As a buyer what would now stop you from buying your own house?

[countingdowntoxmass]

For me:

Shared driveway. Mostly it’s fine now, but that’s only because I’ve had to kick off multiple times at next door using my side or having their friends park entirely across my drive.

Not having a downstairs toilet.

Not having a separate dinning room (kitchen and diner are open plan and would be too small to divide). I’d still love an open plan with a table, but I’d like a dinning room for more formal occasions.

Potentially because it’s a semi detached, too much noise from next door.

The garden thing being small we upsized the house and compromised on the garden. If I could pick the house up and put it an acre or so we would be happy.

I didn’t choose it as such - I inherited half when parents died and bought my sibling out. But…

It’s a tiny old cottage in green belt, and isn’t built on a slab so I get a plague of slugs downstairs. Because it’s an old workers cottage it only has a tiny paved garden which I can’t do anything with. It is single brick and tender so it’s freezing in winter. And because it’s in a conservation area it’s a band E for council tax, which as a solo dweller on a public sector salary leaves me with not much left at the end of the month to even consider major projects like a new kitchen or new windows.

And I’m tired of spending all my money on the house and having very little disposable income. As long as the housing market doesn’t really fall on its arse I’m putting it on the market in the spring.

The main nasty surprise was how cold it is. Everything else we were aware of really.

Have you ever use findmypast.co.uk it has the census for older houses. I didn’t find much on mine sadly, but it’s weird to know the names of the people in this house in 1921.

You have to pay but you can just use the free trial

We have no side access due to the kitchen extension. The kitchen extension can be built upon, which seemed an attractive option at the time. We have a large garden and live in a quite, safe road, and for years my DC and the neighbours DC we're running though the house when playing. Oh how I longed for side access. We've also had bikes etc dragged through the house. The house ticked all the boxes in every other way.

I'd go for a kitchen diner rather than a lounge diner and also a downstairs toilet.

Also would rather have non-shared driveway. Ours is a mess with potholes and damaged but the neighbours are in no position to help with the cost of having it fixed.

Oh shared driveway or garden, and I also rejected a property because neighbours had tight if way across the garden close to the house - deal breaker!
Downstairs toilet - or st least space to put in in. Want separate laundry too.
Don't want a front door that opens directly on the pavement.

Three doors in the kitchen and two windows. Soil pipe from the bathroom boxed in in the kitchen. I envy people with a full run of cupboards and an eye level oven. I don't have anywhere to safely put one.

I have a large corner garden but most of it faces the road so I can't have a fence higher than 1m. The Council refuses planning permission because "of the low levels of the gardens on the estate a fence higher than 1m would not be in keeping with the street view".

I'm next to a rental. Previous tenants were older and quiet. Now I have five children, three with additional needs, who scream. I know they can't help it. They can access my garden. So I'd love a detached house with a totally private garden.

I’d love one more room downstairs. To be fair we have a kitchen living dining room in one plus a separate lounge and the downstairs toilet and utility room but I really miss having an office / music room. I’d also love the 4th bedroom to be a teeny bit bigger, it’s just a double but a couple of feet either way would make a massive difference. We could do a garden room but can’t really justify it when it’s not a real need.

other than that I adore my house. It’s everything I ever dreamed of, nothing like I planned to buy but perfect for me

Not having a south facing garden

We moved to the countryside and I miss street lights, people walking past, shops, bars.

Also, we have skylights in three of the bedrooms and I want big massive windows!

The back garden has seven different levels and keeping the trees trimmed is too much for me (hard to find anyone to do it, I contact people and they don’t reply). The garage is old and I’m terrified to go in because spiders.

Nothing really about the house. Love our house. Possibly location though, not a bad location but just not near anything really. Transport links are great, but not great local shops or pubs.

Its So cold!

The neighbour
100 per cent the neighbour

I love my house but:

• the water welling up from the floor in the hallway.
• the tree roots growing through the brick, same.
• the drain that's been displaced so water runs backwards towards the wall outside the hallway.
• the fact some idiot tanked the hallway, instead of properly sorting the problem.
• likewise the tanking in the kitchen, which is causing the walls to get soaked and spalling the outside brick.
• the cement floors, which need replacing (and were a stupid idea in the first place).
• the windows some idiot painted on the outside with non-outdoor paint, which - several years later - still dribbles down in white drips whenever it rains.
• the massive amounts of woodchip still to remove.
• the poor state of the wooden windows - which are gorgeous, with original early C18th glass with lovely wobbles in it, but which are also a right mess just now.
• the truly horrible carpets, which clearly haven't been replaced in ages.
• the fact it opens directly onto the street. I do love the house, but I wouldn't choose this again.

(Oh, and it's single-glazed and cold as fuck, but actually, that's not a deal breaker.)

Nothing - but knowing how much botched DIY we'd have to fix, I'd have tried to knock 15k off the asking price....

Detached for me too please.

My awful neighbours with their 3 non stop barking bastards of dogs.

I have a shared driveway but no issues as our neighbours are amazing and won’t be moving in the near future.

Didn’t realise shared driveway was so common!

Mine would be the incredibly steep garden steps, and internally a lack of light and no real way to add any

Its also on a main road but can just about deal with that

Doubt we’d afford it now anyway the prices had rocketed since we had it

I have an 80's terraced house in a lovely Somerset village.

Things that put me off: the awful brown woodwork everywhere. I've had to have all the skirting board replaced and I've painted 10 door frames white...it was exhausting.
The ugly open staircase: I've had a stud wall put in and closed the stairs off. It's much better now.
The flamboyant artex...I've had it all skimmed.
The ugly kitchen. I've replaced all the doors and had a wooden counter put in.
The cheap wood floors...I've had nice carpet put in.
The boring gravel garden... Im doing a lot of work in it and currently saving up for landscaping work. I will transform it.

Plus points: it was a fantastic low price and there is scope to really make money on it.
it's very quiet and the neighbours are fantastic.
The location is perfect and they are building a train station direct to London here next year so house prices will rocket.
All the bad points are superficial.
There are three good size bedrooms with lots of storage.
There is a downstairs loo....vital.
The insulation and sound proofing is fantastic.
The loft is fully boarded.

All in all a bargain. I bought it for £210,000 two years ago. It's now worth £300,000.

Same here! The electrics in our beautifully finished house are a complete bodge job, and really it needs to be totally rewired, which probably isn’t going to happen for at least a few years. Grrrr

Brown double glazing