Posting in AIBU for traffic.
We have found our dream house in terms of budget, space, condition and location. The structural survey returned a couple of major things that concerned us:
- Spray foam insulation on the roof which will cause a huge expense and potentially means replacing the roof (assuming the bank will give us a mortgage due to the type of insulation). We are prepared to split the cost of a new roof with the sellers and they are willing to do the work.
- My husbands’ bigger worry is that it’s a timber frame house with an outer skin of bricks. The surveyor has no way of ascertaining the condition of the frame as it’s all hidden. The overall condition looks good from what you can actually see and the sellers seem to have taken good care of it in the 4 years since they’ve lived there. The house is 30 years old and we have read online that the usual span of life of these types of houses are 50-60 years.
This will be our forever house but is also an investment for our kids for when we are gone. We can potentially move out of the UK when we retire or downsize and would want the house to hold or appreciate in value (London) when sold. From what we read online it’s questionable whether this can happen with a timber frame house in another 20-30 years and people might be reluctant to buy it due to the above (essentially having similar concerns to ours). I know timber framed houses are the norm in many countries but they are built differently to the ones in the UK and there are disadvantages to the building process here. The reality is if we walk away and look elsewhere we will end up with a smaller house in a less ideal location.
Would you buy a house like this? Would the timber frame put you off considering we want it to keep or grow its value?
YABU - Stop worrying, buy your dream house.
YANBU - Walk away.