How do you know when to stop looking and just buy a house

[Fiddledee]

We have 3 houses on our shortlist to buy, all with some compromises just different ones. DH says we should just keep looking and hope more will come onto the market. I think at some stage we just need to buy a house and accept the compromise and you can never have everything within your price range.

Alternative we have is to rent for at least 6 months and hope something better comes on, we are not expecting any big house decrease just waiting to find the right house. This is meant to be our house for the next 20 years so we feel we need to get it right.

Do we wait and go into rental or buy now. Its driving me mad.

[victoriah3]

Go with your heart - it just feels right when you walk in. Location is probably most important - you can change the decor etc but you can't move it!!!!

[stewmaker]

this is always the dilemma and there is no answer.
There isn't a perfect house EVER so you just need to be clear about what you can live with/without.

I have however always found that the houses I have bought have been the ones that I mentally put my furniture into and daydream about.

And if it turns out not to be the one, sell it and move on.....

[Fiddledee]

Um its costing us £60k in solicitors and estate agents, removal plus stamp duty (4%). We do want to get it right we can't just sell up and move on. It takes a long time to earn £60k net income!

[lalalonglegs]

I think your ideal house - or one that you are happy to buy - doesn't feel as if there are compromises, even if there are, iyswim. If you visit a house and you are very aware of the compromises that you will have to make, then I'd say keep looking. With the right house, you know that there are compromises but they seem like details rather than issues.

Of course, this depends on a certain level of realism - someone who rejected a house on the grounds of feng shui or not being able to compromise on the fact that the kitchen wasn't Poggenpohl would make me a bit .

#60k is a lot of money - in moving expenses. Ouch.

[Fiddledee]

Problem I think is that me and my DH have different tastes/priorities. I know which house I would buy. DH would buy a different one. And the third is a compromise that we both don't hate and probably the kids would most like. Arghhhh.

[NoseyNooNoo]

Do you think if you keep looking you'll find the perfect house? If so keep looking. We had been looking for about 2 yrs when we offered on the house we now own. As we left I said 'It doesn't make my heart sing but we'd be stupid not to put an offer in'. I had finally accepted that what we wanted didn't exist in our location at our budget. As it happens since we offered 8 months ago there has only been one house brought to market that we'd have wanted to view and that hasn't sold yet so presumably not that great anyway.

[Fiddledee]

I think what my DH wants we can't afford and rarely comes up - its a premium location and only has large houses which we can't afford.

What I would like (which is different in terms of location) we can afford but don't come up that often and probably something in the spring will come up but DH will tell me its too urban and not want to buy it. Arghhh

He thinks having a shop you can walk to is important I think that the kids being able to get to secondary school on their own is important. Doesn't feel like we can agree on any house wonder how we ever bought this house - I think I pushed it through.

[lalalonglegs]

If you can't agree then one of you has to decide to let the other take responsibility of the new house. Agree that it should be in a certain area and there are some absolute deal-breakers - maybe about three - but after that it is one person's choice (ideally the person who spends most time there).

[smashingtime]

Which one ticks the most boxes? Can you do a list and look at it impartially? I agree with lalalonglegs it should be the person who will spend the most time there that gets the choice.

We definitely compromised on our house - location and house is great but garden is awful. We realised we could spend the rest of our lives looking but we could never get what we really wanted in our budget!!

[GrendelsMum]

We had a compromise - it was head for me, and heart for DH. I was pushing for the move from a house that DH was very happy in, so I felt he really had to love the new house for it to be fair to him for us to move, especially as his commute got much longer. I just wanted something that met my overwhelming criteria, which was basically a much bigger garden. And then we saw a house that DH absolutely fell in love with, and although the garden was smaller than I wanted, that was that.

[verysomething]

Really feel for you... my heart tells me shouldn't houses be like husbands and you hold out for the right one? But head says you gotta live somewhere, just compromise.

Think you have to love it just a little bit or else it would be too depressing six months down the track.

[Feelingsensitive]

When it feels right and you will know believe me. We looked at lots of houses before I found this one on the internet and said to DH "I have found THE house". Unless you are spending ££ there will always be compromises.Our 3 rd room is teeny as is the garden but we lurve it. Good luck.

[Fiddledee]

Is having seen 26 houses alot? We have made two offers in that time, one of which we pulled out of due to the survey. May well offer on one on Monday have second viewing this week. Compromise location as the village has no shop but lovely big plot and a house that needs renovating but liveable with. They have no chain, we have no chain.