What have you prioritized when choosing a house? Share experiences here

[TremoloGreen]

At the moment, we live in London in a 2/3 bed flat with very little outside space. We want to move to a bigger place (a house) with a proper garden, hopefully without extending our mortgage. We want to have another DC, as good a work-life balance as possible (!) and for us, that means using state schools. DH has a very inflexible career path so we need to stay within commuting distance of London for now. There are a few places I could work, I'm currently self-employed and work from home.

My question: how do you prioritize factors such as schools, the town, house size/quality, the commute, anything else?

At the moment, we're thinking:
1. SCHOOLS - probably being a bit precious about this but I really want to give DC the best opportunities and also I have friends who were miserable at school and it has really affected them as adults
2. COMMUTE - shorter commute, more family time, better quality of life
3. TOWN - has to have enough to do for us and kids, don't want to walk around somewhere every day that makes me feel depressed
4. HOUSE SIZE - there are advantages to a smaller house, right??
5. HOUSE QUALITY - least important, planning to live there for long enough to do it up if necessary. Have got over any ideals about period, character etc and would gladly live in a 70s box if it meets all other criteria!

I thought we had it sorted, but now we've decided on towns and are actually looking at the houses we can afford, we're feeling a bit wobbly about house size. Mostly 3 beds with a tiny third bedroom that would be crap for an older DC. Some four beds but those have tiny gardens or weird layouts (downstairs bathroom /miserable kitchen etc) and I'm starting to wonder if we should readjust our priorities. Interested in others' experiences.

large gardens are overrated, especially for those with small children and busy lives. we don't have a massive garden about 50 feet x 30 but the cost and ongoing maintenance can be quite draining.

We looked for almost a year before accepting we couldn't afford zone 2 London and are now buying in zone 3 London. I refused to compromise on space (we wanted minimum 1300sq ft), number of bedrooms (min 3), and private garden (I am looking forward to chucking my kids out once we have a private garden!). We had also set our sights on school and needed to be close to it. So I guess for us order of priority was school, our commutes, space and garden. Location got bumped off our list as we could only afford flats with no gardens in the location we loved

I don't live in London but another city. We're currently moving and our priorities are:

-near a good primary and secondary school VERY IMPORTANT as we're currently in catchment for worst secondary school in the city

-nice quiet location - important because it's noisy where we currently live. It's horrible because you have no control over it.

• near amenities and transport - for commute and because DH and I share a car so I like to be in walking distance to shops, cafes and parks.

-house quality. Just because we need to be able to move in and it be livable straight away, we don't have the energy for immediate renovations at the moment. We like the idea of being able to improve house over time though so it doesn't have to be perfect.

I'm prepared to compromise on garden size and to a lesser extent house size for these things.

Our priorities when we moved to our current house were:

Schools
Local amenities
Public transport links
Quiet residential area
Garden
House size
House quality
Green space in the local area

I think that the best way to find out exactly what your priorities are is to view a few quite different houses. Then you start to realise that some things you thought were important actually aren't and vice versa.

With Dcs though I think the top priority has to be schools.

We moved last year and knew this was the one the minute we walked through the door- basically we wanted a detached, bigger house in a quiet and nicer, but still convenient location, near school, couple of shops, walk into lovely town, parks and dog walking. Also where dcs could call for friends/walk to school.
large drive, smaller garden, as our last one was huge and we were sick of maintaining it and dcs are teens so out all the time. I work from home, dh commutes 20 mins.

NO projects, poky rooms, tiny windows or high maintenance.

Ours were top: schools (not 1 outstanding school and 3 failing - we wanted an area with mostly good schools closest to our home, recommend reading the inspection reports I found some schools marked down on things I didn't care about!)

Commute - very big quality of life factor.
Town - I wanted to be able to get kids to school, doctor, dentist, library, supermarket without getting in the car. Reasonable range of local shops is a massive plus, so is a decent play park.
Location - feeling private and not overlooked is actually really great! I didn't realise I was looking for it as much as I was.

