Which house?!

[catnipkitty]

Been house hunting for ages, not found anything, today we view 2 houses and like them both!. Both in areas we'd chosen and would be happy to live in.
House 1. Will need total refurb incl bathrooms, kitchens, carpets, walls, garden...but decent size garden and backs onto a beautiful heath. Pushing t limits of budget.

House 2. Similar size house, absolutely no work needed, beautiful decor, tiny garden, views of roads ( mostly quiet) and 80K cheaper!

WWYD?!

House 2!

I'd make an offer on house 1 seeing if I could get enough money off to get a new bathroom and kitchen. Many people will be put off by work so it will be harder to sell, therefore they should be open to offers.

Save your £80K for picnics on the heath.

And Id be honest with the estate agent and say that you also like a house that's 80k cheaper. Which is similar size and better condition.

What percentage is the 80k difference? Is it a 150k house and a 230k house or a 600k house and a 680k house?

thanks so far! House 1. is likely to go for asking price as houses in this area very rarely come available.

house 1 but try to negotiate

I'd go for house 2. How long will you spend looking at your view? How tiny is tiny? I've got an enormous garden and it is so much work. Avoiding work doing up a house and saving money sounds like a no brainer to me.

i have a view and i look at it every chance i get. i think i will never get tired of that view.

Ah, well if the view is important to you, that changes things. You can never add a view, can you? It's one of DH's criteria. I'm happy enough with very close proximity to the views (Dartmoor, in our case).

House 1 - we had fab countryside views at our last house that we never tired of (but did tire of view of busy road to front!) - and whilst we couldn't replicate that at our village-on-the-edge-of-city house we bought last year, we do have views of fields from some windows and no bloody A-road which was important to us when deciding to buy.

I prefer a larger garden too - although three hours to mow our last lawn was a pita, so concede sometimes smaller is better - and personally would rather buy a project.

House 1. You can change a house but not the location. It also sounds like you could add a lot of value to it. Don't underestimate the costs of doing up a house though. However can you do it over time and can you do a lot of work yourselves? As a previous poster said do your best to get the price down.

Good luck!

is house 1 pushing limits of budget before or after refurb costs? If it is pushing it even before refurb costs then I would steer clear as it sounds as if you would have to struggle with a sub-standard house for too long. If House 1 is pushing the limits only after refurb costs then I would probably go for it as garden and views are important and cannot be changed later. If you are not going to be happy with the garden and views of House 2 then moving later to correct them will be expensive.

Then again, if you plan to move again within a few years anyway I may go for the easier option of House 2.

House 1. The location is the thing, you can slowly refurb and then have house 2 in the right location.

Thank you! Offer accepted on house 1 at 16K below asking price. Woo hoo!

Congratulations!

That's great news, well done