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Original poster

Buying a house you don't love?

19 replies

Lily15 · 10/05/2012 13:27

We viewed a house yesterday that, on paper, is pretty perfect re bedroom numbers, location etc but as great as it was I didn't get the I NEED this house feeling. I came away going that was great but.. I'm not sure what the but is even?! I guess Im hoping a more perfect house will come along? But that's unrealistic isn't it??

OP posts:

Dlamis · 10/05/2012 13:51

Maybe go and see it again, see how you feel. The first house we bought was the same, perfect on paper, but......it was like a gut feeling but i couldn't work out what it was that was wrong. We were there for 9 years and it never felt like home, just somewhere we were living until 'the right one' came along. When we left I had no feeling of sadness etc. With this house it was totally different, it felt right straight away. Ever since, I've said if I didn't get the right gut feeling we wouldn't buy it.

Rhubarbgarden · 10/05/2012 14:03

I have been house hunting for two years now. All the houses I fall for in that gut feeling way have had some massive deal breaker about them that has made DH veto them - no parking, garden too overlooked, busy road, wrong location, and the latest gem, a sewage works next door. We are coming to the sad conclusion that the reason these houses are in our price range is because of these dealbreaker issues. If they didn't have them, we wouldn't be able to afford them, and that's why we haven't found the 'right' place in two years despite finding lots of houses that we love. So the next step seems to be to find a house that ticks all the boxes, but is perhaps not the Georgian beauty that DH we are looking for. We are going to look at one on Saturday; I don't look at it and go 'oh my god I have to have that house' like I did with the sewage farm house before discovering the sewage farm, but it's pretty enough, the location is perfect and it ticks all the boxes on paper.

I am painfully aware that my parents spent 30 years househunting
and never found the perfect house. My mother hated where they lived, and I don't want to end up like her stuck in a place I don't want to be because we are looking for the Holy Grail.

Sorry, epic response. Very topical for me!

ErnesttheBavarian · 10/05/2012 14:36

We bought a house a couple of years ago that tick all of the boxes. But I didn't love it and still don't and I often feel annoyed about certain things and have to constantly remind myself of all those boxes iyswim

outtolunchagain · 10/05/2012 14:49

We bought a house that I don't like but ticked the boxes too .I spent the night we moved in working out how long we had to stay ,I have spent the last 15 years including an extension trying to make myself like it ,dh just will not move ,he can't see the problem,it "ticks the boxes".I did persuade him to let me put it on the market 5 years ago,we got an offer quite quickly but he still refused to move(think he thought we wouldn't get offer) .

Still hate it ,get a sinking feeling when I drive up to it but am stuck here now .If I had known he wouldn't move I would never have agreed to buy it in the first place .Most of all I hate that the children grew up here .

My advice;don't do it!

minipie · 10/05/2012 14:54

I have never found a house where I went "I NEED this house". I think I'm just not that sort of person - I tend to weigh everything up quite rationally rather than going on gut instinct.

Doesn't mean I pick the wrong places though. I absolutely loved my previous property in the end, even though I was a bit meh about it when I first saw it and even when I offered on it. Same with my current place.

So I would say, don't wait for that "love at first sight feeling", you may simply not be that sort of person and so you will never feel it.

Of course if you know that you are that sort of person then ignore me!

MrsBranestawm · 10/05/2012 15:16

It took me many years, and two hated houses, before I realised that one was allowed to veto a house simply because one did not like it enough.

Here ends my lesson! :o

MadameChinLegs · 10/05/2012 15:19

I paid over the odds on a house I loved. Not massively, but the seller must have been chuffed with us. I was NOT prepared to let it go for anyone else. I would have quite possibly chained myself to the front door to stop that.

I am still there now and never ever intend to leave. It has it's flaws, but then so does my DH and I know he is The One why can't I feel the same about a house?

Wait for something you love.

marilynmonroe · 11/05/2012 10:40

i feel the same. we bought a house which ticks all the boxes, layout, good size bedrooms etc. i was 2 weeks off giving birth with DC2 when we moved in. when we moved in i started to notice loads of cracks which really bothered me. we got teh walls lined etc and most have disappeared. We have had loads of problems with it like rats, flies etc. I did love it when i viewed it but not sure i love it now. I am always thinking about my next house. Maybe it's because we always knew this was going to be a stepping stone house? i don't know. I keep reminding myself that we are very lucky to have a house and garden and it is lovely but i just don't love it. I do have a case of grass is always greener i think.

Im pleased that I'm not the only one!

hanahsaunt · 11/05/2012 10:52

We've owned two houses and adored both of them. Now house hunting due to work relocation and have seen quite a few that tick all the boxes ... except location. Nearly a year on and wondering where the compromise will be ...

afussyphase · 11/05/2012 12:07

Hm, we live in London and can't even afford to tick all the boxes, never mind LOVING a house! I guess I'm glad we could afford a house :) Well, we tried for a repossessed house, which had had squatters in it, and was bigger than what we got by quite a bit, but still was not The One (and we were outbid by £100k anyway). Reading this, I'm just glad I don't have the sinking feeling when I come up to it, or count the days till we move (it'll be a while!). And I'm glad that my monthly payments, which are less than what we'd pay renting, are mostly going back to us and not to a landlord. Maybe one day we'll find one that I LOVE. That'd be awesome. In the meantime, nothing wrong with a stepping stone IMO.

chanie44 · 12/05/2012 08:18

I'm going to buck the trend here and say that I wasn't overly keen on the house we bought but I quickly grew to love it and am pleased we chose this house.

