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?

We wanted gas, but moved to an area without it- even though a gas main runs through the village. We only discovered that when a local farm applied for planning permission for an aerobic digestor to feed into it. We use bottled gas for cooking and had oil for heating.
Now gas hearing is being phased out, its not so bad, and we have already moved to Air Source heating.

Yes, downstairs space and something we could live in.

We needed another bedroom, garage and a huge garden. By gaining that we lost space downstairs, my home office and a downstairs toilet; in a Victorian house which needs everything doing. Sometimes I think we’re stupid but it can all be rectified eventually.... we moved right before lockdown last year and I’ve never been so thankful for the garden.

Near good schooling was the most important thing. We have good primary schools but I would like to move before high school. We wanted aseparate dining room, a decent sized garden and a large master bedroom. We managed to get all of the above in our budget but it took a lot of searching. I was willing to compromise on size of bedrooms but a separate dining room was non negotiable.

Oh I love my garden! We are looking to move and I'd love a Victorian terrace but sitting in my big garden tonight I just think "do we want to give this up?" We could probably have a decent extension and still have less of a mortgage than if we moved to a bigger house so currently weighing up options.,

Our house atm is 3 beds, en suite, driveway..however no separate dining room hence looking to extend..

We wouldn't compromise on area or garden size as these couldn't be changed.

In the end we ended up with a 3 bed rather than a 4 as we fell in love with it, it met our non negiotables of area and garden and we can extend for the bedroom we need.

We wanted a large garden, 4 bed detached, period property.

We’ve got a 3 bed, fugly 70s, detached house. It has a huge garden and great location though. We can extend to add the extra bedroom, and other houses on the road have had facelifts and look amazing.

I’m still wistful when I think of the totally impractical wisteria covered period house that was number 2 on our list.

I have no driveway :( and not much possibility of one. But it was in just the right area, right price, right school. I'm glad we went for it but it may mean we don't live here forever (that's ok really).

Yes, we live on a much noisier and busier road than I’d like in a part of town that’s ok but not where I’d have ideally chosen. The trade off was good space, garden and the ability to walk easily to work and school. I basically ignored the location location location rule in some senses, but it worked for us and the ability to walk to both work and school in five minutes is worth a lot. I’m very happy here for while our children grow up, and then we will downsize a lot and live somewhere quieter.

We fell in love with the house as soon as we stepped inside but there were a few compromises - it’s on what can be a busy road, there’s no downstairs loo & it’s a semi ( we had detached before). But I feel so much more at home in our little place than I ever did in our 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom detached property!

We have a main road closer than we'd like so our very old cats will lose some free roaming (we're going to secure the garden so they cant get out). Road noise doesnt phase me, I currently live next to the M1 and love it. To me it's a relaxing drone.

Other than that we got what we wanted! Downstairs loo, utility, 4th bedroom that's not a box room, and importantly not needing anything doing to it!!!

Non-negotiables for me would be things you cannot change and could massively impact your life. So nice area, good schools etc
Things like double glazing and even the size of your home can often be changed if you wish.

Compromises in bedroom sizes. They're still good sizes but wanted bigger ones. But everything else was perfect esp the location

We compromised on the style of the house and the estate we chose. Area is nice, safe etc but it’s a pretty modern housing estate with narrow, annoying roads. It’s only an issue when we leave the house!

We compromised slightly on location (the less desirable side of the town we live in) to get a 4 bed detached with playroom, good size garden and off street parking. Don't regret if for a second. We have a great size house and nice garden and, in the 5 years we've been here, the area has become more desirable anyway.

The priorities are the things you can't change- school catchment, age of house.

My first was in a shit area but it got me in the ladder and was better than renting in a naice area.

The last property we bought we had been renting for a couple of years - if I was searching for property to buy I'd probably have discounted it because the kitchen and garden are smaller than we'd like. Even when we were looking for a property to rent I wanted a detached property and DH wanted a garage. As we'd moved to a new area, we just hit lucky with the fact that it was in a lovely neighbourhood and was good for schools!

We wanted a 6 bed detached with a private drive, utility room and orangery.

We didn't get the last two but did get a swimming pool 😂 as it happens I'm not a fan as the pool cleaning lands on my lap

I wanted a house with parking, and thought I wanted a quiet road. My non-negotiables were that it was a house not a flat and that it had a garden.

I don't have parking (park about 200 yards away) and I live on a main road but they bother half as much as I expected them to. The garden has increased in how non-negotiable it is as I would now never buy anything that wasn't at least south-west facing if not directly south. Seeing the nightmares friends are having with leases on flats and cladding and building owners has only doubled down on the house-ness being non-negotiable.

I also wanted something ready to move into really - I knew it couldn't need huge works like central heating or rewiring as I was absolutely stretching myself to buy a house at all. In the end I bought somewhere that needed a new kitchen and me and dad managed to take the old one out and replace it for under £1500 - we reused everything possible.

Yes. I wanted to be on a quiet side street but am on a big road with no parking.

However, I wanted to have a garden, two double bedrooms and two bathrooms, a dining room and to be walking distance to the high street and public transportation. I got all of those as well as a larger house. I would do it again in a heart beat.

We compromised on condition as we knew we could improve that over time. We didn’t compromise on location, parking, garden, size and having potential to extend. We moved into a bit of a wreck but it was worth it. It’s almost lovely now, umpteen years later

Surely unless you are very rich you always have to compromise?

We had a list of things we wanted but knew our budget wouldn't stretch. So we picked the ones that were non negotiable, for us. Everyone's non negotiable are different.

For me, it had to be 10 minutes or less on foot to a station, we had to have 3 bedrooms and it had to have at least some outdoor space - but we weren't fussy about size of garden/type etc.

There were all kinds of things I'd have liked, some of which I got and some I didn't. Eg I wanted space for a dining room table and in first prize would have been kitchen/dining/family area but we got the dining room space and it's open plan but not big enough for a bit of family area too. Ditto, our third bedroom was smaller than we'd have liked.

If we ever moved I'd insist on a garden that is NOT north facing. I'd want a decent hallway and slightly larger living area. I'd definitely want a fourth bedroom.

I think you need to have a list of non-negotiables ours were - no low ceilings - DH is 6’5”, decent garden / as that was what we were moving out of London for and a non sloping drive (as I’d previously had a nasty accident in our previously sloping drive.
We compromised on garden size and it has a slope!

Definitely compromised in location. The place we look for the house originally was right center of nice town. All the houses we looked at were all lovely but missing something, like big garden/parking space etc. We decide to buy the house in more rural area and found the one that had everything we wanted, except for the location. And quite happy with a result.

On a busy main road. Was willing to accept those as we got everything else we wanted.

We compromised on space as we wanted a certain area. We can afford something bigger now in the same area but we’ve managed fine for years so staying put.