Awful house, great location or great house, awful location?

[morningpaper]

I can't decide....

I know it's supposed to be location location location ... But can I bear to live in a fugly house?!?

Help me!!

Always go for location.

Location will sell your house, and with the best will.in the world, a diamond in the rough will be hard to shift.

Location

What's the space and light like inside?

Location, definately.

snap it up and get this lot in to make it beautiful

can we have a link to your fugly house?

I live in such a fugly house that I actually thought it looked like a Swedish prison block when I first saw it on Rightmove.

However, it overlooks the sea. Ahh - I can see the sea whenever I'm home. I cannot properly convey how much seeing the see soothes my troubled soul after a hard day at work. Or indeed at any time.

I cannot see the outside of the house when I am within so actually who cares what it looks like?

Consensus here (from experience) seems to say location. Go for location.

Location every single time.

The last house I bought was a nice house in a dodgy area. Big mistake. Huge. Although I initially liked the large garden, double garage and extra space I came to hate it all because it was located in shitsville.

Never ever again. I would rather live in a tiny flat somewhere nice.

It depends on what you mean by awful location. If it's awful because it's not pretty, but is basically okay, then I'd say house. If the area istruely awful, then I say location. I chose house over location ( house located on busy road) and it was fine. It may not have the best views etc, but we got a much better house for our money. And you get used to the area.

If it was me would go for the house overlooking the park and stream - sounds lovely.

Mind you, most MN-ers wouldn't give a toss because, as we learned yesterday, they keep their blinds and curtains drawn all year round.

Location and functionality of house beat a pretty exterior!

Depends on how bad the location is and whether fugly house can be improved upon.

I'd walk away if the answer to either of those things didn't add up.

Yama my dream is to look out on the sea

How does the value of the the fugly house compare to other houses in the street? Is there scope to improve / extend?

I would always go for the worst house on an amazing street rather than the other way around.

I also would like to live by the sea at some point in my life.
I live at the top of a big hill with big views and I love watching the weather come in. I would love to watch the wild sea and vicious storms.
I love weather :-)

I don't think house will really be improved that much - terrace with a small garden (on account of backing onto park). So no space to 'upgrade'.

It is reasonably cheap compared to the Nice Houses. The nice houses are in a sort of soulless surburbia. I am not keen on the soulless surburbia but the Nice Houses are lovely.

God I think I am going to stay renting forever, I'm just unable to make a decision....

The trouble is, I've had some really GREAT houses in the past but I am really starting again on account of being divorced for the 46th time.

Oh, absolutely the fugly house. Then you just need to fix your head so you reframe it as a retro treasure rather than fugly.

I love in a street of lovely Victorian houses - till you get to mine, which is a hideous 30s semi with all the original features ripped out. It looks 60s, and shabby. BUT it is a great location, with nice views, great schools, and inside it is light and airy. It will never be my dream house - the rooms are too small, the ceilings too low - but I've really enjoyed making it as handsome as I can. I'm rather fond of the fugly old thing now - and really enjoy the sense of achievement I got from what was a fairly extreme makeover.

Best of all is that it cost £150-200k less than the Victorian houses on the street. That is a LOT of money to pay for yer original features...

Location sold it for us: 5-10 mins to the shop/station/library, good secondary cachement, and 2 mins to the bus stop.
We put up with a newish build, smaller garden and less "character" compared to some of the other places we viewed: but the chocolate-box house I loved on paper was 20 mins from a pint-of-milk shop and out of all cachements/bus routes, just couldn't compete with where our purchase was. So I'd say the fugly one makes sense....

We live in a fugly house in a great location and beautiful views. We're making the interior look nice. There are some options to improve the outside but it's not a huge priority right now.

Please buy the ugly house. It isn't that ugly. I lived for a while in a big Victorian house in an area I hated, just off a main road, no park within walking distance with two small dc. Now live in an ugly thirties semi, much smaller but fantastic area.

My mental health really suffered from living in an area that I didn't like. I don't love this house but it is much better

Location every time. I am learning this the hard way having moved 20 miles from everything I knew and was familiar with, just to get more space and period features at an affordable price.

I now spend an inordinate amount of time on rightmove looking at ugly/smaller houses in desired location, going back to old area, trying to work out whether we should try and move back.

It's miserable.

Levantine I really get what you are talking about!

So, I'd definitely definitely say location.

I like 60s and 70s fugly houses personally - solidly built, good sized rooms and decent gardens. I love my 60s mid terrace - it was even built with a cut though passageway so the coal could still be delivered to the back garden. I like the thinking that went into planning it and it being an improvement on previous house design.

I would always go for location because however beautiful a house is, you can't move it. Yes lots of people would think my house is ugly but it's walking distance into the town which has excellent schools and is warm, solid and in a very quiet, safe area.

I think it's not that bad! 60s houses often have really spacious reception rooms, big windows etc and are less 'poky' than a Victorian terrace.

Location is more important than exterior, or even interior. If you can't afford to change everything about the house now, you can do it in a few years' time. Is there room to extend?

I sort of wish we'd stayed in our (nicer) old neighbourhood rather than buying a done-up house in a less nice area, as we couldn't afford a 'nice' house in our old neighbourhood...

We chose house over location a few years ago.

We lived there for 3 years, 2 of which we spent trying to raise enough cash to move away again.