When we were looking, I remember seeing one house that was smaller, on a busy road and a public alley at the side but the owner was lovely and it had a real homely feel to it, which I remember to this day.

We ended up pulling out of two houses because of big problems on the survey (new roof needed on one and shoddy kitchen extn on the other!!). When we saw this house there were things I didn't like but they seem to have worked to our advantage - for example, our house looks onto the scruffyish looking fences of our neighbours gardens but this means we aren't so overlooked and means there is more parking space.

I do think you have to be happy with your choice but at the same time, you need to be realistic about what you can get for your money. However a home is whAt you make of it and things can be done to improve your home.

MoreBeta · 12/05/2012 08:26

I think there is something wrong with me and DW.

We have hated, tolerated, liked and loved various houses we have lived in but having rented for 25 years and moved on quite often we just cant get excited enough about any house to want to take out a huge mortgage to want to overpay for a pile of bricks.

We do want a house to live in for the rest of our lives but in reality we just want one that we can lock up and leave to travel and come back to.

I suppose the house we live in now is very nice but we are getting itchy feet after 3 years.

skandi1 · 13/05/2012 02:14

Don't do it. I have owned several houses and flat which I absolutely loved. Our last house was fab and till the day we moved my heart used to leap every time I approached it and I would think "is that really mine?".

Bought current house and I really should live this one but I just don't. Not only does it tick every single box we had but also a few more. And I am painfully aware that most people would give their right arm to live here. But I just don't love it.

I wasn't ready to sell our last place but with DC2 on way and tiny 3 bedrooms and a patio garden in the very centre of London, it wasn't child friendly. There were other issues such as open oak thread staircases and glass balustrade mezzanine which were very toddler unfriendly and DD was almost two and it just wasn't practical. But I loved it so much

I lost count of the number of times I have cried myself to sleep over buying current house. Last house sold in 48 hours and DH wanted to complete the move before arrival of DS so had to choose immediately. It wasn't the case of a bad house. It's DHs dream house and I should love it too but for some reason I don't.

Sorry epic and rambling nonsense but from an emotional point of view, just don't do it.

marilynmonroe · 13/05/2012 07:25

Reading all there posts its like a house is like finding a partner. Sometimes they can tick all boxes but you realise it's not what you are looking for. It's the unexpected ones that you fall in love with.

In my instance I think my dh is getting his way with the decor too much and that's what stopping me from loving it. He loves mid century design and I love shabby chic. As he calls it shabby shite!

This is the ramblings of a hungover person!

Ragwort · 13/05/2012 07:36

I think that often the 'dream' and the 'reality' are almost impossible to match up. I would love a Georgian type rectory with a big garden BUT I would need the money and the staff to go with it - DH and I hate anything to do with house maintenance/decoration and positively loathe gardening. so the reality is we have a very nice, pleasant modern house with a small garden on a tiny estate. It really doesn't have any character but it is easy to maintain, mowing the lawn takes 10 minutes and then we can get on with the rest of the lives.

To me, location is the key - I want to be able to walk to the shops/library/swimming pool/schools etc and I have got that now. DH would love to be in a more rural location but that's another issue .

marilynmonroe · 13/05/2012 07:59

V true Rag. I would love to live in the country but I live in London. In reality it's great as I am near lots of amenities and can walk to parks with dcs etc. I would live to have a mature garden and enought room for kids to have trampoline etcbut I do t want to have to get into my car everytime I needed something fro
Shops. Maybe one day when we are older and the kids have left home.

I'm trying to live in the present and not think about our next move. There is lots to love about where we live, great neighbours, loads of friends, lots of green spaces. The problem with human beings is we always want more!

MoreBeta · 13/05/2012 18:11

There is no perfect place. Life keeps changing. What you need now is different from what you may need in future. Jobs are not at all stable now so most people need to move for jobs, schools and nothing fits every need.

I've lived in a village, London, several provincial towns, various countries and all sorts of houses and flats from new build to Elizabethan and they all had something I wanted to change..

Springforward · 13/05/2012 19:42

I sympathise. We are struggling with this at the moment - when I saw your thread title, I had to double-check it wasn't mine from a month or two ago, come back to life....

I don't have any helpful advice, I'm sorry, but I know that we have looked at a couple of properties recently and thought they were OK, nothing actively wrong with them, but had no urge to offer. Very tricky. In the past I have bought houses on gut instinct, this time I fear it's going to have to be head, not heart.

We have a cut-off date the end of this month - panic panic panic on which we will go for the least worst option available to us. Not great, but real life I guess.

FairyPenguin · 14/05/2012 10:56

The 2 houses we've owned, I have loved straight away. Now we are selling ours and the only one we remotely like is just that: "like". It ticks almost all of the boxes but we just don't love it, neither of us. But it's difficult as we could be holding on for the dream house forever, as all the ones we love we can't even view because they're wildly out of our price range. That's what happens when we move from a relatively reasonably-priced area to a more expensive one. Can't justify paying so much more per square foot, and think will always be comparing to our current house. So glad that I'm not the only one who feels like this!

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