To choose heart over head when buying a house?

[VeryWeirdBarbie]

It's just DH and me and we're moving house - trying to choose between two good options. We're in our 50s and DH is about to retire. I'll still be working.

House 1 is a small modern 3 bedroom detached in a nice estate with its own private drive. It's on at £350k and needs about £30k of work. It's a practical house - it has a garage, it's near a small park for walking the dog, great neighbourhood, lots of shops nearby. It's an estate mostly full of young families. The house is maybe a bit boring but also quiet and calm and very practical.

House 2 is a slightly larger 3 bedroom but is less quiet and private. It's a Victorian end terraced with a residents parking scheme and no front garden so people would be walking right past the living room window. It's on a cul de sac and there's a pub with live music a couple of streets away. It's also a great convenient neighbourhood with lots of shops but younger - lots of renters in their 20s live on the street.There always seem to be parking spots available.

The thing we love about house 2 is that it's right by the canal (not the towpath side). There's a lovely extension with big windows over the canal and a pretty canalside garden, and views of the canal from many other windows. Pretty canal boats pass by. It has a shed but no garage. It's on at £300k and probably needs £10k of work.

So do we choose house 1 (head) or house 2 (heart)? We'd be cash buyers for either, but house 2 would leave us with money spare for lots of nice holidays. House 1 would mean tightening our belts a little bit.

Which would you choose please?
YABU = buy House 1 don't buy an impractical house, that would be stressful
YANBU = but House 2 it would be more interesting and charming and you only live once

Option 2 for me - sounds much more fun, go with your heart

I feel your pain but if I could move to a detached I would - so much nicer not having neighbour noise! Own parking etc - well worth it.

The mid terrace sounds lovely but the pub, the neighbours, street noise and parking would probably drive me mad.

What is your husband planning to do with his time in retirement, does he like house maintenance and gardening? Which would be better for those things?
Looking 10 years into the future, which would suit you better then?
If you like quiet and privacy, house one sounds better, if you prefer busier and people watching house 2!

House 2 = high gas and electric bills and possibly still feel cold all winter.

Have another look at both in the same day and go with where you picture yourself.

we ended up going head over heart (because cottage owners wanted more than we were prepared to spend) but 6 years later I can see it was the right choice. Dh didn’t fit the heart house and would have had to duck every doorway but was okay once in a room 😂 he was willing to do this for me… I’m glad we didn’t buy it but still love that house. This one is much more practical and less stressful to live in.

Has the canal ever flooded?

Oh just read the pub is a few streets away - and the canal side garden sounds lovely - I can see why you are torn but I'd still rather have no neighbours

Are you planning on moving again in the future, or is this ‘it’? If the latter, then I’d say head over heart.

Head vs heart is always a tough one @VeryWeirdBarbie. Are you currently in a detached home? What if you moved to the end terrace and had awful noisy neighbours?

Do you plan on being in this house long term? Obviously you’re only in your 50s at the moment but if you plan on it being a forever home, is there one that would be more easy to adapt is health issues meant it was necessary when you’re older?
(I hope you don’t find that rude 😅 MIL bought a house at 58 which she fell head over heels with and wanted to be her forever home - a 3 storey townhouse with no ground floor bathroom or bedroom and a huge flight of outside stairs to get to the front door 😬 A knee injury a couple of years later made her realise how much of a struggle the house would be for her in later life if she had any mobility issues!)

Also, how private is the garden? Will people constantly be walking along the canal side past the garden?

The house hasn't flooded nor has the canal ever breached. I think it's very well managed.

DH writes novels in his spare time and plans to do lots more writing when retired. He prefers the canal house as he finds it inspiring. I am lending towards the detached house as I'm not a risk taker but feel very torn.

I guess (given that his health isn't the best) this house is likely to be "it" for DH, and no idea for me. Anyway if we didn't like it I guess we could always move again, having had an adventure!

I think you would get fed up of the lack of privacy and neighbourhood noise in House 2 pretty fast.

