Should we stay or should we go? My husband and I are in a quandary.

Our lovely, but small, house has, like most properties in Brighton, doubled in value in recent years. It's a pity it hasn't also doubled in size to accommodate our growing daughter and the amount of child equipment we've accumulated.

But if we move to a bigger house in the area we like, we'll have to double our mortgage.

There are a lot of doubles to consider here and not a single easy answer.

The only constructive thing we've done so far is to flick through Property News. Every so often we've put ticks by houses we think sound nice or would be suitable.

We've then consulted the street map of Brighton and Hove and have immediately crossed off most for being "too central", "too out-of-town", "too Hove-ish", "too modern", "too close to people we don't like" ...The list is vast, which is of some comfort.

It's quite satisfying working out reasons why you wouldn't want an elegant house in Regency Crescent - apart from it being way beyond your means.

We usually return to the fact that we like where we live near Preston Park. But if we want a bigger place near here we either have to buy something with an outside toilet and wartime dcor, or we stretch ourselves to the limit and take in lodgers, which defeats the object of having more space.

So we're still at the "do we, don't we?" stage. Serious househunting, on the other hand, is a far more stressful experience, usually because the need to move has been sparked by some other life-changing event.

I was heavily pregnant when we were selling our one-bedroom flat three years ago. The day our offer on the house we wanted was accepted I went into labour and was speaking to the estate agent in between contractions.

"You really don't need to be having this conversation," the poor man said to me at one point down the phone.

"No, no, it's fine," I said breezily. "Oh wait. Oh no. Here...comes.... a...noth...er.....HAH, HAH, HAH, HAH, HAH, HAH........phew! Are they leaving the curtains?"

It had to be done. A day later and we could have lost the house. But it all worked to our advantage in the end. The vendor was concerned for our welfare and made a quick decision.

And a week later, with our cherubic babe in a Moses basket and dozens of cards and flowers filling the flat, we found some keen, young buyers for whom our picture of domestic happiness worked better than any bread-baking, coffee-brewing, house-selling tactics.

Happy memories. But I wouldn't recommend this as a deliberate manoeuvre and I'm not sure I'd want to employ it again.

Buying houses, like having babies, is a very inexact science. You might know what you want, where you want it and when. But, in the end, the decision is out of your hands.

"What have you got?" people ask when their friends want to make a happy announcement.

"We thought we were having another maisonette," they say, trying to disguise their joy. "But now we've got a big, bonny semi-detached."