Did you compromise on anything when buying your house?

[Amillioncupsoftea]

We have started to look at places. Did you draw up a list of absolute essential features that you needed in a house or flat? And did you stick to that?

For example, we would really love outside space, and would have said it was essential. But the more I go through the adverts the more I realise that maybe our budget won't stretch, but a real non-negotiable is that we feel safe in the area.

Did you end up compromising on anything or did you hold out/ keep saving/ wait until you could get your ideal home?

Number 1 should always be location - safe, predictable, realistic for work and sellable if situation changes.

Outdoor space would come towards the end for me, after location & inside.

We didn't compromise on area, which was the most important thing to us. We did have to compromise on style (newish, but not brand new build) and size (rather tiny).

We do have a garden, but honestly, if I had my time again, I wouldn't be that insistent on it. I say that as the size of garden we can afford is so small it isn't that well used. It is a sun trap so either too cold or too hot. I'd love to be back in a flat but with access to a lovely park or riverside. But probably couldn't afford that either tbf

Yes My list was outside parking. Double glazing. Electric shower. And central heating.

House had outside parking but not the other three. But perfect spot for the cat. 🤣 Right next to the woods. Location won me over. We replace the three things we had prioritised.

Pretty much everything. Absolutely love it though.

Detached and a second bathroom are the two things we do have though.

Our priorities were-
Area/School catchment
3 bedrooms
Off road parking ....in that order

We didn't get the off road parking but we got a house much bigger than we originally thought our budget would get us and a lot of potential

Yes, no third bedroom was the major compromise, the garden isn't huge but it's enough and we've never managed to get a house that we like with parking. Also it's leasehold which was tricky to get our head around at first.

A huge kitchen diner was an essential. I loved the rest of the house so much that I knocked through, rejigged, redesigned snd now have what I want. So I’d suggest remaining open to potential.

We compromised a bit on location. It isn't the most desirable or prettiest looking village in the area bit it has a great community and good amenities. It was initially somewhere we had discounted but after three sales fell through we decided to view a few properties in the village.

We also compromised on the style of house. We initially would only look at semi detached houses or end terraces. However we loved our house when viewing and it does have access to the back garden from the street behind so not too bad.

We would not compromise on off road parking. We had viewed so many beautiful houses but parking was an issue for all of them and I knew that would annoy us after a while.

Lots of things went out of the window when we saw the house we now live in - we bought a semi with single glazing set back off a busy road. Not quite what we set out to buy, but we love it.

We are in the process of buying at the moment. Currently renting an expensive house in an expensive postcode area so the first compromise to be made was looking outside of this postcode. We didn’t want to change schools though so the second compromise was staying reasonably local, under 2 miles away. We are buying a two bed semi on a busy road, but it has a large driveway and a generous garden and it’s not too far from where we are now.

We wanted a detached house as our last two had been. We wanted a garage and not a town house.

We bought an end of terrace town house with no garage but with two parking spaces out the front. It has a really small garden, but that's not bothered us. We have UPVC double glazing and are so glad to have a house without wooden windows which rotted and let in drafts despite being double glazed.

We love it.

Land. We wanted land but we compromised and rent land. I think we'll move again in a decade or so.

The only things on my wish list were off street parking and an upstairs bathroom. This house has neither.

But it is on the road we wanted and we're going nowhere.

Yes.
No downstairs 3rd room as study.
No downstairs loo (or anywhere to put one)
Garden too big
No front garden.
But I loved it from the moment I stood in the hall.

Yes, our house isn’t particularly pretty and there’s no way to walk directly from the kitchen diner onto the decking.
But everything else works for us and the rest of the houses on the street are lovely to look at when we look out 😆

I had a list of things that were necessary for the move to make sense which were a more convenient location, parking and safe for cat.

My husband wanted more space, could live with what I deemed a more convenient location and agreed with parking and safe for cat. I would have preferred a bungalow to make it easier for my mum to visit and be more future proof.

There wasn't much choice though so we just went for the only option that ticked my must haves and my husband's want for more space. We didn't get a bungalow and neither of us loved it but it suited us better than our previous home and we were glad we moved. It was much more my choice than my husband's though. It certainly wasn't and isn't a desirable house.

Loads of things! It was a house with lots of issues and decor from the 70s. No downstairs loo, no utility room, garden too big. But on the road we wanted to live on. Needed a lot of doing up and we are not natural do-er uppers. It's been a pain in the arse and still is.

I really wanted a period property. It would have added £250k to the price of the house if I was to have a similar sized house. Didn't have that kind of money.

Location. The point of buying a house was to have a garden at last and the best we could afford in our very expensive city was a former council house. These are a few drawbacks but the transport links are good and the garden I've built from scratch makes me so happy...

I'm looking within a specific town, so the only thing on my list is 4 bedrooms - it has to be 4.
God, the amount of houses titled as having 4 beds but then when you look at the floor plan it's really a three bed and the "fourth bed" is actually the downstairs dining room. Drives me mental.

We had to buy a house that needed work. Not a major renovation, but a quite a lot. We’ve had to do it over time. It was the only way we could afford the size house we wanted in our preferred area.

Yes parking, we do however live on a cul-de-sac and everyone parks outside their own houses/ some elderly neighbours don’t have cars. So I’ve no once not had a space right outside. I’m pleased it didn’t put me off buying as I really thought a driveway was essential but in this house/road we are really not inconvenience by the lack of at all.

On our first house we didn't meet the location criteria, a bit of a rough road/part of town but house ticked all the other boxes. This was fine for when it was just us two, working full time and having the freedom to piss off whenever we fancied. We were happy there for years. Our current house now we're parents and had to consider schools, we've compromised on how overlooked the garden is. Everything else on our list was ticked. It's not awful thankfully, but being in a nice location and having a bit more space and a garden that gets the sun still feels like such a novelty.

We put the house on the market then watched as over the next 9 months prices fell steadily and the type of house we were looking for in our price range came up no more than twice in those 9 months.

At about that point we got a call from the EA saying that they had a house that had been repossessed which looked likely to be what we were looking for. We'd actually looked round it and rejected it for two reasons, one being the price was way too high, which put it out of our price range and the kitchen was minute-I think there was less than 1m of kitchen surface.
But with the repossession price, we could both afford it and extend the kitchen. So the EA were very kind and helpful for us, put everything into getting an offer for our house, so we could get this one.

It wasn't perfect by any means but realistically the only one that came up.

I think everyone has to compromise when they have a limited budget.

We were coming from a 3 bed semi in a small village, no loft or garage, 1 bathroom and a study
Our ‘wants’ that were non-negotiable were

In the town where kids secondary school is
4 bedrooms
2 bathrooms
Off road parking
Garden
Study

We got:
4 bed semi
2 bathroom
Large garden
Garage AND 2 attics
Study
Large modern conservatory that is now half utility and half kids lounge

The compromises we had to make was it was in the ‘worse’end of town (but ‘bad’ here is still a million times better than the majority of places!) and is actually one of the top places for people moving out of Bristol to move to!
And we don’t have off road parking but street is quiet and 9/10 we can. It’s park right outside the house, if not we can park on the road that goes behind the house and long term plan is to move back fence forward and create parking at the back like a lot of the other houses have done.