We wanted a kitchen big enough for a family size table to eat off, and a road where the kids could play in.

Our house criteria was (not in order - had to have all these):
Kids to be able to play out safely
Within walking distance of bus, tram, shops.
Size of house and number of rooms.
garden to get the sun and not be very overlooked.
garage or cellars or loft conversion.
house to be potentially extendable
Off road parking.

wasn't bothered by:
schools
décor/state of house
style of house

It took me 4 years to find it and it's perfect (for us). Ironically, the failing secondary school that the we are zoned for, is now 'good' and improving all the time.

1. Commute (so location of house) - not just for work but for everyhitng we needed to access - so including good train and bus links and within walking distance of as much as we could

1. Schools - so location again - (secondary as well as Primary - you don't want to be moving again 5 yrs down the line)

1. After that, it depends - parking? detached (or semi?) ? It was a real bonus to me to think we weren't going to be attached on both sides, as I didn't want to be "shushing" my dc all their lives.

So much depends on the area you are looking. A garden wasn't anything I'd consider a priority as ALL the possible house here would have a garden - I realise in some cities that might not be the case. You know there will be compromises to be made - your budget always dictates what you can seriously look at. Generally, I like the idea that, should it come to it in future years, I could extend - into loft, or out back, or add to the side or whatever.... I'd be hesitant to buy a property with a young family if it had already had lots of bits added on.

Our order when we moved

Schools - close enough to get into a school we'd be happy to send DC to
Location - not on a noisy road
House, as opposed to a flat, with at least 3 bedrooms
Reception room sizes - they needed to be a certain width to satisfy DH and this ruled out loads and loads of houses.
Neighbourhood - walking distance from cafes, services, etc
Commute - close to a decent train/tube station
Garden - we definitely compromised on this with our current house.
Decor - as long as it didn't require a complete overhaul (eg untouched for decades) it was on the list.
Ability to extend in future - compromised here as it would be difficult to do in our current house.

Things not on the list
Off road packing
House style
Detached / semi detached / terraced - although our budget pretty much ruled out the detached option

Interesting to see other people's views - when we moved out of the south east we wanted to be closer to family but also

1. Commuting for work distances/accessibility by train
2. Schools - did not have kids when moved but wanted to be in a good school catchment area for the future
3. Community feel - where we would fit in - could afford to use local facilities - shops, restaurants and where our budget would find a reasonable sized property for the area so we would not feel 'poor' and have kids unable to do what all their friends are doing...
4. Location of actual property within town - close to walk to facilities, school etc
5. Situation - detached/semi, quiet street, garden not overlooked, parking etc.
6. Potential to shape the house to how we wanted it if not perfect already

We thought we could buy a fixer upper but ended up moving into something more or less done. Would not try to do work with small kids unless you can afford lots of external help.

Schools.
Location, location, location.
Big kitchen.

We moved 10 years ago, but if we were to move tomorrow (unlikely, hope we are here for the duration ) the priorities would be:

1. Schools. important if for primary
2. Distance from train station and links. We have a train station within a 3 minute walk and a good service into London. it's also great for nights out as can get trolleyed and stumble home
3. Slightly away from centre of village and local gossips
4. Easy to maintain house. As much as I love period properties, I don't love the upkeep.
5. Big garden. Like gardening, DC like playing in it

This is interesting and shows how different we all are with different needs!

We are in London (northern suburb) and commute is such a big thing in terms of day to day travelling time and expense. Our list when we moved was:

Location - Commute to work, schools, closeness to local amenities
Size of house - 3 bedrooms, good sized living space, reasonable garden
Side/rear access (didn't have this in last house, drove us mad)
Road - quiet, parking availability
Not a project or fixer upper

thanks all. JCee, I was actually thinking how similar the lists were. I'm kind of glad no-one has said 'oh, get over yourself about the schools' or 'you'll hate living in a tiny house so much you'll wish you had settled for a longer commute'.

