Which would you choose?

[Solina]

We have been looking to buy our first house for about 2 months. Quite early on we saw a house we liked and made an offer which the vendors rejected as they had a better offer. They have now gotten in touch as their buyer pulled out and they don't want to lose out on the house they found.

This house is a decent size 3 bed semi with lots of parking and detached garage in a quiet road. The garden although a bit small backs onto some woods which we know wont get built on.

The problem is since we first saw it we have seen lots of other houses and gotten a better idea of what we like and are not as keen on this anymore, mostly due to smaller garden and the longer commute.

We saw a 3 bed semi online few days before the estate agent called that is beautiful and ticks a lot of boxes. Lots of character, big garden and near a lovely park. But it only has parking for one car and the on street parking would be an issue as a lot of people park on the road to go to the park. It looks like it has smaller bedrooms although there is more downstairs space including a downstairs toilet. It is also 40 - 50k more expensive than the other house meaning it would be the top end of our budget. We are waiting to go view this house over the weekend.

Both houses are in same area for schools but second house is easier to commute from with buses etc. Now my head says to go for the first one but I am not sure. What would you choose?

I think you need to see the second house before thinking much further about it.

Please post links 😀 How small is a small garden? Parking for us is important as we have two cars, autistic kids and don’t want to have to fight to get a space each night. How big a difference in commute?

You can't decide before you see it - then you really may have a better idea of what works for you. Let us know!

We went to see the first house again and did a drive by of the second one.

Decided to put in our original offer for the first one as the busy road is really putting us off and we want the extra parking. There is a lot more potential with the first one as we talked about changing the conservatory to an extension. The garden would be a decent size if we took down the garage which we don't really need as there is so much parking without it anyways.

Also a lot lower mortgage is very appealing. So now we wait to see if they accept it.

I don’t think you necessarily add value by removing a garage. Family houses should have garages because families like them for storage. Re site it maybe? You also know you have vendors who actually want to move with the first house.

If they don’t accept then you know they don’t really want to move but you might find the vendor will try and haggle a bit!

Well they have accepted! So we can finally move onto the next part