It's a Rightmove one.. help needed

[maxandmaxine]

Critique this please ! Would you buy this??

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-63486776.html

Sorry, just read you're looking for a home.

Oh notamammy you totally explained it! Honestly I wouldn't have even bothered looking further at this house the floor plan confused me so much lol.

Definitely a home to move into ASAP.

There was thoughts of developing it into 2 flats which might be what the floor plan is showing you.

Ex council is what a lot of Cambridge property is. There's not much under £400,000 which is the absolute budget.

All that furniture has been removed thank god (it looks so cluttered ).

There's Also a side passage through to the garden. Loft is clean and ready to be developed with a nice ladder too :)

Sorry, missed the update that you were the buyer not the seller.
Not really any advice, but if that house got PP for an extension, are you ok with houses either side having the same?
Also, if you are planning on doing the extension, are you aware of the party wall act and how that would affect you?
Are you happy with the water pipes coming down the middle of the kitchen to the washing machine?
The shared pathway with next year would give me serious pause for thought as well.

Sorry to be a debbie-downer, just trying to think of things you may not have thought of.

Although after seeing massive 4 bed houses back in my hometown going for €75k earlier tonight, this served as a nice reminder that the NE is really much more affordable than other parts.

Nothing wrong with ex LA if the area is ok , council housing stock was generally very well built and well proportioned with good gardens , the same can't be said of many new builds .

Also - giggle at Trumpington. No beans needed there!! ischildish

Not a downer , I want to
Hear all this stuff before I commit to a purchase!!

It's allot of money for a council house!

I hate it, if you like it go ahead.

Sorry to impress the point again but think about the garden. Large gardens can seem very appealing, especially when you're looking for a family home but unless you are very enthusiastic about your outdoor space or want to pay someone, that garden could well become a real chore. If I'm being brutally honest as a buyer, that garden is not attractive enough to me, to merit the toil or expense. I'd rather a smaller, prettier garden.
If you want an allotment, absolutely buy it. Otherwise you will never use that space at the back, away from the house.

The garden is a bit huge I know what you mean, my partner is thinking to pave over some of it and make it into a kind of BBQ patio area. Otherwise it is gigantic, only
Have 1 young DS right now!

But you really want the BBQ action close to the house...save you traipsing up and down for stuff. Your son won't want to be down there on his own and realistically, what will you do up there, if not tending veg beds or staging a festival?
OTOH it would accommodate your mum, which is a massive bonus.

Id love that garden! I'd have loads of veg beds, big shed, greenhouse, cut flower bed, big trampoline for the kids, area at the bottom for the kids to make a den. Fab. House looks pretty standard, got potential to improve. I'd buy it.

Unless there's others that look the same it reminds me of a house from nightmare neighbours. Cannot think of which episode. The houses opposite where different to that side, maybe bungalows.

Wait... £400k??
I have a mid terrace ex council house (which is MUCH nicer. Cost £72k last year.
Move up north- you could have a detached farmhouse with land for that money!

£400k is v normal for 3 beds in that area!
Looks nice and bright.
At least all that garden means you could extend without worry.

Horrible house, cramped and will he expensive to redecorate, replace bathroom and kitchen etc.

Garden is too long and narrow.

as a buyer, my main reservations would be overpaying, and the risk of adversarial party wall neighbours. Why sell it with PP rather than doing the work - did they fall out with the neighbours over it? There are other "innocent" explanations, eg it's a probate sale, but I would not consider putting in an offer until I had spoken to both sets of neighbours and was confident that they were onside. Substantial building work in a terrace has huge potential to piss them off - I remember our loft actually interconnected with our neighbour's in our semi so no sound insulation up there at all.

Grass cutting can be a big commitment in a long garden and we (ie DH, who does the mowing) have rejected a house for that. Other options, such as paving and artificial grass, are too expensive to do more than a few metres.

You might be paying a premium for the planning permission which would be a waste of money if you're not going to use it.

But if you like it then you should make an offer and see what happens. Good luck.

What many mumsetters don't realise is that this is a cheap house! £400k sounds a huge amount if you're from the north of England, but like it or loath it, if you happen to live in Cambridge or London it's basically rock bottom for a 3 bed with a garden. Once you've got over that and nah snobbery of it being ex-council, I'd say if you're happy with the area (I don't know Cambridge apart from that the property prices are similar to where I live in London) then go ahead. It's bright, well proportioned, the kitchen looks ok, there's potential to extend or even just knock the kitchen into the dining room if that's what you want.
And that garden - wow! I'm already planning a play area with trampoline and a summerhouse at the very bottom, then a veg patch and a little orchard of fruit trees which will visually break up the length, then the bit nearest to the house can be the posh bit for entertaining - with patio, BBQ and nice plants.

How old is your DS? the nearest secondary schools don't look that great on paper but the reality maybe different (Ofsted is not everything!) unless you're religious or going private ......

I like the big garden as gives flexibility for extending and also having an orchard keeping chickens etc....however if you are buying thinking to extend/do loft Cambridge is an expensive place so you could be looking 50kish for each bit

DS is 16 months at the moment.
Cannot move from the area due to contact with DS father and my mum likes the area too much too. I know it's expensive , but there's not much choice unfortunately.

I don't understand the obsession with redecorating a bathroom and kitchen which are perfectly serviceable and look actually perfectly fine !

People are such ugly / ex-LA house snobs!

So I just bought a house that looks VERY much like yours in terms of layout and even down to the fugly plastic air vents and surface plug sockets (see photo 7). Actually the layout is identical - I even have the same wardrobe over stair-bulkhead in the single bedroom. Also have the off centre light (see photo 9) - why, why didn't they put the lights in the centre of the rooms?? I don't have that kind of a garden tho unfort.

Anyway. Mine was a 3 bed, in budget, in the area (London) I wanted to live. Seems like you kinda have the same requirements... just need to tick some boxes and you can't afford a beautiful Edwardian/Victorian period property ;-)

Positives I can see from your link:

• Good size 3 bed
• Decor and kitchen/bathroom look fine to me - you could move straight in
• Amazing garden - has so SO much potential and will be fab for your DS to play in. I grew up with a big garden and it was the BEST.
• Not overlooked
• Parking
• Access to back garden both from the passage and also looks like you can get in from the end of the garden
• Great potential for loft or rear extension if you need in the future (high roof)
• high ceilings as compared to modern builds so feels spacious (although not as good a period)

Things to watch with this house:

• High likelihood it could do with a rewire - get an electrical survey. You can see it has surface electrics in places (kitchen has trunking on show) and the plug sockets are big and boxy not chased in.
• Is it a shared water supply or separate

-What is the dealio with the access passage (yours/shared)? Looks shared. Check access etc carefully.

• Can't see the passage in the photo of the back of the house? Also the back extension (photo 12) is not of floor plan?
• Front boundary not especially defined and a bit ugly but whatever, you won't have to look at it!
• Looks like next door did their dormer RIGHT up to the roof boundary - means yours won;t be able to do do that.
• Schools I don't know about.
• lots of fenses to maintain as you woudl expect fro ma huge garden - check on condition and who is responsible for what.

If it is in budget and you get a nice feel from it, go for it.

Oh, a new, smarter front door would do wonders for the look of the house. If you ever had the money for non-essentials, painting the render grey rather than yellow and getting a nice dark blue or black front door would really lift the place.