Wwyd move in ready or fixer upper?

[TiddleTaddleTat]

Two houses, and I'm torn!

1. Smart Victorian mid-terrace. Lovely features, well maintained. Small garden but adequate. No potential to extend up or out but no obvious work required. In catchment for my preferred schools, but would mean moving DD away from existing friends/school (10 mins drive). Area is perceived as very desirable. £265k.

1. Repossessed 1950s semi. Off road parking, detached garage, south facing but small garden. Existing small downstairs extension and partially boarded loft offering scope for large upstairs conversion. Needs new kitchen, walls moving downstairs, new floors, bathroom, installing downstairs utility. And probably more. Area is more buzzy, mainly small terraces, and not as expensive generally. Area is increasing in value rapidly. We've bid £225k.

We've sold our property to an investor with no chain and should be exchanging within the next month. It's owned outright so after all fees, stamp duty on a purchase etc we should have £216k in cash. Plan to get a mortgage for £60k ish in either scenario.

Have offered the above for both, cash for the repo (will have to scrape it together).

Any wisdom?

Does catchment give you certainty of getting in? Round here in recent years there are some schools where those on edge of catchment didn't get in, and then they were screwed because other local schools had filled up with their own in-catchment children... Nightmare but hopefully not common, and different areas do it differently.

So, wait a sec, your DH likes the idea of a doer upper but has no experience and is going to leave the dogsbody work to you and you have other priorities in your life ? No no no. No way. Absolutely not.

I think option 2 gives some problems. If you have to pay £220,000 for it but the ceiling is £280,000 - that’s not enough! This work is more than £60,000! What about heating, electrics and insulation? What else might come up on a structural survey? You may also be developing a house that’s too big for the neighbourhood. Some people don’t want the biggest house in a less desirable area. They have the money for a better area. You may find up and coming takes many years to come up fully and might never do so.

However if you love the idea of the bigger house and you can find more than £60,000 (the loft isn’t a habitable safe space as it stands) then go for it. At the moment prices are falling in many areas but not building costs due to inflation. Making money doesn’t seem likely.

Re the catchment area. The ctachment area of our local comprehensive (the best in the LA) is shrinking because so many new houses are being built nearer the school. There are families who have moved into our village to get their children into the truly excellent village primary school, which is a feeder school for the secondary school, but it will soon be out of catchment, and the parents are regretting moving here.

Oh, and y'know that cliche that you only regret the things you don't do? It absolutely does NOT apply to buying doer upper houses. We've done up a couple now but I will never regret that 5 years we spent living in a perfectly nice ready-done house, doing no DIY at all while the children were small.

Personally I always prefer ready houses to doer uppers. In the time/effort to be spent on refurb I could earn the money instead and pay the additional mortgage but much much lesser pain.

I always choose the doer upper as hate to pay for others style decisions.
It's so nice to put your own stamp on your home.

Also if you have more children would the smaller one rapidly become too small?

Thanks everyone, this has been helpful in getting my head straight. I'm still undecided and will have to talk it through with DH.

Re. School catchments, the primary and secondary options for house 1 are pretty secure so long as the catchment boundary does not change.

For option 2, quite a few in catchment children were refused a place at the secondary but the furthest was admitted was half a mile further away from the school than this house.

However, it's 5 years to secondary and I'm aware catchments can change as can school reputations. There is a new secondary that has been created to relieve the oversubscribed secondaries.

I'm really torn about whether I want to do work to a property. I think it would be very stressful and I really need to be prioritising my work. It's probably not sensible to take on a large project at this time. However, if we want to remain near to our friends in this area and have the better amenities of the area around house 2, we wont find a house as big in budget.

The third option is withdraw from both and wait until a house with less work becomes available in the area around house 2. However we've been looking for 6ish months and the housing stock is pretty poor, there will never be anything even half as nice come up as house 1.

Should add too that we are in rented currently so if we chose option 2, could live away from the house for the first few months while work was completed.

Oops got that wrong about catchments : option 1 house refused quite a lot of in catchment children this year, but the furthest away was about half a mile further from the school than this house.
Option 2 house catchment is secure unless boundaries change.

After your update house 2 with catchments, potential to do work etc, unless you would rather wait for another option.

"I think it would be very stressful "

I will be very stressful. I have done it once. Never again.

We have withdrawn from house 2 (doer upper) as this thread has helped me realise that now just isn't the time to take on a big project, and potentially not recoup our costs later on.

There's a third option which is not so different to house 1 but in the same area as house 2. It's much closer to the good schools. Smaller than we would like but ready to move in and only £230k. This might be the best option for us.

Appreciate everyone's thoughts - has been very helpful

Option one for me. I’d prefer a Victorian terrace over 1950s any time - and from what you’ve said it sounds like it’s in a nicer area. Plus the work that needs doing for option two sounds like a lot.

The thing is once you have a school place you can then move to the different area