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Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

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Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Property/DIY

How did you choose your house?

40 replies

suebfg · 09/01/2013 21:20

We have been house hunting for ages and can't afford to keep chucking away money on rent. We have seen so many houses now they are all blurring into one.

We've recently found a great house (it is immaculate) but it backs onto a busyish road which is a major offputter as it can get quite noisy.

On the other hand, there are two reasonable houses for sale in very desirable locations but the downstairs space doesn't quite work for us in these houses. Neither have utility rooms and the kitchen diners are smaller than we would like.

Am I being too fussy? How did you choose your house?

OP posts:

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JanuaryJunes · 10/01/2013 14:19

We could afford it, it needed massive amount of work but was detached, in the area we liked, had amazing light and it felt right.

Also, and this is a bit woo, there was a room with the painting my gran had on her wall when I was a child. My mum had just died and I felt it was " a sign". Yes. I know.

Anyway, we viewed it 4 times. Dh needed some convincing but we bought it and are very happy here.

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ArbitraryUsername · 11/01/2013 21:14

We identified and area and had a list of things we wanted (4 beds, 3 of which had to be decent sized doubles and the 4th could be quite small, a kitchen with room for a table, off street parking) and another list of things we definitely didn't want (under no circumstances did we want a conservatory, for example).

We looked at loads of houses and even considered offering on one that had just about none of the things we wanted but saw that the house was up for rent as a student house (with 6 bedrooms). When this house came on the market, I knew it would be the one we bought. It was in exactly the right location, and had everything on the list but it needed quite a lot of work. Luckily it was quite a bit under our budget. We were the first people to view it and we put an offer in afterwards. The work has been annoying and expensive, but it is a lovely house in exactly the right place for us.

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Rhubarbgarden · 11/01/2013 23:43

We fell for the 250 year old hexagonal quarry tiles in the hallway.

I think unless you've got about 3 million squid you have to compromise on something. We are on a busy toad which is not ideal, but we always use the side entrance which is on a dirt track so the kids/cats are not emptying straight out onto road. Noise isn't really a problem because the rooms where we spend most of our time face the rear. I do intend to get double glazing in a couple of the bedrooms though.

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Rhubarbgarden · 11/01/2013 23:44

Busy road not busy toad

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GrendelsMum · 12/01/2013 14:34

We saw the house, agreed it didn't meet any of our requirements, and rejected it. Then after going on holiday a month later, we agreed that it had actually been the nicest house we'd seen, went back, found it was still on the market...

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fussychica · 12/01/2013 15:27

Cheap.
Walked into the hall and knew it was probably the one we would buy even though there were compromises to be made.
Very happy here.

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mekim · 03/02/2014 23:16

Hi everyone
Could you give me some advise, please?

I would like to know. Is a home with a triangular garden are problem, if it were you would you buy it?

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littlecrystal · 04/02/2014 08:35

Mekim, I just had a chance to buy one with a triangular garden (and a substation at the back of it) and chose not to. I like standard and straight and it would have bothered me. Also feng shui of a triangular garden is meant to be bad. Is the house square/rectangular though?

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Barbeasty · 04/02/2014 08:52

We had a spreadsheet.

We listed must haves, eg off road parking for 2 cars.
We listed must not haves.
We listed stuff we'd quite like eg open fire.

Each item on the list could earn the house a point.

If it didn't have a must have, or had a mustn't have, the total box turned red.

We bought the one with the most points, because I couldn't risk losing the sale on our old house.

I did put a box in for "feeling", so it counted for something.

And we cut and pasted the picture of each house at the top of the column so we remembered which was which.

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flatmum · 04/02/2014 09:18

It was the only house large enough for us all that we saw in our price range! Was a good decision though and I Thibk we knew we would try and buy it as soon as we saw it was spacious. (Everything else was poky)

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Noggie · 04/02/2014 09:31

We decided to list why we were moving house ie catchment area, more space and wish for a family friendly dining kitchen so looked for houses that ticked those boxes in our price range. Ended up going over our price range a little bit and are now skint but dd at super school, have plenty space and a dining kitchen

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littlecrystal · 04/02/2014 09:52

It ticked all the boxes and was more spacious than others.
5 years on it still ticks the boxes but being a period house it proved too old for my liking and requires too much of maintenance. I am now dreaming of a modern house.

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echt · 04/02/2014 10:31

Our UK house ticked all the boxes except being on a busy (daytime) road.
The back living room and secondary glazing in the front bedroom made these objections redundant. Big garden, Fab schools, Great transport. Lovely house. We think of it fondly now.

We were "forced" into our Aus house having one month's notice on a rental, so had to buy spit spot. Lots of garden. Right location in same area. Lots of room. Well built.

Drawbacks: bloody weird 70s shed.

We love it.

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echt · 04/02/2014 10:32

Should say the house is a weird 70s shed.

Actually, the shed was also weird - no door.

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LondonGirl83 · 04/02/2014 11:52

After many months looking on the market, how the housing stock varied within our neighborhood and recognized what was possible. For instance, if we wanted to be near the park and near public transport, within the catchment of our preferred school and be near the high street, there were literally only a handful of streets that ticked all those boxes. The vast majority of the houses on those streets have very small gardens so we decided that was something we could live with if something we wanted came up there.

For us, deal breakers were being outside the catchment of any primary school, being more than 10-12 min walk for the station, the house had to be period, on a quiet road and it also had to be suitable for extension we wanted to do a loft and side return extension.

The nice to haves were a south or west facing garden, a large garden, off street parking, double bay windows, and a place needing work (for us that was a plus as it meant we wouldnt be paying a premium for a kitchen wed just rip out for the extension work and would allow us to put our own stamp).

We ended up buying in one of our preferred roads, but had to settle for a tiny garden. Off our nice to have list we got a South facing garden and the place was a bargain as it needed work.

Also, when we walked in, even though the house was smaller than we were originally hoping for , we both really liked the feel of it huge windows, high ceilings, relatively wide rooms etc.

I think you have to spend some time seeing whats out there to be really confident when you decide to buy. We really do know our area well and knew nothing better for that price would come up and bid over asking to secure it.