view, and that our own financial decisions are going to have an impact on how he grows up. If it were just us adults I'd be fine living where we are, but children are just building their perceptions of the world from scratch, and I'm not sure where we live now is how I would like him to perceive it (on the edge of Knightswood in Glasgow). I don't see myself reflected in the people we live around, and on visits to the local health centre, shops or even local supermarket there are very very few people that I would want to invite into my home for tea and biscuits, and there is too much crap behaviour (from children and adults) going on outside without anything else to balance that (extreme example but see [this thread|https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=1749532[/url], although to be fair Glasgow has the classiest jakies).We don't want to be slaves to a mortgage and plan on paying it off in 8 years time, before we reach our 50s, to have more money to do things and provide for the child(ren). Are we crazy to do this? Shouldn't we be getting the biggest mortgage we can and getting the benefit of higher house value later on in life? We could probably move to another 3-bed house in a better area for £250k+ but that's a huge chunk of money (including the extra interest) that could be spent on family holidays, hobbies, trips, toys, uni fees, pensions/ISAs etc.
For those that live in a rougher area than you'd like, particularly if you have children, how do you deal with it? Do you even think about it?
In other areas there are teenagers without perma-aggressive faces, healthy looking joggers, cafes that aren't greasy spoons, and people talking to their kids without shouting at them and kids talking to other kids without shouting at them, and just generally a whole lot less shouting going on which is more of the environment I'd like my son to be in. I'm sure he would be fine where we live now, just that he would probably be... finer if we moved somewhere else.
I also kind of realised (as suggested above) that the difference in cost of a more expensive house, stamp duty aside, is mainly in the extra interest you're paying - once you've bought it you can sell it on again and get all of the capital back.
So will probably do any house work that really needs doing next year, and then look at moving in 2-5 years time, maybe before he starts school. Should give us £200k in equity/cash so maybe look to buy something £300-350k that we can hopefully clear the mortgage for in our mid-50s.
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff