Next property vs investment unit vs long term shares

Hi all,

We bought a 3br townhouse on the South Side of Brisbane in 2019 for $740k. It’s worth about $1,050,00 now so not a bad return but kicking ourselves that we should have stretched ourselves and bought anything 400sqm and the price would have nearly doubled.

With 2 young kids (5 and 2) we’re starting to outgrow our townhouse but even 2 to 3 suburbs away, prices realistically start at $1.4 to $1.6m for a something worth moving for.

Our current loan is $530k with $90k in an offset.

I’m 38m, work full time on a $185k salary with $40k in shares and $200k in super.

So question is do we just have to bite the bullet and sell, increase our loan to closer to $900k and live a little more frugally knowing that we can’t stay here forever?

Also want to leave the shares in an ETF for the kids to help them with a property deposit when they are older but it that the best way to help them out later?

We’d love to invest the shares money into a unit investment for them when they are older but it kills our own borrowing capacity too much.

Oh and then there’s future private school fees of $18k per year looking in 6 years.

How does everyone balance all this without a massive parent or inheritance hand me down?