Definitely House 1 for me, mainly for the parking and having people walking past.
A friend of mine has a lovely place but every day she is panicking about where she will park her car when she gets home.
i just couldn’t stand it …..

House 2 sounds nice but I also understand why you would want low maintenance and safe and secure from house 1 What about access to shops doctors library and other facilities and public transport too

I live near the canal and love walking on the canal path with our dog but so does everybody else too and they like gawping into the houses that back onto the canal

I think that where houses are concerned you should find something that satisfies heart and head. There are compromises for both of these properties, have you considered that neither of them are a good fit? Maybe you need to keep looking.

For me in your scenario, much as house 2 sounds great (I’d love to live near water) it would 1 for me all day long. The parking thing is a non compromise for me, especially as we have EVs. I also value quiet and privacy. I live in a new build quiet estate and it was head decision but I’ve been here 10 years now and can’t see moving any time soon.

You MUST visit both houses at different times. Go on a Friday/sat night and see what the noise level is like/ who is hanging around. It would be huge mistake not to do this as you could be in for a very nasty surprise otherwise. House 2 has your heart but what if every weekend it’s really noisy. I used to live a few doors down from a pub as a student and every Friday night they had this awful cruise ship singer wannabe singing my heart will go on at the top of her lungs. It was awful but since I was young I was out clubbing a lot so it was bearable. If I had been in my 50s I think I would have strangled her with her own microphone cord

House 1 is a bit more practical for aging in place - there are upstairs and downstairs toilets whereas in house 2 there's only one toilet on the landing between the 2 floors.

The garden isn't very private at all as people on the tow path and in the boats can see it clearly.

Canal every time. (If the head house was more expensive there may be a dilemma - but it isn't.)

Of you get old and infirm and can't go out much - which has a better outlook? Surely a garden overlooking the canal and lovely windows to look out of would win every time.

Location is key.

How well do you know the canal area? Does it get a lot of insects in the summer?

Boring practical stuff
Have you considered proximity of shops, public transport, GP, clubs and sports etc.

What might you need to access as you get older? DH and I are in our 50’s and we are having to start thinking practically about what we might want as we get older and when we stop work.

If house 2 had its own off street parking I'd pick that every time, because I am a sucker for character and period homes with lovely features and beautiful outlooks and I will put up with a certain amount of impracticality to have that. But if you've been used to a private driveway I think it will drive you absolutely potty not to have one. Especially if you are hoping to live there into your old age.

I don't like new builds so would chose house 2 but I would warn you that 10k on a old house is a drop in the ocean. There is always something which needs doing.

I absolutely love my victorian cottage but it is a money pit and we usually save double to what a quote is as we know there will be something encountered.

Our house isn't cold but because we have a wood burner which heats the house. Even with wall insulation our heating struggles to get above 18 degrees in winter. So if you don't have a wood burner etc in it then also factor in higher fuel bills.

Would also cost up house insurance even though it doesn't flood it can be difficult to get insurance near water.

This.

Hasn't flooded - yet - but near water means insurance will be priced accordingly.

Given the issues you have mentioned re- Age Proofing, would definitely recommend Head over Heart at this stage of the game.

I've always had my own drive except when I lived in flats and didn't have a car. That's my #1 concern I would say. In terms of heating an old house, our last house was a larger Victorian money pit and was expensive to heat, so we're used to that and don't like to have the house very warm anyway (18 is the upper limit of how warm we'd want to be).

Re: the canal never flooding, we had really horrendous flooding on 20th Oct the likes of which hadn't been seen for about 70 years. So it could happen even if very, very unlikely.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12658021/Storm-Babet-leaves-entire-village-underwater-floods-devastate-swathes-Britain-travel-disruption-expected-continue-today.html

I would never choose to live somewhere noisy even if the canal wasn't close by, the pub/semi-detached would put me off after having a bad experience with noisy neighbours. I'd never go back to on street parking either, we rarely had an issue getting a spot on the road but our own drive is sooo much easier.