Compromising on buying a new home

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DH and I are looking to buy a bigger home; we have a budget, an idea of area and a plan

The only issue is we both have a wish list and not unlimited funds so we will have to compromise - the ones he likes are awful and we never get round to seeing the ones I like (appointments not being made in time) so how do we decide what is important. He wants to see loads but I am very busy so just want to see ones we are seriously interested in. He is making the estate agent phone calls as he works p/t and I work f/t but I just want to micro manage him and I know I have to back off.

He wants a property he can develop but I know he takes forever to complete a project so I want something we can live in now.

Any ideas how we can do this amicably? Winning the lottery is out of the question unfortunetly.

What you want and what he wants are 2 completely different things. No point seeing houses until you sort that out - who is going to back down? Cut out as many houses as possible at the looking at details on the internet stage. For one thing, it's very hard on sellers if you look round when there is almost no chance of you buying.

You'll never decide on anything you see if you can't agree on what you want in principle.

If you can decide on the type/style of house, number of bedrooms etc, what size of garden you want and so on then you can whittle down the ones online by room dimensions and just how much work needs doing to them.

In your case, could you persuade him to go for something in good nick which has potential for future extending and/or remodelling rather than a dated hovel with no decent bathroom or kitchen?

Ooh, is he deliberately not making appointments for the ones you like? How irritating!

It's a pretty fundamental difference in preferences, it's not like one of you quite fancies a double garage and the other would prefer a utility room. Do you agree on things like period of house/no. of bedrooms/location? Could you come up with a detailed list of specifications that you can agree on and then look at what fits them, whether they are a project or not? If you're quite specific in your other requirements it should be a short list.

thanks for the replies

We took a look at a couple off my list last night and he can now see what I am after, something that we can live in now as a family but with potential to expand in futre years.

No 1 would have been perfect apart from mad neighbour next door who came out to shout at us and No 2 was lovely but garden was too small, something that they never show in the details online.

So now we are on the same page but just need to find something we like and can afford

Go and view everything in your price range that has something appealing to at least one of you - you never know what you will fall in love with - in Escape to the Country, people regularly fall in love with the mystery house, and it is by definition, a house which they would never have looked at except for the programme.

With the garden, see if you can check out the satellite view of the house on google maps and street view as well, this should give you an idea of garden size/position.
And yy to viewing everything, we've just fallen for a house we'd seen on rightmove but dismissed for a couple of reasons. Only went to see it out of desperation in the end because nothing else was coming on.