Which house should we buy?

[April2003]

We are the first time buyer and have been looking for a house to be close to DD's secondary school. However we have not seen the ideal ne yet. We are now interested in two detached properties. The first one is in a nicer locatin, walking distance to school (5 minutes), low maintainance cost (built in 1999), but the size of the house is very small, no seperate dinning room; the second one is in a nice area, built in 1970s, and is a much bigger house and much cheaper, but not within walking distance to school, which means I have to take DD to school every day like I do now. Can anyone advise on which one we should buy please? Or keep looking until finding the perfect one, which I am not very optimistic after nearly two months search. I felt I will have to compromise at some point soon. Many thanks for reading the thread. I would like to hear your thoughts.

Your DD will be 11 then though ?

Surely she can use public transport or a school bus at that stage ?

Which is the house you would be happy in long term? Your DD will be driving herself at seventeen.

It is nice for DD to be able to walk to school friends' houses though. You don't want her to be cut off. It's a difficult one but I also agree with the last post, you need the one you will be happier in long term.

I would be drawn towards the first one, but only if I were able to extend it at some point. Would this be possible?

You don't seem to love either house. I'd keep looking. 2 months is no time at all to be searching.

Do you need to move so quickly? Two months is no time to be searching, and there could be other properties coming on to the market that would tick more boxes?

If not - go with your heart!!!

Check out bus routes, take her on bus over summer and first day

I would wait until the right house comes along (or at least almost the right house) It's such a lot of money to spend you have to love it

Agree that 2 months is nothing, look for a while longer.

Depends - how far away is the other house ? 5mins walk would be very close, but dcs can walk a LOT further than that, or, as other say, is there not a bus / train that would get her there.
How old is dd ? - if she's in Yr7, and got 6 yrs left of travelling, it's different from if she'd in the 6th form already.
Are there just the 2 of you ? In which case, do you specifically need an extra dining room ?
I really wouldn't want to have to be taking and fetching my dc from school every day, but then, I wouldn't want to spend a lot of money on a house that I didn't really like even before I moved in. As other say, 2 months is nothing when looking for a house, I'd keep looking until you find "the one"

Many thanks for your thoughts, everyone. DD will be starting Year7 in Sep. The only extensin i can do is to build a conservatry. We don't need to move till the end of ths year. Maybe we should search a bit longer. What is the average time course between offer accepted and moving in?