What age did you buy the 'forever' house?
Discussion
At age 24 bought my first house, lived in it for 6 years, then bought a 1/4 acre building plot and a mahoosive green mobile home, moved the Mrs and two very small boys in the mobile home in 1985 and built my dream bungalow (4 beds and 1600 sq ft), 10 months later all finished and moved in, stayed there for 12 years and loved every minute of our rtime there.
Sold that then moved to Somerset in 1998 and been there ever since, would love to do the self build again knowing what i know now but fear im a little too old to be putting the hours in that i used to and cannot burn the cancdle at both ends now.
Sold that then moved to Somerset in 1998 and been there ever since, would love to do the self build again knowing what i know now but fear im a little too old to be putting the hours in that i used to and cannot burn the cancdle at both ends now.
Edited by phumy on Wednesday 22 March 09:28
We just bought what I hope will be the last house we buy until we retire and maybe move abroad, assuming both of us get that far!
We could go into the loft if we needed more space or even convert the internal garage for more downstairs space.
With the cost of stamp duty, legal fees, moving fees etc.....a loft conversion is likely a more attractive option for us but who knows.
I am 35, my wife is 33. We are lucky she inherited half this house so we simply bought the other half so have a low LTV.
We could go into the loft if we needed more space or even convert the internal garage for more downstairs space.
With the cost of stamp duty, legal fees, moving fees etc.....a loft conversion is likely a more attractive option for us but who knows.
I am 35, my wife is 33. We are lucky she inherited half this house so we simply bought the other half so have a low LTV.
lizardbrain said:
Is it even possible to have a forever home when you have young kids etc.
Unless you are totally minted it’s quite likely your needs will change over a relatively short time.
Why wouldn’t it be? What needs?Unless you are totally minted it’s quite likely your needs will change over a relatively short time.
I’m asking from a position of interest - all the things I want are just that, ‘wants’, they aren’t needs..
phumy said:
Sold that then moved to Somerset in 1998 and been there ever since, would love to do the self build again knowing what i know now but fear im a little too old to be putting the hours in that i used to and cannot burn the cancdle at both ends now.
Would you consider managing the project but get others to do the heavy lifting? You would still add value yet won't get your hands dirty.We did that 4 year ago and it worked out quite nicely.
Bought our current house just over 6 years ago at age 31.
It was meant to be a short term step until buying the next larger house, but the longer we stay here the more we have decided to focus on being mortgage free.
It feels harder to leave a house when you've got all the memories of young children growing up in it.
We're lucky that the house has a driveway and large garden already, and although the house could be bigger, all we would do is fill it with more stuff.
The plan now pay down the mortgage and once the kids are older move out of town to somewhere a bit more rural. (Hopefully without the need for a mortgage)
It was meant to be a short term step until buying the next larger house, but the longer we stay here the more we have decided to focus on being mortgage free.
It feels harder to leave a house when you've got all the memories of young children growing up in it.
We're lucky that the house has a driveway and large garden already, and although the house could be bigger, all we would do is fill it with more stuff.
The plan now pay down the mortgage and once the kids are older move out of town to somewhere a bit more rural. (Hopefully without the need for a mortgage)
Nemophilist said:
Bought our current house just over 6 years ago at age 31.
It was meant to be a short term step until buying the next larger house, but the longer we stay here the more we have decided to focus on being mortgage free.
It feels harder to leave a house when you've got all the memories of young children growing up in it.
We're lucky that the house has a driveway and large garden already, and although the house could be bigger, all we would do is fill it with more stuff.
The plan now pay down the mortgage and once the kids are older move out of town to somewhere a bit more rural. (Hopefully without the need for a mortgage)
I was about to post exactly this, except I'm a couple of weeks shy of 10 years in our house, bought at 31 too. We didn't plan to stay a long time or not stay a long time particularly, but we properly fell on our feet with this one, all the things we didn't think about when we were looking are perfect, large garden, close to the village centre, few neighbours, room to expand, lots for the kids to do without driving anywhere. It was meant to be a short term step until buying the next larger house, but the longer we stay here the more we have decided to focus on being mortgage free.
It feels harder to leave a house when you've got all the memories of young children growing up in it.
We're lucky that the house has a driveway and large garden already, and although the house could be bigger, all we would do is fill it with more stuff.
The plan now pay down the mortgage and once the kids are older move out of town to somewhere a bit more rural. (Hopefully without the need for a mortgage)
Occasionally something outside the village comes up with great views and a few acres, but Stamp Duty, costs, hassle, and the smaller your mortgage gets the more expensive stuff looks. In the village there aren't loads of houses that have all the space we have and are bigger without other compromises and as a result they're all much much more expensive than we paid for our house and would be something like 4x the Mortgage, so that won't happen and that's fine.
