Would an ugly house / run down street put you off?

[Sylviecat]

We have been house hunting for a while and have accepted we will need to make compromises as looking in a v popular area with a limited budget. The previous house we tried to buy fell through, and it was so pretty, lovely period features on nice ish street.. But was too small and would have needed extension at some point, which would have cost lots.

Just seen a house today, but it is an ugly 70's house, on a run down street. However it is huge (twice size of other house) with a pretty garden, large, light rooms. The location is great-5 mins to the school, woods at end of the road, walk to shops and river etc. just got to move on from loosing the pretty house, and accept this compromise I think.

Just wondering what people's priorities/compromises were when house buying? Any regrets?

I did the same. No regrets about the house, but the local school is not good. Wish I'd considered that before buying, but I didn't have children then. But if the local school is good then go for it.

Couldn't care less about run down house but I would run a mile from a rundown street.

The house you can do things with over time. The neighbourhood is a tougher one. Is it really run down/ dirty/ uncared for, or just not a row of pretty period properties?

Agree, house -fine, it is changeable but I would not buy on a run down street where people didn't care for their houses.

It's certainly a far cry from a row of pretty period houses but it's not rough.. I.e. No burnt out cars! (Maybe calling it run down was unfair)
Generally seems well maintained. Just some odd/ugly houses. But in a great village with lots going for it. We are moving from somewhere quite rural so guess it's just getting my head around views of fairly boring looking houses instead of fields.

Interested in what compromises others have made...

We moved from a beautiful big house' five tiny cottages knocked into one. We had a Salmon river running through a large back garden with a very large decked tiered balcony looking over it. Plus another stretch of orchard and woodland with another salmon river immediately opposite our house. We owned our gorgeous views.

We now live in a modest 1980's 3 bed detached that cost half what we sold the previous house for. Its the first house newer than 1910 I've lived in as an adult (i've lived in many). Its in short walking distance of quite a big town. So major contrast.

Critically we're near family, near services for my Autistic son (rurally we had access to nothing - we became fairly house bound), near appropriate schooling for all my three children and we feel safe (things happened that left us unable to rest in our last house). We've renovated our house (knocked walls down, rewired, plumbed, heated, new bathroom, put in an ensuite, kitchen, completely dug over and laid out the modest front and back gardens creating a decent driveway/ parking for two cars).

For town the location is good. We have a small under used play park at the end of our close and a large park with ducks and more play equipment plus rugby and football pitches.

When we overhauled our ugly duckling of a house three of our neighbours then overhauled theirs too. The close looks really different to when we bought and we're really happy here. I do still subscribe to country living and my town garden is a country slightly wild style, my furniture is more shabby than chic and i have chickens in the garden.

Having less debt means we had a fantastic Summer able to do more things out the house and went on holiday this year.

That's so interesting. Especially how when you redid your house, the neighbours did too. Glad you made the right choice.

we are going to have to buy a 70s-80s house to get the garage we need as in our area only houses from that period have garages. currently we're in a lovely old stone-built.
i'm a bit sad, but on the whole i know having the spaces we need for our life is more important.
if the street is at all run down rather than just bad architecture then i'd spend a lot of time hanging out there after dark and try to work out if it's a place i feel safe before making a decision.