Is it really all about location??

[housequery]

To give some context, our 4 bed detached in a not so great area (bypass runs behind the house) has been valued at £775k. We saw a house today in our perfect location (2miles down the road) which is 300sqft smaller but is £865k. Am I missing something? Is "location, location, location" really the main search criteria? I want to move but it's depressing me how unaffordable it is.

Or, you could look at it the other way in that you were able to afford your current, larger home when you bought it, because of it's location.

Out house is like that. MUCH bigger than everything else we looked at because of things that would put some people off. You just need to be patient until someone else comes along (like you did when you bought) for whom the size of the house if more important than where it is.

For me, yes.

If our house had been half the price 3 miles up the road, we wouldn’t have bought it.

I agree with first poster. We could only afford our house because of its location. It’s detached with massive gardens and also near a bypass. If it wasn’t for the bypass it wouldn’t have been within our budget

Horses for courses. Our current house was bought purely for the location in a desirable village. We have bought previously a huge house in a less than desirable location due to its proportions and our needs rather than its locality. There is a buyer there somewhere who will compromise on all sorts of things.

Yep in our area, the same size/ style of house a couple of streets away is an additional £100k simply because it’s in the catchment of an outstanding school. There is no other difference. It’s silly really because all the other schools surrounding it are also very good they just don’t have the outstanding label. It could all change at the next Ofsted inspection.

Agree, location is the most important thing. We downsized from a lovely family home in a sought after location to a perfectly nice house in a less desirable but still perfectly OK neighbourhood and hated it. We moved again to a much smaller fixer-upper in a lovely village just up the road from where we originally downsized from. A road (which is a lot busier than we realised) goes past our garden which is the compromise we made to be here, as well as a smaller house, so we have paid more for less to be here and have no regrets.

Yes.

5 houses down from me commands a 20% premium for top school catchment

Similar houses to mine on a quiet road and in the top school catchment are crazy money 450k vs 800k but they’re pretty much the same house.

The ones of a similar style to mine but overlooking the local lake on a main road same road as mine but much further down are almost a million

So in that instance the views far outweigh the road.

So it’s not all about location,location but it sometimes about character and size but location has the biggest percentage increase on houses.

Why else are 5 stories cream of the crop Georgian town houses 15- 50 million in London when you can buy an identical one in every single way for 2-5 million in Bath/Clifton Bristol

Always. Each time I have moved, I have done drive-bys on loads of houses but only arranged to see one or two inside. My compromise is the other way around - my house is fugly (but I can fix that) - but location perfect (for me).

No. I could have bought a one bedroom flat with garden (or poky two bedroom flat without) in a trendy area of London. Moved out a zone and got a three bedroom house with a huge garden. Yes there are fewer places to go out, but I’m still only half an hour door to door to central London. I’m so glad I chose the less “naice” area for the better house!

Yes, I think things like bypasses, train tracks etc running behind a house will knock money off.

I suspect our house, at the high street end of our road, will be worth a bit less than same sized ones at the quieter end. And I know similar-sized houses to ours in a road that are near a motorway overpass and a tube line definitely go for about 100k less than where we are.

Yes. Every time (in my view). We could have got a much bigger house for the same price a mile down the road but the location (school catchment / amenities etc) would have been a massive compromise.

And I don't really get why it's a surprise that you have to pay a premium to live in the better location?

My flat is £50k cheaper being on the main road, on the junction, than it would be if it was the next house along, but on the side street.

Yes I think. There's a town (I'm also in a town) equal distance from my work where we could buy a 4 bed for the same as our tiny little terrace. But I would choose our town every time.

Absolutely. We are in a much smaller house than we intended, the house we were going to get was only 20 miles away but then decided the village we were already renting in had a better school, transport links etc so bought here instead, our house is probably at least 30% cheaper, if not more, where we had been looking.

So, to sum it - it depends on everyone's circumstances. If I were buying now (my dc are grown, youngest is in 6th form) then catchment of schools wouldn't be the big influence it is when you have little ones. If I were retiring then being within walking distance of the station for the daily commute becomes less important. If I had 5 dc, but the dc were already in the schools of choice, then size of house would be more important. If I were one of the seemingly many MNers who can't stand any neighbours, then detached tranquility would become more important.

Location is generally considered more important than condition of house as you can change the condition of house but not the location. You can often (not always) even increase the size of house with extension / garage conversion / loft room but not move the location. But every buyer has their own priorities. As you did, when you bought.

Yes. Our lovely house is cheaper than others as it backs onto a main road. Reality is it's not that busy and garden is larger than you'd expect but hidden round the side not overlooked at all. However we nearly didn't look due to location. We're raised up so people can't see in but I used to drive by thinking "gosh, that house has a tiny garden for house size and is too close to the road at the back". Dh convinced me to look and the layout is perfect and garden gorgeous. I can see how location would prevent people looking though.

Well you answered your own question in your post! You really want to move from location a to location b, even though it’s only a few miles away. So yes, location b is more desirable and therefore houses are more expensive. If location doesn’t matter, just stay where you are!