Is a fabulous house worth it? Opinions please

[twilighttwinkle]

I’ve NC’d as it’s quite outing, I’ve spoken to friends recently about it and at least two of them are on here.

My family is Dh, and 3DC (9,7&1). We’ve seen the most wonderful house, really lovely. It is however in the middle of nowhere. We love it so much and all want to move there but I’ll just bullet point the facts to save lengthy sentences. The main considerations are:

I’m just starting to learn to drive but can’t yet. There’s no shop or anything, it’s very rural. Dh drives and WFH flexibly so can always get us about but I most likely won’t have passed by the time we move so that’s a consideration.

Local primary is tiny- don’t know if that’s good or bad!

Moving there means I’ll never have any kind of decent job/career. I did well at school but didn’t go to uni and have only had jobs minimum/slightly above minimum wage. I don’t actually have much ambition for a few logistical reasons so it’s more of an acceptance thing; I’d be lucky to get a job in the local co op (10 mikes away).

Dh is quite a bit older than me and this is my personal hang up; the woman who owns it is a widow and it’s sat on the market for 1.5 years at much lower than the HR because they cannot shift it. I couldn’t live there on my own so it feels like I could potentially get stuck there.

The kids love the countryside and want to move away from the city. I’m the only one who likes being in the city but DH&DC1&2 would love to be in that location.

Any advice would be so welcome!

I was a 'country kid'. Aspects of it were lovely.... Loads of it was shit. Moved to a big city for uni and never looked back, as did my siblings. Rambling around woods and fields gets a bit boring, even with your mates. And its shit having to ask your mum to drive you 20min away just to do something like go to the cinema with your mates. Its not great for independence.

And please note, theres a big difference between 'rural living' where you live in a bustling village surrounded by woods and fields but with shop, pub, church, maybe 2-3 miles outside a market town thats got a few amenities like a supermarket, cinema, swimming pool.

And living in a rambling house literally on its own 2-3 miles from a tiny hamlet of a village and 10-15 miles from anywhere bigger with shops and pharmacies and leisure centre etc.

The first one is fine. Teens can ride bikes into town with mates, great.
The second is isolating and really not all its cracked up to be.

We did this when my kids were 13 and 9.
They hated it but I think that had more to do with the house being very, very rundown. We did the first winter without heating, only the open fire and we flooded on Christmas day. Our wonderful neighbour arrived like the cavalry late at night and dug a trench round the back of the house to divert the flood water.

10 years in, they absolutely love it. Ours is the house where everyone congregates! We have made one of the barns a space for them. They can make as much noise as they like as noone can hear them. Their friends sometimes camp in the field or will bunk down in the barn.

We too bought off a widow who didn't want to do another winter in the house (we soon found out why 🤣).
The house is now 100% dry and warm. Although it may be a niche market, it is far more saleable than when we rocked up with our rose coloured spectacles on. That said, both kids have said they'd like to live in the house when we shuffle off. We do have one barn ripe to convert into a home but it isn't something we will do but if they want to, that's up to them.

Absolutely not. Look at your own list of negatives if you need to see why. As for your kids, they might want to be in the countryside now, but in no time at all they will be teenagers and want to spend more time with their friends or at sports/clubs and that will be much, much, harder in an isolated location.

Many years ago (possibly 20!) I recall someone telling me about a study in which it was found that having shorter commuter times tended to make people happier than having more space, even among people who thought it would be better to have more space and travel a little longer. I think there is not just a risk of being slightly more unhappy in a house which will damage your chances of a career and leave you as a taxi service, but it may make you downright miserable.

I hear you - but they’re probably bouncing off the things the OP said were downsides. The school, not being able to work, and - like you said - not being able to drive.

If the OP had said “it’s my dream to live rurally, we love this house” then there’d be no problem.

Put it to the test. Every time you do something you need or want to do, like walk to the shops to pick up milk, a paper, a treat for DC, attend a yoga class, the gym etc, but couldn't do if you lived there, remind yourself: I can't do that until I can drive. Ask DH to go for you and see how irritating it is after the first few instances.

It would drive me mad to live somewhere like that. But I have met people who love having a beautiful home in the middle of nowhere. However a retiring colleague has just done that and is already wistfully saying 'It's 80 miles to the nearest...'

We were DC's taxi service often enough once they reached their teens, even in an area with good bus routes and trains. Suppose you fail your test a few times? Could DH get them to secondary school, to extracurricular clubs? To every dental, optical, doctor's appointment, to buy school uniform, shoes etc? It could put quite a strain on him. And you could be bored senseless.

I'm glad you've posted. OP is going to get a lot of negatives because the majority of people don't live rurally but for some it is perfect. Not saying it is for OP but the negative viewpoints are being over represented.
I have a question re this particular house though, @twilighttwinkle. Why has it not sold? Is it a doer-upper? You do need a lot of resilience and energy to do a major renovation when you have young kids and are adjusting to rural living. Just something to bear in mind.

You sound like you want some kind of fantasy fairy life. Not going to happen.
Lots of good posts on here about the reality of family life and living in the country .

It sounds idyllic but you list too many negatives plus once your children are teenagers they will probably hate it and need lifts to see their friends/go to high school/etc.
We didn’t buy several really lovely houses because of the type of things you’ve mentioned when our kids lived at home. Once they’d gone off to uni we moved to a relatively remote dream house but still fairly close to a large village and a big city about 20 miles away. It’s a money pit but we love it.

We moved to a beautiful house in a tiny hamlet a week before lockdown. Our son was 9 when we moved. It was great to start with….BUT as he got older, it became a real limiter on what he could do.
We moved back to civilisation when he was 13. We’re walking distance to a bus stop, train station and shops. It has made his life so much easier.

Country kid here…I personally wouldn’t live anywhere near a city, town or village if you paid me. All these noisy neighbour and parking disputes I see on here? Shudder at the thought.
However, you do need to drive, and be happy to do so, to work, to school, to the school bus, to the shop, to the supermarket, the doctors, out for food, to pick up takeaway, to kids friends and later on, to their holiday jobs. So there’s a cost to all that, plus the house will cost more to run as mains gas and drainage will likely not exist. Then the cost of driving lessons and cars at the earliest opportunity for the teens. I can see why you’re hesitating!
For us, it’s our life and that’s how it’s always been. One child loves it more than the other but they’ve both got plenty of social life, and cinemas, shops, clubs haven’t been a feature on any regular footing. We appreciate amenities if we have a short stay somewhere and then willingly escape back to our wide open spaces, peace, animals and tractors.
It’s what you’re used to, what shapes your lives. If we run out of milk, bread, tinned tomatoes, oh well, we have something else!