Location Location??............but bloody ugly house!

[lostlilly]

I am trying to buy a home for me and dd as a result of divorce.
I need to be in a certain area due to dd school access and my work access.
I have a limited budget so as a single parent I can afford-
A reasonable 3 bed house and garden in a not great area inhabited by a LOT of students and industrial buildings, despite not being a great area surprisingly expensive due to student lets but my dd can walk to school and I can access road network easy to get me to work.

OR
An ugly house with small garden or a very flat but in a much more favoured, quieter, family friendly residential area, easy for me to get to work, a bus journey for dd to get to school?

What really is more important?

Faggy house every time.
But you will have to replace everything!

Living next to students is awful - five eyars on, i get stressed if I hear nything appraoching the vaguest whiff of antosocial behaviour. its very raining.

Faggy house every time.
But you will have to replace everything!

Living next to students is awful - five eyars on, I get stressed if I hear anything appraoching the vaguest whiff of antisocial behaviour. its very draining.

Did they stand on the kitchen counter to take one of those photos? The flat looks very pokey...not sure i would want that over a house

Id put a cheeky offer in on the house.

Rip out carpets. Chuck away curtains. Get walk scrubbed by sugar soap and redecorate. The smell will go.

Don’t give up because of the smell. We ditched a urine soaked and flea infested carpet. Redecorated and the smell went in our stinky purchase. House over flat if you have kids.

Is the faggy house the one you posted a pic of.
Pebbledash looks worse because of the brown window frames.
Paint them cream, nice newly painted door in a paler colour. Tubs/shrubs in garden would improve greatly.

That house isn't too bad at all. We've recently bought a not very pretty bungalow - far less appealing than the one you've shown. I need to stop telling people that we live in one of the really ugly bungalows on the right.

I’d choose a house over a flat any day. Communal living can have lots of disadvantages- noise, neighbours not paying for shares repairs, parking etc etc.

Go for the house that makes your lives easier. I am a single parent. There are enough challenges when you're a single parent.

I would go with the house - zoflora the walls when you move in, take up all the carpets, and paint the outside white. Location would win for me and my DD if we were on our own every time. I have no problem being on my own (with the dog) as we are tucked down the bottom of a little cul de sac in a nice area. My friend lives on her own in a not as nice area in Birmingham and has sleepless nights worrying about the local area ☹️

Your offer needs to represent the true cost of the flat and the work which needs doing

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-61926046.html

Definitely the house. Our ugly pebbledashed house has a lovely buttery yellow render, now, and is so much prettier (and less leaky, as the pebbledash was impossible to seal around) than before.

Whatever you look at, visit the area evenings and weekends to get the feel of the place and hopefully notice any noisy or antisocial behaviour.

No comparison. I'd go for the house.

Go for the house.

My friends refurbed a 1960's mare in a lovely area. It's seriously stunning now. Feels so nice and they love living there. They moved from a gorgeous period property too (but not in the catchment fir the school they wanted).

Thanks Foster. I think it could be turned into a great house! Imagine Scandinavian style throughout

It is ugly. But. If you made the garden and grew climber it would be more handsome.

Area over niceness of house every time

Photo 9 of 9, is that the garage?

If so, check the access.

It appears from that photo that the garage is unused and someone's parked outside across the garage door and the access-gate.

The house is great. If you are totally refurbishing you will easily get rid of the smell. My house stank of smoke and was seriously nicotine stained. You would never know now.

Agree you can totally get rid of the smoke smells; I'd be more put off by them if it was a house that I liked internally (so wouldn't want to refurb) but as you'd be doing work anyway it's not a problem.

Friend moved in to a house which had been lived in by ex smokers for decades and it was horrific; after a week, wall stripping, painting, cleaning and new carpets you'd never have known.

I’d prefer the house to the flat. It looks offputting at the mo but you could give it curb appeal and make it prettier inside.

The flat looks more presentable but it’s dated- it all looks 15 years + old anyway.

The house would be quieter and you could create a cute outside space to enjoy.

The house is really not that bad. You can get it rendered anyway. Also the faggy smell can be got rid of. You're planning to gut the place anyway by the sounds of it. New carpets, kitchen, total redecoration etc and the smell will be gone

so confused.
I know in the long run the house is better but I didn't like the close, it was really quite scruffy for the area and it was a lot smaller inside than I thought.

I can afford quite a bit more but just absolutely nothing around in the area I need to be in