Lots of people seem to have quite a long list but don't say if they got everything they wanted. If you'd had to ditch one thing off your list of wants, what could you have done without? At the moment, we're trying to work out if we can adjust our expectations on house size for example.

We're moving within the same area of London. Not surprisingly our list starts with:

location - we've got a good primary starting in September, and we want to keep the commuting times down. We also have a lot of friends in the area so for my mental well being staying close is vital (family hundreds of miles away.)

garden - we don't have one. If I don't get one I will go mad.

3 beds at least - we need room for when family come to stay so that we don't want to kill them within 24 hours.

light - we have a lot of light & aren't overlooked now, so I'd find that difficult. This is going to be the most difficult thing to get & might have to give.

Given that & our budget we know we might have to take on a project house, but those are so important we're willing to do it. We're not planning on moving again within ten years.

I didn't ditch anything off my list tremolo, as we had made that mistake when moving before, and this move was to correct those things. The main one being that we were on a busy road so the kids couldn't play out and the 3rd bedroom was too small, and limited options for extending.

Also I should have put location down in CAPS on my list, sorry. It was a major priority. We wanted to be in walking distance of the school the kids were at, the village, and the tram.

The school thing is so hard though. We are in catchment for 3 primary schools. 1 outstanding, 1 good and 1 needs improvement. In 18 months the good school has gone to needs improvement and the improvement one has gone to good!

I wanted an easy commute, garden and quiet road and got it all. However I live in a part of SW London that isn't thought of too highly on MN!

I would say make sure you actually go and look at the schools and don't just go by Ofsted.

I got such a lovely feeling about a school that was 'good', I changed my mind from an outstanding school where we already had a place (primary).
Definitely don't regret it now, and dd is in y5.

Also, I rejected out of hand a failing primary, and it is now not only outstanding, but has been rebuilt and is at capacity due to a new head who started the year I was looking. Maybe if I'd visited that school, I'd have gone there instead.

• There were a few areas in London that met the school/commute (no more than 45 mins from door to door)/interesting area criteria. Schools were big thing for me too.

• Then narrow down to areas with houses that are nice and big enough for one's budget, so areas where we'd afford only shoeboxes/no garden were ruled out.

• I didn't expect this, but during the house-hunting we found 4 streets we had really good vibe of and really wanted to live there, so we did turn down nice and high spec houses outside those streets.

• We got a house that needs work but fit all the above. Very happy.

So I guess it was location location for us.

Yes, not just Ofsted. We even had a look at area with school that was only 3 on last Ofsted but people we knew who lived there said it was a lovely supportive school (It became 'outstanding' after we moved in). There was also school that was 'good' but locals spoke warmly of it and still do.

My DS1 went to nursery of 'good' school but it was actually a horrible unsupportive place.

Yes, I think that's where actually reading the reports can help if you are looking to narrow down possible towns. Where we live there is 1 outstanding, 1 good and 1 needs improvement school. If you read the reports they are all pretty decent, so you have actually got some choice in terms of what will actually suit your child.

In areas where one school is seen as much better than the others school admissions all gets a lot more stressful.

We were only looking within zone 2 and 3 in London so knew that commuting times would be reasonable for the most part.

Our current house has everything on the list bar the dream garden - it's just that bit too small at just over 20 feet long and doing a loft conversion would be a pain in the ass. But that's ok as we wouldn't have had the money to do one for ages and ages.

1. considered dh's commute to,work
2. colleague who knew the area gave us a map with good/okay/ avoid areas indicated

We then considered any house in our price range, we'd drove around, rejecting instantly those on busy roads, in unattractive areas (eg. Next to petrol station) etc.

We rejected some because third bedroom was too small.

I did have a quick look at ofsted, although schools do change over time. More important was whether schools had places for dcs.

We compromised on a smaller garden. Although I would have liked a slightly bigger garden, an advantage of it is that it's a lot easier to maintain than my old one.

Also, wanted a reasonably nice area to live in. I don't mean it has to be rich or expensive, just pleasant and not too built up.