We've added a large loft conversion, have planning for a decent size extension and I have a vague idea about putting an office above our workshop one day, so the house will continue to grow with us and stop me getting bored.
When did the term "forever house" start. The first time I heard it was when my daughter-in-law referred to the house they had just bought.
We bought our current house in '98. Sold our chalet bungalow in Buckinghamshire and bought a Victorian farmhouse in Suffolk for effectively the same price. I cannot see us moving except possibly medical reasons or the death of one of us.
We bought our current house in '98. Sold our chalet bungalow in Buckinghamshire and bought a Victorian farmhouse in Suffolk for effectively the same price. I cannot see us moving except possibly medical reasons or the death of one of us.
When I win the lottery.
I live in Greater London and we bought our current house two years ago when I was 47. It is the best house we could afford, the jump to even get another 10ft by 12ft bedroom would be £250K+
My idea of a forever home is detached, quiet country road, view out the front door over fields with sheep in them. Reasonable garden but not too big, set back from the road, drive for around 4 or five cars and a double garage separate from the house.
So this is our forever home for now as we literally couldn't afford anything bigger unless we were prepared to mortgage ourselves to the hilt and have zero free money.
My girlfriend has a place in Australia so the plan is to spend six months here and six months there when we are older. If that works out then this place would be perfect.
I live in Greater London and we bought our current house two years ago when I was 47. It is the best house we could afford, the jump to even get another 10ft by 12ft bedroom would be £250K+
My idea of a forever home is detached, quiet country road, view out the front door over fields with sheep in them. Reasonable garden but not too big, set back from the road, drive for around 4 or five cars and a double garage separate from the house.
So this is our forever home for now as we literally couldn't afford anything bigger unless we were prepared to mortgage ourselves to the hilt and have zero free money.
My girlfriend has a place in Australia so the plan is to spend six months here and six months there when we are older. If that works out then this place would be perfect.
okgo said:
lizardbrain said:
Is it even possible to have a forever home when you have young kids etc.
Unless you are totally minted it’s quite likely your needs will change over a relatively short time.
Why wouldn’t it be? What needs?Unless you are totally minted it’s quite likely your needs will change over a relatively short time.
I’m asking from a position of interest - all the things I want are just that, ‘wants’, they aren’t needs..
Bought our ‘forever’ house at 45, 4 years ago. Pushed ourselves to the limit, don’t regret it for a minute as it is everything we thought it would be. Still blinking expensive but we genuinely adore where we live, sadly we may have to downsize for health/work related reasons but hoping not to…will work it all out soon enough one way or another.
Genuinely if we won the lottery I would not move, for us it’s perfect.
Genuinely if we won the lottery I would not move, for us it’s perfect.
I have a feeling my current house will be my forever home (bought at 36) mainly because I want to stay in the town i live in, and if i want to live 'up top' where all the nice super big homes are, they're a million+ and I don't think my income is gonna support that! If my house goes up, then all the other homes in the town are going up!
paulrockliffe said:
Occasionally something outside the village comes up with great views and a few acres, but Stamp Duty, costs, hassle, and the smaller your mortgage gets the more expensive stuff looks. In the village there aren't loads of houses that have all the space we have and are bigger without other compromises and as a result they're all much much more expensive than we paid for our house and would be something like 4x the Mortgage, so that won't happen and that's fine.
Pretty much where I'm at too. Though I don't need or want a bigger house, I do like the idea of a place further out in the moors with a bit of land (and off-street parking which is the one real downside of our current place). However thanks to buying our current house pretty cheaply and having done it up ourselves to a high standard, in order to get anything of the same sort of size and niceness we'd need to add at least £1000 to our monthly mortgage payment - so at least doubling it - and probably more than that. Then there's the fact that with two young kids it's very useful to have all the amenities for daily life within walking distance, and though I like the idea of having some land I don't really know what I'd do with it (plus there's thousands of acres of access land on our doorstep anyway). So yeah, nothing else ever seems worth the considerable amount extra we'd need to pay for it.Bought our first 1 bunglow aged 23, 5 years ago, sold it mainly due to the exceedingly busy area and s
te traffic.
Then last month moved into a large 4 bed semi in a sleepy village in Essex, 20 min drive along some nice B-roads to and from work, huge drive/garden/garage, ideal really. I had never considered the 'forever home' aspect until now, we don't plan to have kids but it's not like the space doesn't get used, so I guess this one is probably it!
te traffic.Then last month moved into a large 4 bed semi in a sleepy village in Essex, 20 min drive along some nice B-roads to and from work, huge drive/garden/garage, ideal really. I had never considered the 'forever home' aspect until now, we don't plan to have kids but it's not like the space doesn't get used, so I guess this one is probably it!
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