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 ghost.

Being attached to a rented property

No hallway

No downstairs WC

Parking, North facing garden and lack of storage space in master were things I wish I noticed but I've had 19 pretty happy years here so can't complain.

We have a massive hallway...its another room to heat and another room to decorate...and it serves little purpose......I would forgo mine

The kitchen extension [done by previous owner]: an unnecessary addition as the room where it was before was suitable and just fine and the garden would be bigger. Apart from that everything is good.
Maybe I'd like the garden to be more south west facing than south facing as I like the evening sun.

I’d like bigger bedrooms and a bigger bathroom. We had to get a special smaller bath which isn’t tiny but it’s annoying. The kitchen is 20x10, which is fab and we’ve made it into a snug with a recliner. We have a shared drive but because the neighbours are ace, it’s never been a problem. The garden is south facing, transport links are excellent but I can hear the motorway as a background hiss, it’s otherwise silent and I love it. There are woods/rivers/canals within a couple of miles and London is 20 minutes on the train.

The same things that bothered me when we bought it:

Not detached
Garden isn’t flat
Too many stairs
No fireplace

I actually love my house and have learned to live with the above without a problem, but those are the things I’d look to avoid in the next one. The biggest issue now though would be affordability. It has more than doubled in price over the last 5 years, so we would never be able to afford it now, especially with the interest rates as they are. Thankfully we’re locked in at a very low rate for a very long time.

The trees. We have a huge gum tree in our front garden that looks stunning but regularly drops big spears in the driveway. Having lost one windscreen to it we now have to park 2/3 cars on the street even though the drive could fit them all. We have another one on the side of the property overhanging power lines and our roof. They are part of the endangered blue gum high forest so we will never get permission to take the front one out and we have been quoted $12k to remove the side one IF council agrees 😐

I love my house and, while I wish I could change the below, these are minor complaints and I think we got the best house in the best location we could have gotten for our budget.

The third bedroom is tiny. The previous owners had a toddler bed in the room when we viewed it, but it was only after moving in we found out the room won’t comfortably fit a normal sized single bed.
The house beside our back garden has trees that shed their leaves into our garden.
The windows in the bathroom and kitchen aren’t sealed properly, so those rooms can get very cold.
Some of the electrics need fixed. The bathroom fan and one the sockets in our bedroom don’t work.
A utility room would be great. We actually got planning permission with the house to build one but we lack the funds and I don’t think I want to give up garden space anyway.

Genuinely nothing. We compromised on location to afford the house we wanted, was terrified after reading threads for years about how location is number 1 priority etc etc. we've fallen in love with the town we now live in so feel like we have now ticked all the boxes!

Mines terraced and no driveway, no garage and really difficult to find!
But it's very close to several schools so shouldn't be too difficult to sell when we find our forever home 🤞🏻

I love our house but it's old and cold. It needs new windows and a new roof but it's also listed which means we need permission to fix these things. In the spring, summer and even in autumn it's great but in the winter I constantly question the choices we've made that have led us to being so cold! We'll hopefully get our planning permission in soon but could be 2 years for that to go through...because of covid.

The same things that put me off on first visit. Not south facing garden. That's it. We do get the sun in peak of summer until about 6-7pm though.

The other things I wasn't happy with kitchen was old, it had separate dining space so we knocked the wall down and put in a new kitchen. We've made many improvements so really that's the only thing.

Everything is too small!

The driveway is too small
The side passage is too narrow
The bin space is too tight
The garden is too small (and overlooked!)
The rooms are all too small
The garage is crammed with stuff and too small

But it is mine and it is comfortable and it is easy to maintain and heat. I read about people struggling with rents and homelessness and know that I am very lucky indeed.

I will be interested to see how our house sells as and when we get to that stage. We picked it (new build) because I loved all the separate rooms, rather than lots of open plan it has a separate living room, dining room and office on the ground floor. The kitchen is still big enough for a table and small sofa, but is square and not your typical kitchen/diner/living space many modern houses have now. We wanted this as going into the teen years I wanted them to have a separate communal space of their own (we use the dining room as a snug and eat in the kitchen) separate rooms is just more functional for us, but know it's not what many go for (young families especially I suppose)

Time will tell I guess, not planning on moving any time soon.