To buy a house with my heart or my head?

[willnotbemoved]

DH and I have been trying to move house for nearly a year. We're now in temporary rented and will be cash buyers which you'd think would make it easy.

A couple of weeks ago I viewed a house alone (DH working) and fell totally in love with it. DH put in offer, offer accepted and we returned to view the place again together.

DH thinks the house wil do fine, not madly in love with it but happy with house for the price. Not so me though. From the time of the second viewing the whole thing just hasn't felt right. It has all the space we need, parking, office space etc. and it is in a nice area, albeit not one I know well.

I have no idea why I'm not feeling it any more, but I'm not. So, should I follow my gut or buy this lovely house with my sensible head on?

I'd follow your gut.
You should be in love with the house your buying.
Keep searching.

What are looking for that this house doesn’t have. Sometimes to it helps to put your finger on it so you can really weigh up the pros and cons.

Definitely gut feeling

@sst1234

What are looking for that this house doesn’t have. Sometimes to it helps to put your finger on it so you can really weigh up the pros and cons.

It's got all of the practical stuff, two receptions, garage, plenty of parking, quiet area. It's quite a long way from the nearest train station (1.5 miles) which is bugging me, that and it's 40 mins drive from where we currently live, and where a lot of our friends are. Where we lie now is more urban (and expensive) but we do have a choice of two stations within 15 mins walk. Currently London fringes of Surrey, new house would be completely the other end of the county.

Can definitely see why this might be a bad idea. Moving further away from London means almost never being able to move back.

Go with your gut. Keep looking.
I didn't and am now kind of stuck where I really don't want to be (even though it's sort of convenient for some stuff).
This place is a house, not a home.
No amount of glitter or polish (iyswim) will turn it into somewhere I love.

Commute times?

A couple of weeks ago I viewed a house alone (DH working) and fell totally in love with it.

What did you love about it?

@yoyo1234

Commute times?

Pre-pandemic would have been a total 'no'. Current location 30 mins by train including a nice walk, new location over an hour and a change of trains. Current location 20-25 mins by car, new location 30-50 mins - BUT I'd only be doing it 1-2 days per week.

Sounds like you have some good practical reasons to reject it, so it's not really the head vs heart thing I was expecting. Sounds like it's the location that is bothering you and that's something you can't change.
I don't believe that you need to toally love a house to be happy there - we bought our current house as a very much head over heart decision 22 years ago and have never regretted it - but the wrong location will make you unhappy so I wouldn't buy it.

We went with a head decision and it turned out really well. I didn't love our house when we viewed it, but we'd pulled out of two other places after the survey. We pretty much exhausted the market in our area and this house ticked all the boxes.

I didn't like the fact that our house was slightly further away from the high Street/train station than I liked. But, it turns out that that this means our area is quieter and we have no problems with parking/noise/traffic/anti social behaviour.

We have come to like the area - it's actually just around the corner from a wealthy area and we have a lovely primary school just down the road. I didn't realise this until we moved here.

I am definitely a heart over head kind of person, but we had to be realistic about what we could afford and where, so we had to be practical.

If you have been looking for a year, what has stopped you from buying somewhere?