2 bedroom detached house with a garage or 3 bed terraced without?

[lookingforhome]

Hi all kind mumsnetters. We are looking for our first family home (2 adults and 2 children), and am thinking of it as forever home - I hate the stress of moving.

We have 2 options in the same area, where houses do not come up too often: 2 bedroom detached town house with a garage. Slightly cheaper.
3 bedroom terraced house without a garage. Would be slightly stretching our budget, but still within.

3 bedroom sounds fantastic, however the first thing I think about is storage! Bikes, scooters, paints, gardening tools, buckets, christmas tree, shoes, toys etc. At the moment I keep many things in the shed and although nothing is permanently damaged, it is damp and cold.

Then I think how I could convert the back of the garage to keep all this stuff and make a nice tiled mud room/utility room and get excited!

Please tell me if I am crazy or not.

I think my boys would be OK to share the room permanently, as they are now, but I may be so wrong!

If the 2 bed had a loft space, then I'd say go for it, because if space became an issue later on, you could use the money you've saved to go into the loft, but without, i'd avoid, it's not going to be suitable for you as your DCs grow and there's no scope to increase the space (if the garage was to the side and you could go over it, that would also be an option.

I think it would be best to look for something that could grow with you or is perfect now.

JazzAnnNonMouse and DontmindifIdo thanks. Both options are contemporary town houses without an attic. Why I am drawn to this type of houses: reason No.1 that it could be a good spot for two good secondaries (not that it is guaranteed) No. 2 I can afford it and No.3 I see how much money my LL has to spend on our current (rented) house which is fairly typical Victorian terraced house, there are constant issues of this or that - I don't really want to fall in to that money pit trap.

We need a low maintenance and easy to live house, and this is probably our only chance to afford a 3 bed house in not crappy area and not too far to London. I am hoping that this type of house is our best choice...

If you have other ideas I am always happy to listen.

I really like those houses! Third one seems the best.
The nearest secondary doesn't seem terribly impressive, though.

I would always go for a house over a flat as I personally think leasehold is much more likely to be a pain in the arse than freehold.

There's a modern house that I tried and failed to link to that's in Shirley 3 bedroom with garage, large conservatory and two bathrooms that looked in good nick and would be low maintenance.
£194,000
I know what you're saying about older houses but once the problem is sorted ie damp proof then it's generally done and things only tend to start mounting up of they've been neglected for an amount of time. In general the build quality of modern houses aren't as good or as solid as older IMO.
Could you widen your search or is Shirley the only place you'll consider?

I'd definitely go for the 3 bed. You cannot expect 2 teenagers to share a room as small as the bedroom in the 2 bedroom house. They accumulate a lot of shit as they get older.