Which house? Going round in circles .. Help!

[mamatime]

Hi there - I would appreciate ANY advice please as we need to offer on a house this week. We sold our last house due to noise and are now living in a pretty dismal rental in an area we don't like & need to move ASAP. This will be our third house purchase in five years and my Mum is living with us.

We've found two houses in the town we like.

1st House

• Catchment to one of the best primary schools in the country (it's a big school, & we've heard negative things such as it's just results driven, however we really like the look of it after visiting it)
• Big & modern (Mum could use utility as a little kitchen)
• BUT it's on a busy cut-through road, & there is construction going on all around the house (the road is bungalows being demolished and converted)
• Next door (1 metre away - walls practically touching) is waiting for planning permission to be demolished and rebuilt.

2nd House

• Village setting & much quieter
• Smaller, but also modern (sharing a kitchen with Mum)
• Small village school which is a OFSTED rated good school, but I don't think it will suit my LO as much as the bigger school.
• 13 houses might be built 100 metres away at end of garden, but neighbours think it won't happen (it's behind trees - so won't spoil view).

SO, the question is...Do we move to a noisy house on a road, with potential contraction to get our LO into a brilliant school? I don't like noise, but I'm willing to put up with it for the sake of our daughter's education. She is very bright and I think the opportunities / challenges would be much better there. OR do we move to the quieter house, send her to a small village school which I think is OK but felt quite chaotic and cramped (though has good results and happy pupils) and be a little bit more on top of each other in the house?

Sadly both are going to be temporary as no room to build an annexe for Mum. But we have to move and settle now, even if it's just for a year. This house hunting has to stop as the stress is affecting all of us! My OH feels like he's going to have a heart attack and my 3 1/2 year old hasn't started nursery yet as we're not able to settle.

Thanks for reading - sorry it's so long and thanks in advance for any help!

with all of the money you are pissing away in legal fees, estate agents and stamp duty you could privately educate your DD and live where you liked......both options sound dreadful and a bit desperate - you are just adding the certainty of noisy road and building noise/disruption to the uncertainty of more noisy neighbors.

Your MH sounds at risk - I would focus on this.

Many people live in rented property there whole life, surely you can manage a few months until the right property comes along?

Personally I wouldn't go through all the upheaval and expense of buying a house for just a year.
Neither house sounds right for different reasons. House 1 doesn't guarantee you a place in the school you want then it would be a wasted move anyway.
If you can't rent or stay put maybe scrap both areas/schools and start again. Find a different area altogether with a good school.
One of my children went to an 'outstanding' school that was results driven and it was miserable. Everyone wanted their child to get in, then couldn't wait to get them out again. Why not view a few different schools, you might find an area you haven't considered.