To avoid buying dream house in “dodgy” neighbourhood

[Cantbebotheredanymore]

I have found my dream house, it’s round the corner from where I currently live, it’s detached with a nice garden, it’s within budget and is perfect for our family of 3.

However… the neighbourhood I live in has a reasonable amount of ASB. Kids on motorbikes, noisy people kicking off etc. It doesn’t really affect me where I am now mainly because we live in a flat, but I do hear things going on outside at night, at the weekends usually.

The house we love is a 5 min walk from where we are and opposite a park.

The main reason I’m worried is the house next to our dream one has heavy barbed wire on the garden fences. Another had cctv cameras on the front gate. I dunno, just seems quite ramped up security and now I’m questioning how safe it will be.

We could never afford this type of house in a more desirable neighbourhood, and I really LOVE the house and garden, so I’m a bit stuck.

My gut is saying avoid this house because of the location and security risk, AIBU?

We bought the worst and smallest house in the best area we could afford. Paid off long term.

Always go for LOCATION op

Just to say we chose location over house…I do sometimes think for the same money I could live in a huge house elsewhere but then I 100% value the area I live in and feel very privileged to have great neighbours.

How will you feel if the deam house becomes a luxurious prison?

Accept that we all get this. We can all afford a much lovelier house than our budget realistically allows - but only if we accept one major flaw.

I nearly talked myself into buying a huge stunning house that looked £300k above my budget. But it backed onto a motorway 🤣

Don’t be greedy. Buy an ok house with no major flaws, not an amazing house with one massive problem.

Excellent point, and this is how it felt for us when we bought the most expensive house on an iffy street. It was all well and good having a nice house but when kids were riding their mini motos up and down the street, and shouting pathetic comments at you for 'fun' when you walked out the house... not good. It gets to you after a while and we started worrying about the house when we went to work (risk of burglary) as the local cretins who lived nearby could see our everyday movements.

The other thing to think about is resell-ability - when we were buying someone kindly brought that up, but we were so enamoured with the house we dismissed it - seeing it as our long-term home. We REALLY struggled to sell the place 6 years later and ended up having to part-exchange it with a local developer for a new build.

Although you can get rubbish next door neighbours anywhere, it doesn't make sense to move somewhere where you know you're going to get hassle from the people living in your neighbourhood. I cannot emphasise enough that this is what affects your quality of life, not the extra space in the kitchen or a bedroom each. It's really not worth it, I promise. Better a more modest house in a lovely area than a dream house in a rough area - your dream will turn into a nightmare soon enough.

Honestly, don't do it. Quality of life is far more important.

Years ago we moved from what was supposed to be a 'rough area' to a much more salubrious one, what a disappointment, the neighbours on one side had a teenage daughter, who's rows with her live in boyfriend were epic! and her parents television volume was stuck on LOUD. On the other side were a young couple with a fast developing domestic violence problem.
Things have improved over the years as neighbours moved on, but you just can't tell!

www.streetcheck.co.uk

I became a bit obsessed with this website whilst looking for a house and use it every so often ti compare different areas.

It shows the demographics of a given postcode using the 2011 census so that might be somewhat out of date, including education level, breakdown of male/female, age etc but it also shows you up to date monthly crime statistics, including where the crimes were reported and what category they fall under, Anti-social behaviour, Burglary, Drug Offenses etc.

Seeing that the house we were looking at was in an area that averages around 5 incidents a month was a big factor in us choosing it. My Mums postcode area on the other hand, is next to what is a known shithole in the large town nearby, and averages over 100 incidents a month.

The only reason we got our first house in a crap area was because it was to get our foot (feet) on the ladder. We also knew that because the area was so crap, it was cheap and lots of first time buyers were doing the same so it would sell easily (it did). There is no way in hell I’d have bought my forever home in that area. There were often fights, burning cars, police out and it constantly stank of weed. Now, we’re in our dream home and I adore the location. I still think fondly of that house though. Because it was so cheap we could build up the equity through over paying the mortgage.

Seriously, keep looking. This isn’t the right house for you. You’ll find it though.

I think the responses are odd given that you already live in this area.

There is a chance that this could be an amazing house and you won't experience any more problems with neighbours etc than you do in your current house, or the area might improve and your property will increase in value a lot.

BUT, there's also a good chance that you'll experience ASB etc. It's also likely that the house will be difficult to sell on if you choose to move for any reason (even if it's not due to problems in the area). We made the mistake of buying a quirky house in a difficult street (ours was old and large with garage etc whereas the others were small terraced houses mainly privately let to dodgy tenants- we didn't realise the area was like that when we bought). The street became worse over time as nice residents gradually moved out and more houses were used as HMUs etc. Our house took years to sell, even at a much reduced price, as most people who wanted the nice features our house offered were put off by the area and HMU landlords weren't interested in larger rooms/garage/nice decor etc.

You can change the inside but you can’t change the outside.

Living by a park can be ideal if you have kids, however, when they grow up & move out it can become very noisy & irritating.

Look harder elsewhere.

Razor wire round a house could be because of antisocial behaviour outside...or could be because the occupants have something inside they want to protect and which other people see as valuable, eg they deal drugs. Either way, I would walk swiftly away and never look back.