Another house dilemma!!!!

[Polgara2]

Ok so we've seen a house after looking for 6 months. Its not our dream house but it does tick most of the boxes. However, it needs a fair bit of work inside (not structural fortunately), and there is not much back garden to speak of. The outside does also needs a fair bit of work - tidying, levelling, paving, tree removing sort of thing which would make the front garden quite big. So the question is how important is a big back garden do you think? Our children are 8 and 5 btw. Oh and the garage is set to the side of the house so you have to walk right around the house after you park your car to get to the door. Is that going to be a pain I wonder? We're dithering !!! But there is a severe lack of suitable houses in the area we want .

CAn you park in front of the house at all?

Yes you can actually, its on a corner so I suppose you could park anywhere between the garage and the front door. The actual land on the corner is council owned but we're not talking a huge bit of land so don't think that makes any difference.

if you can park on the road could you knock down the garage

I live in London .. we have gardens the size of postage stamps (in the main) and it doesn't bother me unduly .. we live about 8 mins walk from 3 parks (different directions) and we have enough space to be outside if we want to

depends on your priorities I suppose .

Yes I had thought of knocking down the garage Twiglett but dh seems to think there would be enourmous costs in that!! There is a park in walking distance and dds' school also in walking distance (which is the main reason we are moving in the first place!!). Its just that we have a really nice garden, not overlooked and nice views at the mo.

Just bumping! Does anyone else have garage like this? Is it a pain?

Our garage is in a block about 50m away and tbh we never put the car in it, just use it for storage and park on the street (resident's parking). Deffo not a deal breaker.

Could you adapt the garden space to make the large front garden more private and usable for play? Hedges? Fencing? Grass overthe drive? (can't visualise the exact layout, sorry)

MrsBadger - it is a bit difficult to picture things isnt it! The drive is round at the side with the garage and the front is just garden from the front door upto the roadside, quite a large front garden space really, as front gardens go iyswim! There is currently no access from the garage to the back garden/door either, but you could make a gate I think by taking wall down. You'd still have to traipse across back garden to get to back door which is on opposite side of house. I think the main concerns I have are this plus the size of the garden and the fact that the view from the kitchen window is the side of the garage! BUT how important are these in the grand scheme of things - this I can't decide!

Put it this way, if this is the only even vaguely suitable house you've seen in 6 months, are your criteria realistic?

We found it helpful to compare our two top houses and see which one actually ticked more important boxes - it helped us sort out our priorities. Are there 'perfect' houses in less good areas so you can decide whether it's the house or the area that's important?

In our case a gorgeous period house (v small, no parking) lost to a spacious modern house (ugly, needed work), and it was definitely the right decision.

Remember you can always change the decor and the layout, plant roses up the garage etc but you can't move it to a new area.

If you want, post a link to the estate agent details and I'll give you an unbiased opinion!

We saw a very similar sounding house yesterday 18th cnetury and not in bad condition , to our untrained eye, and original features ( beams, brick floor and inglenook fireplace with bread oven !) but in need of a bit of upodating and decoration throughout. Great potential to be a quinessential country cottage with roses around the door but... on busy main road (would need to double glaze), complicated right of way to garage, no parking, next to pub, smallish garden, built up around and no views. We're not in a position to proceed anyway atm (no buyer for ours) so will probably not be able to give serious consideration .

If the garden size is an issue (I have a fairly specific idea of our minimum requirement) and ther eis no alternative play space nearby then I guess you have to discount it. However the sound of the external work alone wouldn't put me off , nor the garage as I think you could get used to it, or possibly look at moving the access or the parking and garage itself in the future if it really is a pain.

Well thanks for your comments ladies. We did put an offer in, in the end. Hmm, we put quite a low offer in (bearing in mind it needs 25-30k spending on it inside and out), not expecting them to accept but just hoping to start the negotiation process. Hah - came back saying they wouldn't accept 'a penny lower than the asking price'! This is a house that has been for sale almost 2 years and ours is one of the only (if not THE only) offer so far! Not quite sure what to do next - leave it or persevere. Hey ho the joys of moving house

I'd suggest to the estate agents that you really do want the house (if you actually do) but it needs such a lot of work doing that you think your low offer is reasonable.
We used the survey - told the agent the problems the surveyor had found and said a) it affected the intrinsic value of the house and b) we would have to pay £X to get it fixed, so had to less to offer for the house.

Getting the vendor's agent on your side would be a big advantage (after 2yrs bet he's desparate to get it off the books and get his commission - any commission). Don't go beyond your budget, but if £2k (or whatever) could break the deadlock, will you kick yourselves for not offering it?