If you’re looking to upsize from your current home, you might be excited and you may be spending hours on property portals looking at huge gaffs with games basements, lofts and maybe even a wing or two. Stop, think and tread carefully, however, because you need to know what you’re doing in order to make your upgrade a success.
Look realistically at what you need and what you can afford
It may be that your income has gone up, you’ve received and inheritance or your existing home has increased in value and you have enough equity to make the next step up. Whatever the reason, be sensible with your new extra money and make sure you don’t waste it on space that’ll go unused.
Do you cook a lot and have parties and suppers in your kitchen? Do you have guests to stay a lot or is there a new baby? If you have teenagers or soon-to-be teens, do they want their own den? Don’t be tempted to buy somewhere with a games room if you’re unlikely to occupy it much, for example.
Look at the location
Moving up the property ladder can sometimes mean moving out of your familiar neighbourhood. If you can afford a bigger place just down the road, that’s great, but you might have to move further out of town or into an up-and-coming postcode.
Make sure you’ll be happy there, and that you’ll have all the amenities you need within reasonable reach. If your mortgage is about to increase, you don’t want extra expense involved in getting to school or work.
Speaking of expense…
Once you’ve paid your stamp duty and the removal company, you need to look at all the ongoing expenses involved with a bigger house.
There’s the mortgage payments, of course, which may well have gone up. Then there’s increased heating costs if your new home is significantly bigger, as well as more electricity, more maintenance and maybe evenmore expense on gardening. Look at the energy efficiency of the property and think about how you can reduce running costs going forward.
Do you buy or sell first?
You need to plan your timeline carefully as you don’t want to be covering two mortgages while you wait for your old home to sell. If you have to do this for a couple of weeks then it can be doable, but you should make sure you have enough funds for a couple of months.
On the other hand, if you sell first, then you might have to rent for a few weeks before your new home is vacant, which includes paying for a deposit, credit checks and so forth. Budget for everything, including putting any pets into a kennel or cattery just in case your temporary rental can’t accept them.
