How on earth do you decide on a house?

[howtodecide1]

I'm separating from my partner. We are getting a divorce and I'm looking for a house for myself and my two year old daughter.

I've been to see a house and the inside is beautiful. It isn't as big as I would want but it's big enough for us.

The back garden is lovely and the views are so nice. It looks back onto lots of fields and there is a lovely seating area outside. It's on a very busy main road but you can't hear the traffic from inside.

it is next to a couple of petrol stations as well. It's been on the market for a few months.

I do really love the inside of the house. I know this is partly because of how the person has decorated it and all of the lovely things that they had inside the house just made it really cosy. I know I could do this with any other house, but I do struggle with that kind of thing.

Our house has sold and we will be moving out of here in a couple of months whether I buy somewhere or rent somewhere.

How did you decide on your house? I don't know if I should just make an offer on this one or look at others. This is the first one I have been to see.

It sounds lovely, the only downside I’m seeing is that it backs onto fields- which is great now, but always makes me worry that in a couple of years the fields will get bought up and built on and ruin what you loved about it.
Try and think about what your life would be like living in it. How easy it would be to get to work, the shops, the park. Whether you get a comfortable feeling walking around the area. What you’d use the rooms for, whether there’s enough storage space, whether your existing furniture would fit. Whether the layout of the kitchen and dining space works for the way you want to eat.
In my experience though, you either get a good feeling for a place and can imagine yourself living there, or you don’t. Sounds as though you’ve got that!

Always worth looking at another house or two just to confirm you’re right.

How did I choose? Wrote a list of all the things I wanted in my ideal house and scored them according to importance - more points if more important. Then listed the houses I was interested, ticked off the things from my list that they had, then added up the scores and saw which did best. Thought about whether that felt the right answer, fiddled about with scoring if not. Once I had an answer on the scores that also felt right, decided on that one, and went to bed, to see if it was still a comfortable decision next day. Doesnt work if it’s 15 couples milling around on an Open Day, and the first to decide gets it.

Scoring system was so that a house two point advantages and 5 1-point ones, doesn’t beat the house which has the one thing you really want but doesn’t do so well on the “not important “ things.

Petrol stations would worry me, smell of fuel and possible historic lead and particulates pollution.

I’m quite practical. Assuming I was buying not renting I wouldn’t prioritise nicely decorated over the space I wanted - decor is the easiest thing to change, space is harder or impossible to change. I would never ever live next to a petrol station, much less two. I would never rely on nice views and fields staying that way - around here greenbelt is meaningless and fields are rapidly becoming housing estates. I would probably compromise on a busy road if it wasn’t too intrusive. But every house is a compromise and deciding what your priorities are and what you can live with is a very personal choice.

I would go and see more properties, just one doesn’t give you enough information to decide where you personally are willing to compromise and what’s important to you.

Petrol stations would be a no for me, as well.

To be honest, I just liked the bits of the house that would be hard to change, like the bricks, mortar, and character (we are in a late Victorian house). The interior of the house was absolutely dreadful, but that can all be changed over time.

We looked a number of houses with exactly the same layout and size, but we settled on this one because it had a south-facing garden and the road is full of lovely houses. The other two we looked at had ugly houses on the street. Our views were much nicer.

I would probably view more, if just to compare them. I chose my first house without really thinking much about it at all other than it was the area we wanted. But I was young then and didn't know much! Chose the second one because it was the only one at the time that suited budget/area and had a nice garden.

I've found that you generally have to compromise on something, no house is perfect.

How close are the petrol stations? That might be something to think about, though I have one near me but it's a few minutes walk, lots of trees between here and there and I never smell any fuel.

I found and decided on my present house in a couple of days when I was hard up against it, having sold my last house but the house I had been buying fallen through.

I had a very short list of things I absolutely had to have: these were not on a noisy road, off road parking, some outside space, and possible to fit things I need because of disability.

It wasn’t the sort of house or even road I’d been looking at, but it ticked those boxes and there was a lovely view of trees out the back so that decided it.

I wouldn’t be swayed by decoration because that’s the easiest thing to change later. What are your absolute essentials?

Petrol stations would mean a no from me.

I would do a list of criteria and weight them. Top of the list would be proximity to populat primary and secondary schools, cost, and transport for work and secondary schools. Below that things like space, avoiding places needing costly improvements or maintenance, then decor.

Honestly I always fall for the batshit ones. Show me a nice, easily-maintained attractive home and it leaves me cold. If, on the other hand, part of it used to be a shop, and it has a weird workshop at the back, and a peculiar layout, and a cellar, and a room you can only get to by going through the bathroom... that's when I get excited. So I am no sort of example, and can say with some certainly that your decision making on this point will be much more sensible than mine, even if you aren't feeling confident in it right now.

Location location location.

If it's on a busy main road, I would be very worried about pollution levels which will also be an issue inside unless you have a ventilation system. I would check the air quality report for the postcode.

I wouldn't want to live near petrol stations or a busy road. The road is because of our cats and also pollution. I'd try to overlook decor in my decision.

For me, the location is the number one thing. I'd also make a list of other must have and nice to have things. Such as as its own drive, garage, detached, more than one toilet. I'd get as many of those things as I could afford. I'd also look at whether the current owners had maintained the house well.

I did a list financial info plus what’s important for me e.g amount of bedrooms, bathrooms, distance to primary school, parking space, feeling safe at night ( I’m not good at night on my own) etc
plus things that might be important in 5 years ( e.g distance to secondary school) . If something was absent I tried to estimate how easy would be to add it e.g en-suite.
Then I put every house I liked through the check list and it helped to narrow the field.

By the way I would never look at decorating much. They will take their nice things away and most of the time the house needs redecorating between owners anyway, at least for refreshing.

Making a list is always good. Think about what you want from the location: proximity to a nursery, schools, shops, a park, doctors and dentist. What about public transport, are there useful buses? What about day to day things like library, chemist, opticians; do you need to be fairly close to those? What are the downsides of the area? Does it feel nice when you walk around the streets, is it pleasant and do you feel safe?

Do a checklist for the house: how many bedrooms do you need? Must there be a garden? Is a downstairs bathroom a no-no? Can you live without a drive or is on street parking OK? Toilet on each floor a necessity or just nice to have? You'll work out which things are most important for you and which are "just nice to have".

You might find when you go to view properties that you get a gut feeling, either "I just can't see myself living here" or "this house just feels right". Some you won't, but the more you see the more you can narrow down what you're looking for. But bear in mind that you will have to compromise, whether that's a smaller kitchen than ideal or an 80s fake stone fireplace that you can't afford to get rid of for a few years. That's just life...

Listed pros, cons and compromises then decided. Our garden is small but we r 0.2 miles from a really good primary school with direct entry to sought after secondary and walking distance to tube.

We saw less than 10 houses over 3-4 weeks before we decided to offer. Only one we offered on. Still happy with the house itself. Neighbours not so much but you can't have it all.

Here you go OP, check pollution levels for your postcode here: https://addresspollution.org/