2 bed house or 3 bed flat?

[threeleftfeet]

Would you rather a "cosy" (small but nice!) 2 bed house with a garden, or 3 bed flat with much more space but no garden?

Got 1 DC (3) and planning another.

I would like to have an extra room we could rent out. But also feel outdoor space would be great for DC.

(Not totally against the idea of moving again in a few years.)

WWYD?

That's weird though, there's a door in the kitchen which looks like a back door. Maybe it's the front door?

threeleftfeet - you can only have a look and ask, but 4 beds would be great, esp if you wanted to let one out. I'd want to know if the shower room could be turned into a bathroom but having a downstairs loo is great!

The flat with a door in the kitchen - do you think there might be a small balcony? It would be an odd layout in purpose built flats to have that as the front door.

My two pennies worth is another vote for a house, or if you did go for a flat a ground floor one.

If your budget is around 150/160 have a look at some houses priced a bit higher where you should get a 3 bed - we are in a falling market and they are coming down all the time. In your position I would be looking up to around thw 180 mark. Buyers are precious at the moment - make the most of it

Nope, my budget sadly is about £140k I'd love to go up to the £180k mark! Lots at £160k I'd really like. I don't dare look at £180k, I don't want those picture in my brain

I had a mooch around rightmove from you links and there were a few 3 beds around the 150 - 160 mark - no idea about the area but they looked nice enough!

When you are in a position to start looking properly have a look on zoopla at sold house prices and see how that compares with the asking prices, you may well find that these high priced houses are actually selling in your range.

If you do the zoopla research first you can avoid the tantalising pics!

MadameChinLegs we're about 3 weeks of being able to start viewing properly so I'm trying not to get too attached to anything I see, just trying to get an idea of what we can afford - or at least that's what I keep telling myself!

But yes, I really like that one too :)

"do you think there might be a small balcony?"

I think there might be, if you look at the picture of the garden you can just see the side of the house and it does look like there could be balconies at the back.

Bit odd it's not mentioned in the spec.

I guess I might have to go have a look to find out!

That first one wasn't what I'd call a garden.

Hey oreocrumbs, thanks for having a look. 3 beds do come up fairly but they're usually in two areas I'm not keen on - Hampden Park and Langney

I'm not keen as I like we've been living in the centre of town and have friends here. I know and like the schools here. I don't drive so would be a bit stuck / dependent on buses or DP to do stuff I take for granted now.

Also I'm really not keen on living in an area that's just modern houses - not against living in a modern house, but I'm just not overly keen on living in an area that's streets and streets of nothing but modern houses.

(Sorry if anyone who's reading lives there!)

Katz, the thing is I know why that 4 bed's been on the market so long. (I've considered it a few times!).

At first glance 4 beds sounds great, but on closer inspection not one of them is a double. I'd rather go for a 2 bed with a double bedroom, front room, living room, garden and character, which you can get for the same price.

I reckon they'd do better if it was converted into a 3 bed by knocking two rooms through!

House, we rented a flat when we first married and not owning any outdoor space was really claustrophobic.

Fine as a student when you sat around in the grounds with other students, but I hated the closed in feel of the private flat.

Anyway DCs need throwing outside at regular intervals.

Also DCs noise and flats is almost certainly a bad idea.

We're lucky enough to have a big garden, but DCs can still make enough din I'm sorry for the deaf chap over the hedge.

House without a doubt, for all the reasons given. Lived in a flat until sone was 15 months - so much more time spent outdoors with a garden. Let alone leasehold issues, more neighbours (above/below), more likely to be transient neighbours, more noise/often poorer soundproofing, more likely to be hit by price downturns/less likely to benefit from price upturns.

I moved to a house with only a tiny front garden. I miss having a garden so much despite having more internal space. I would definitely go for a garden if possible.

I have a flat with a garden which you access via the kitchen down some stairs.

It's a PITA. I love the garden - its huge. However last summer I just couldn't be bothered with lugging ds up and down the stairs with toys so hardly used it. It'll be the same this summer as I'll have dd too. I've tried to explain this to DH but he just gives me the "we are lucky to have this space" line. Yes, easy for him to say as he doesn't look after the two alone

Get a house.

I know what you mean about direct access being better. We currently live in a flat overlooking a beautiful park. When we moved here I thought we'd be in it all the time. But we don't (we're 5 flights up!). I'm to say we really don't use it very often at all considering it's literally on our doorstep (and we call it "the garden"!)

House for sure. Those flats remind me of where we moved from before having DC and it makes me feel trapped just looking at them.

Although that particular flat might be near an outstanding school, it's also near several other blocks of flats and that means many, many more families within the catchment of the school, so be very very sure that you'd be close enough to get a place, if that's a deciding factor.

RCheshire is right. Neighbours can be a pain when you have children.

Check the orientation of the back garden- it really matters! Whats the point of a garden that is always in shade.