To buy a house that's not right?!

[showmethegin]

Weird question I know but going round the bend! We fell in love with a house on Saturday which we are having a second look at tonight. It's in the perfect area (v up and coming and incredibly competitive). We were hoping for a 3 bed house with spacious garden and this has two bedrooms and a reasonably small garden (although big enough for a BBQ party).

However I just cannot discount it, as soon as I stepped foot in it I just loved it, I can't put my finger on why, it's an end terrace and a different layout from most Victorian terraces and the living space is excellent and spacious. I feel really comfortable in in straight away. We are TTC and could only have one DC in it, so a 5 year house really, tops.

Would we be mad to go for it anyway?! I'm getting really nervous that we will be priced out of the area if we don't move quickly (have lost 3 houses already). Has anyone else bought a house for the 'feel'?

Don’t do it. Wait until a 3 bed comes up

How do you feel about moving? Some people hate it, some people can put up with it for the benefits of moving up the housing ladder.

Is there any scope for extending this house or converting the attic? Would you be up for the work or would you hate it?

If you are TTC now then you wouldn't need a third bedroom for a while, even DC2 would sleep with you as a baby and could share with DC1 for a few years anyway.

I'd be cautious as no one knows what's going to happen with the market. If it loses value you need to consider you may be stuck there a long time. Do you think you're panicking with losing out before and honing in on this property even though it's not quite right? As pp said is there scope to extend if necessary? What's drawing you to it specifically? The area or the actual house?

Ah, your mistake was going to see a house with 2 bedrooms and a small garden when that wasn’t what you were looking for!

That said, I do firmly believe that you have to love your home. You need to be able to relax and enjoy the time you spend there, in your space.

My opinion - go for it! It will work for you for a good few years anyway so it wouldn’t be a really short term thing.

Why could you only have one DC in it?

I would only consider it if it was possible to do a loft conversion at some point.

That's a good point about the one DC. Is the second bedroom tiny? If you had twins would it be big enough to accommodate both children?

Do not buy this house. A PP has mentioned negative equity if prices fall and over the next 5 years there is a very good chance that this will happen.

If you will be ok to stay here, for example you could easily extend and buy some adjacent land for a bigger garden then go ahead but if not you could end up stuck and all the things you love about this house will really start to piss you off.

And that's before you look at moving costs and stress.

We were set to buy a 4- bed with 2 bathrooms.
I randomly selected only one 3-bed, 1 bathroom house to view.
We ended up buying it, because it was the only one that felt like home, even though it wasn’t the most beautiful or contemporary.

Don't do it. Not sensible at all.

The attic is a good question and one we really need to investigate tonight.

I know we shouldn't have looked but the housing stock in this area is so limited (it's actually on the same road that we are renting on)! Financially I think it would be a safe bet, the area is transforming so quickly and becoming a v desirable place to live, houses that we're getting 185k 6 months ago are now going for 230k!!

The bedroom would fit twins but I wouldn't really want to have a 4 year old in with a 6 month/1yo in an ideal world.

It's complicated by the fact I am desperate to avoid a downstairs bathroom (we have one at the moment and I just can't get used to it) and the vast majority of houses round here are either 2 beds and an upstairs bath or 3 beds and a downstairs bath (traditional terrace layout). The three houses we've missed out on all had three beds and a bath upstairs, again, very very rare and usually including a 'loft room' rather than an official 3rd bed.

It depends on a number of factors. First and foremost I would look at rental yield. How much does it cost to rent something like that? If you’d be paying £2000 a month (in mortgage payments, stagnant capital, whatever) when you could rent the same for £1000 you’d be downright stupid to buy it. On the other hand if it would be worth about £2000k a month to buy and cost only £1000k to own it’s a great deal.

We did this five years ago it was fine because the house was good for us at the time.

We have just moved in to what I hope becomes our forever home

Some houses are temporary and that is ok imo.

Can you consider extending?

Moving is difficult, stressful and expensive. Don't bother until you find a more suitable house.

In answer to a PP it's a combination of factors that draws me to it. Definitely the area which we live in now, love and don't want to leave, but also the layout. We are in a traditional terrace at the moment where by you have to walk through the dining room to get to the living room then through the living room to the kitchen whereas this one has a separate living room (massive!) on one side of the hall then the dining room leading to the kitchen on the other. I feel like we'd use all the space much better.

Children can share bedrooms, especially when they’re small and is there no option of a loft conversion to add a 3rd bed down the line (Victorian terraces can be great for that)? If you could potentially extend then I would go for it.

We did this, stayed 3 years and made 100k. Obviously a different market, but no regrets here. The nearby desirable family homes didn’t go up by nearly as much proportionately, so we were able to move into one and stay in this town, which we loved. Had we gone for the family home initially we would have had to go to a different town.

These lovely 2 bed Victorian terraces turn over quickly. They are primarily for young couples wanting to live somewhere lovely who then inevitably move on within 3-5. If it’s a desirable area I am sure you will have no problem selling.

If it’s a lovely area, you love the house and absolute worst case scenario you can stick a bedroom in the loft I would go for it.

I think go for it personally! Bunk beds will be fine for a few years while you convert the loft and extend (potentially). You could put a shepherd's hut type thing in the garden for guests.

My husband is the complete opposite of me. He'd rather wait for the perfect house. We moved into our first house 2011, meant to be there 2 years. 7 years later, we finally moved out to our perfect place. It was a loooong wait. And we had to move with our baby which added stress.

If you are happy to wait years and years for the perfect place, then you might be lucky and it exists somewhere in your budget.

Massive plus that you already rent in the street as no nasty surprises there. Definately check out the attic tonight. There's a lot to be said for the right area. The best house can't make up for being in the wrong one.

If it feels right go for it - the only thing I'd be worried about is moving with 2 children is a lot harder than moving with one... So if you do have to move in 5yrs time you might find it a lot more stressful!

Think about how you will accommodate guests is my only recommendation with a two bed

Go for it I say!

If you love it, go for it. Falling in love with a house is so rare, most of us live in houses that are OK but don’t spark any passion.

It sounds like you can't afford exactly the features that you want in the area that you want and with the feel you want. So you need to decide which are the most important of these. There isn't anything wrong with going for location and feel over features if the house could work perfectly well.