Which house to buy- head or heart? House or location?

[rabbitparsley]

DH and I are really struggling to pick between 2 houses. We really want to get it right as wanting a long term house to raise our 2 children in, would ideally not want to move again until they leave home. We are have a second viewing on both booked in for this week which will hopefully help settle it but just not sure. Feel like house A is the sensible option but house B is the one where I got a feeling that it just felt like home. House B is also quite a bit cheaper. Not sure what to do and we need to make a decision fast as we have accepted an offer on ours a couple of weeks ago and really need to move. Which would you choose?

House A:
4 bed detached.
Corner plot which means has front, side and back garden but back garden is fairly small. In total there is plenty of garden and space but just laid out differently as it is all around the house rather than just at back IYSWIM.
Offstreet parking- drive and garage.
In a small naice village with 1 pub, shop, cafe, post office, great primary school but 20 mins walk from small town with more amenities. House is 5 mins walk from train station so great for commuting to bigger city where DH works. Village is quite quiet with not too much going on but well located to getting to other areas by bus or rail.
Would need a fair bit of work (mainly decorative but also knocking a wall down and new kitchen & bathroom). Totally liveable in as it is but to make it what we want it is more of a project than house B. I do think we could add value though. As it is at the moment not as wow as house B and while we could make it nice it wouldn't have the same high ceilings etc.

House b:
5 bed semi (1 bedroom on 2nd floor which we would use as guest room)
Gorgeous high ceilings, period features etc which I have fallen in love with but would be more expensive to heat etc.
No offroad parking (originally one of our must-haves) but could potentially pave front garden. Smaller plot than House A but back garden bigger.
Not as well-regarded an area- schools not as good (still a choice of good ofsted rated but other area is outstanding) there are some quite rough parts of town though this is in the nice bit. The sort of place where if you say you live there people might raise eyebrows but it is getting better and this part of it is lovely. And a bigger town with more going on than village where House A is.
15 mins walk to station so still fine but not as handy as house A.
Would need less work (just decorative and new kitchen at some point but nothing urgent)
£70k cheaper than house A- mainly due to area and semi rather than detached.

[rabbitparsley]

Just to add- there are period properties in the village House A is in but they would cost nearly twice as much as House B so not possible within our budget!

[beexcellenttoeachother]

Detached, off street parking and short walk to the station do it for me. I vote A!

[Indecisivelurcher]

You haven't said what age the kids are, but have said you want this to be a long term house. So I'd probably go B in some respects, because it sounds as though the kids could have more to do when they're teenagers, without you needing to taxi them around? Tough call...

[popcorndiva]

House A. Detached swings it for me and the parking

[Chronicallymothering]

A! Potential to add value in this market is a huge bonus- also simpler life of a walk commute for DH. I also just couldn't live without off-road parking having done it for 5 years with a knob head possessive of his bit of pavement 2 doors down.

[mygrandadsvest]

A - no off street parking would be a deal breaker for me

[snowgirl1]

Having lived in a house with no off road parking before, I'd definitely go for house A. Also it's detached and in a naice area.

[Candacewasalwaysright]

House A gets my vote too. Detached and off road parking would be the deciding factor.

[dancemom]

B for me

[Twigletmama]

Definitely A. I wouldn't even consider B, from your description

[Totickleamockingbird]

Location, schools and commuting. House A.

[Madasahattersteaparty1749]

A parking is an absolute must have.

My friends house is beautiful but they are struggling to sell as no way of making off street parking. Gorgeous Victorian high ceilings. However she often has to park streets away and lugging children around is NOT fun.

[Indecisivelurcher]

Although, parking.... We wouldn't live in our current house if it didn't have parking. No way!

[Awrite]

Definitely A. For me, location, being detached and having off road parking are more important than period features.

[ArtieFufkinPolymerRecords]

Do you want to live in a quiet village, or in a town? What did you want when you started looking, because that's the main thing for me.

[ThunderSkies]

A

[IckleWicklePumperNickle]

Def A for me too.

[EwwSprouts]

A - detached, parking, better schools. Are you new here?

[Thunderbolted]

B

[AdoptedBumpkin]

I will abstain - too hard to decide!

[MoreHairyThanScary]

I would go A as even though in a village train station means that as kids get older they will still be able to get to activities etc.

Detached, off road parking and commute ( alongside school) would swing it for me. Period features are lovely but if A needs modernising spend a little time on houzz and you can create your own wow factors.

[rabbitparsley]

OK, overwhelmingly in favour of A. Can I also just ask- did you get a "feeling" when you found a house and how much store would you put in this? As basically as soon as I went inside B I felt like it was right and I could see us living there, so much so that I could look past the parking etc. A feels logically like the right choice but emotionally not so much.

@Indecisivelurcher they are little now (still pre-school) but yes as we want it to be long term we need to think about when they are teens as well. I think there is more going on in the town where B is but still not loads, imagine they will want to get bus or train to the city for nights out etc. which they could do from either and station 5 mins from house A would make that a bit quicker if anything.

@ArtieFufkinPolymerRecords when we set out looking we were definitely thinking town rather than village but I think having the town 20mins walk away and the station handy makes me willing to consider the village. Realistically if we were in the big town where B is we would be 20mins walk from the centre with nice bars, cafes etc anyway which is the same distance as walking from A to the town.

[myhobbyisouting]

A - every time. Better area, got a drive

[Totickleamockingbird]

I didn’t get that particular feeling but I really did ensure it ticked all the boxes I wanted. Once that was done, I knew I could change the interior as per my own choice. It was quite dated originally and we had to make significant improvements. But location won hands down. And parking! Do not underestimate the hassle of not having a parking space where you really want it to be.
There are streets close to my place which have no off road parking and it’s a nightmare for my friends who live there. They hate some of their neighbours and resent others.

[lambo88]

Another vote for A...a detached house in what sounds a lovely little village with parking...our house is currently up for sale but we haven't managed to sell it yet...we live in a 3 storey house with our little boy who's 2...we have 1 parking space in front of our garage which is on a court yard...we can't wait to have a family home with it's own drive and a kitchen diner...we've only been to view some new builds as we just don't want to get our hopes up if we see something we love and can't have it but we are in the same dilemma...the new builds are beautiful and have everything we want apart from where they are...there just isn't anything going for the area...where we live now we have everything on our door step but I just don't think I can compromise on the house and where it is xx