Wow factor vs location - I don't know what to do!

[Marjal12]

We've just agreed the sale of our house and can't decide which one of two we want to buy.... Please advise what you would do in same situation.
Some background info - I work freelance, but have effectively worked as a part time staff member on regular hours for the past three years. Currently on 'maternity'. No guarantee of this job when I am ready to return to work so might be job hunting next year. DH has safe full time job on a slightly lower than average salary. We have 2 small children. Current house is a detached spacious bungalow which we renovated on buying it 3 yrs ago. Moving as we have no useable back garden (it's vertical), and I have fallen out of love with the house and area (very nice and quiet but full of old people, hilly and a car ride to shops, schools etc).
We would like to bank some money with this move, to give us a safety net due to my employment situation.
Option a - a stunning detached bungalow on a better site than ours, in a lovely area with an amazing back garden. Cons are that the local very good primary is a longer walk, and the neighbours seem to be mostly older folk again, although I do have friends in the area. It's also close to an estate. Plus it needs the roof done, but having seen quotes for this, we'd still have around 8-10 grand for the safety fund.
Option b is a big standard semi-detached with a smaller back garden on the doorstep of a good primary with a fantastic park around the corner. It's a smaller house than what we're used to, and we'd have to do some work to update it and make it suitable for us, but it's cheaper, so would allow us to bank 20 grand ish. We both have close friends living in neighbouring streets.
My heart says gorgeous bungalow, my head says perfect location semi. What would you do?

Links? I think I'd go for the 2nd one, but then I have a park very near by and love it. Local friends are important to me too.

I would say location every time. You can make the not-wow house a wow house. You can't change the location. Having said that I may not be objective as we are living in the definitely-not-wow house and unlikely ever to become wow but in a fab area for school & friends. It does get down a little sometimes when I see other people's beautiful houses.

My main worry is going back to a semi from a detached - been lucky with neighbours in the past so probably due some bad ones! Noticed a bit of bleed-through noise on a viewing so sending DH down tonight to see if there's any parties going on (or just loud music/drum playing/ shouting etc) ;-)
To be fair DH will probably be the one neighbours complain about! He likes to listen to music a lot, and cranks it up in our current house... He might have to start using headphones!

Full of old folk indeed, what do you want? live next door to a load of roudy uncouth youngsters.n Chavs breaking up old bangers in the garden
Hey I was upset by that comment , we the old made what you are enjoying . I would like to be a fly on the wall in 30 years to see what you lot(the entitled generation) have achieved. You too will be old one day and invisible too

detached house every time

When I referred to our old neighbours it was only in reference to our young family and the lack of playmates/community etc. no offence meant. (Although if you're our neighbour from opposite then you'll take offence regardless, but that's a whole other story). Majority of our neighbours are lovely but there's no-one in the street with kids so we feel like outsiders. May be a pipe dream but I'd love my children to have friends down the street they could knock for to come out and play, just like we had as kids.

And for the record is 'youngsters' could just as easily take offence at your implication that we're all rowdy chavs with a sense of entitlement

Correction - us 'youngsters', not is.

B. Location. You can add the wow factor.
We actually moved from wow to a location that suits our family better. I was really unhappy where we were. We probably lost about £10000 doing it but we are much happier now and that you cannot put a price on.

Detached, as the first location still sounds great anyway. If primary is still walkable then you'll still have friends nearby and beautiful detached v average semi...no competition in my book!

Are your children already in the primary school? If not, go for the house which is closer to the school to increase your chances of actually getting in.

If this isn't a consideration, I think I would go for the detached.

Or option 3 - wait two weeks and see if anything else comes up. Risky but it sounds like that neither property quite fits the bill.

Location is more important imo

I'd go with A in those circumstances. I'd usually say location but I think you'll find it hard to adjust to a semi after being in a detached

I say keep looking. Neither sounds right. The first is too much like the current place you are not happy with. And going back to a semi after detached would be hard.

I think you haven't found the right house yet.

I'd also say keep looking - you're not living somewhere crap so there's no urgency and there's very little on the market right now

If I had to pick then I'd do 'B' up as there's an opportunity to add value and you just can't beat letting the kids walk to school themselves if it's really close.

Right now at my time of life I'd pick the detached with the lovely garden but I've no kids in school now

We have to go for one of these as we've agreed to sell ours and move and for various monetary and circumstantial/timing reasons, redeeming the mortgage and renting just isn't an option. We've looked at everything available in our price range in the areas of the two schools we like. The market has slowed down again after a flurry over summer and there's not much coming on the market at this stage. Kids are 3 and newborn so not in school yet. Both schools oversubscribed, one near the semi is very much so and proximity is important. Other near detached has told us we'd have got in the last few years based on that address, but it changes from year to year.
I think that the problem is that they're both great options! Can see us living in both but I think the semi is a bit more future-proof. My job situation is tenuous and I've no idea how much I'll be earning after maternity, if anything, and we'll have increased childcare costs. I think we might struggle to pay for the detached if I don't go back to my previous earnings, and for that reason I'm veering towards the semi at mo. Puts more money in bank even after doing work to it, is better for school and nursery. Bigger park round corner. Neighbours seem very quiet (on 3 random visits at night).
Thanks for all your advice - while the opinions differ it's all thought-provoking and is helping with the decision making process.

Location. With time and resources, you can do anything to a house - except move it.

How small is the back garden of the semi-detached house? To my mind that is the only real downside to that one - ie is it too small to possibly extend in the future.

location.

I'd be looking at the vicinity of secondary schools - I know that the age your children are means that secondary school seems like a lifetime away, and I'm aware that schools can change.

But in only 7 or 8 years time you'll be looking at your secondary school application form.

I'd go "B" every time. Aside from building style, it sounds like our current house. We are really close to great schools with tiny catchment areas. We can see the park from our house.

DD's friends are all within a 5 minute walk...some even closer. It's great for those "would you mind looking after X for an hour so I can make a few business calls.." or I'm running late for school pick-up would you mind...." times.

Invariably the children will chose to play in the park, not the back gardens so the gardens are usually pretty quiet. It also means the kids can run around/kick balls without annoying our neighbours.

I have to say elderly/work from home neighbours are great if you have as many parcels delivered as we do!

The first one, for the detachedness and the back garden.

roneik, our last street was full of retired people. A) There were no other children for ours to play with. B) They seemed to be offended that we could afford to buy our house.

I'd go for location. Plus I like having an upstairs

My dcs are a bit older and most gardens are really too small for them to play football etc in (you would literally need a field lol) so the park nearby is an absolute godsend.

You haven't said much about the layout of each house. But another thing to bear in mind is that open plan is fab with little ones but as they get older it's great to have some separate spaces for them to play xbox, do homework etc. We have one lounge-diner at the moment and now dc1 gets more homework there's nowhere for the younger two to watch TV while he's doing it (his room is too small for a desk, we don't have TVs in bedrooms here) or if we have another family round it would be nice to have a room for the grownups to chat in while the dcs play on the Wii in the other room etc. Kitchen diner and separate sitting room would work much better for us. Whereas at the stage you guys are at now I guess your dcs are usually fairly close at hand?

Just a couple of thoughts as they probably wouldn't have occurred to me when mine were little.

Location - every time !