House or location?

[blinkineckmum]

House 1 - 4 bed semi. No kerb appeal. Old cottage extended in the 80s. Massive garden. Double detached garage. Dh can walk kids to school and still cycle to work in time. Suburbia walking distance to our preferred town. 30 min commute for me.

House 2: beautiful Edwardian 4 bed semi in beautiful conditon on a main road. Slightly bigger house. In centre of a town I like but dh less so. 20 min commute for both of us. Good garden but no garage.

Wwyd?

@MeMeMeow85 back to front looks amazing but I can just see the ££££

Can we see links? My gut says 1. You can change a house internally.

House 1 because quality of life trumps original features for me.

Do they cost the same?

On what you've written I'd say House 1.
Go for the easier to live with location.
Garage is so useful - believe me! We've knocked ours down and need to build two sheds to house "stuff" in - royal pain in the arse.
Also you can add to a blank canvas - we've renovated ours to our taste and now I bloody love it (was a dreary falling down heap to begin with complete with bucket in the kitchen to collect rain water).

And traffic outside the house will be a nightmare at either end of the day. We live between a primary and a secondary and there are far more cars for the secondary than the primary (the catchment for primary is smaller and most people walk too and fro).

Would be interested in a link.

House 1 www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-66257656.html

House 2
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-56025135.html

Location every time. It took me years of dithering to get my head round this. Our first house purchase was a bèautiful Victorian house in a very rough area with terrible schools. It took us a long time to get to smaller less beautiful house in fantastic area with great schools. I wish someone had had a word with me!

House one is more practical.

Having lived next to a main road we have both sworn never to do it again, buthaving said that house two is lovely.

How busy is the road? I'd agree at certain times of day, morning, lunch and school close it will be busier than normal. The blurb of the agent also states the hedge at thr front is to provide privacy, which indicates an issue there.

I have been to see them again and chosen to stick with House 1 due to the storage space and quiet road mainly, as well as schools and ability to have only one car. Oh, and the garden! You have all been very helpful. Thanks so much!

Rather than what you like about each ( because you obviously like quite a lot to want to compare them ) what do you dislike ? And how easy / impossible is that feature to change -
Kerb appeal is not a difficult change , cladding painting , render , drive way , adding a front porch , planting etc etc , where as scruffy neighbours / busy road / tiny plot are all very much out of your hands as far as change
Bare in mind that bad areas ( depending upon definition of bad ) can improve in time
Make yourself a list of pros and cons then see what you can live with

1
You can always refurb the house, but you can't "refurb" a location

Definitely house 1. I used to live on a quiet-ish main road but the traffic was still intrusive. I'd hate to live opposite a school as well, I currently have a high school a few streets away and the noise of the kids still carries over to us at lunchtime, my neighbour told me there also used to be lots of trouble with noise when the kids walked home after school until the new head teacher sorted it out somehow.

OMG House 2 is beautiful...

But no floorplan so hard to see how it works.

House 1 looks fab for a family. Lots of space. I woudl re-jig the internal layout downstairs tho. It would look a lot nicer outside if it was painted white and had grey windows. Garden is crazy good.

My thoughts exactly serbska. We are making the utility into a dining room and the dining room into a playroom.

I looked at the satellite view of House 2 and it looks really rubbish for a family - the only bit of real garden is right on that big main road. Can't kick a football around, constant traffic noise and fumes, can't have cats. I would not live in house 2 with children.

True. Although there is a park opposite (over the main road). I think we'll make great use out of House 1's garden.

Always location!!

Anyway, enjoy your new house 1 OP :-)

Thank you! Paid out for searches and valuation so I'm glad we're not pulling out. I have now stopped all alerts!

Good idea! I kept checking RM and was relieved that nothing better came on during the process but it was nerve wracking! Such a big decision isn't it. Quite stressful.

I agree. Signing up for a much bigger mortgage but we need the space so it's what we have to do!

House 2 apart from being on "main road". How main is that road?

Garage doesn't matter (no one puts cars there now) you could put shed in garden.

You actually haven't compared like with like as we have no idea about schooling distances in no 2 house.

Oh! I've just seen the links. I actually much prefer option 1 now. Much more practical and you can do loads to the front. Lovely. I actually don't like number 2 much at all.

Thank you Lexer

So much privacy with number 1. I love it.

House 2 doesn't seem to have a proper back garden. Its a no brainer with DC. House 1 every time. House 2 is beautiful, but house 1 wins on every other level.