Shall I buy this house?

[LondonHousingAdventure]

Name changed as I've sought opinions in real life and don't want to be linked to previous posts.

Anyway, this is the house:

www.rightmove.co.uk/s6p/80172998

I think it's okay. I don't have much of an imagination so struggling to think what I'd do with it.

The smaller bedroom should be a bathroom. The weird bathroom should go back to being the kitchen. I don't understand how that bath is meant to be used.

I wouldn't want to live in a terrace house because of the risk of noisy neighbours either side (bad experience living in a flat).

Nor would I want to live in a house with a downstairs bathroom (I have 2 children under 2), and as oddly shaped as that, so no, I wouldn't buy this house.

Don't buy it out of desperation (speaking from bitter experience). Keep looking for something which suits your family and fits within your budget.

titchy

Not bad, but our budget is £325

Meyamoo

Don't buy it out of desperation (speaking from bitter experience). Keep looking for something which suits your family and fits within your budget.

We've been looking since last year. Tenancy renewal is coming up and I'm just so fatigued looking at houses I don't like which don't cost that much in the grand scheme of things but are still the most that we can afford.

We have a deposit but it's the salary multiplier thing that's holding us back.

Wish I'd made different career choices now.

Lemonsquinky

The smaller bedroom should be a bathroom. The weird bathroom should go back to being the kitchen. I don't understand how that bath is meant to be used.

I agree. I wonder if it used to be a walk in shower?

If something's on at £345 it's not over budget You don't pay the asking price.

I'm not knowledgeable about the southern property market, but when a house falls through, I think you have to see it as an opportunity to get something better. When this happened to us, we got a much better house in the end, I think you would feel dreadful if you settle for less.

Personally the lounge (including dining area) looks really cramped and it looks quite a miserable house.

I'd keep looking and cast your net a bit wider. Sometimes 'Location, Location' isn't worth it if you can't get a place you'd really like.

If your budget is 325k then definitely look at stuff around the 340-350 mark.

titchy

Do you think they'd be likely to drop by £20k?

I've had estate agents refuse to show me a property with a guide price of £325-350 before because I said that 325 was our top budget.

Yes of course!

Don't discuss your top budget with estate agents, they work for the sellers not the buyers. Look at houses above budget and make offers. Especially houses which have been listed for some time. You never know how desperate a seller is due to job move, divorce, etc. But also a drop from 345 to 325 is pretty standard depending on local market.

But don't offer 325 straight away, maybe 315 and work up to 325.

*NicoAndTheNiners"

Don't discuss your top budget with estate agents

Sorry to sound stupid, but what am I supposed to say to them when they call asking about our budgets etc? Every single one asks when I request to view a house.

Tell them your looking for around the £325 to £350 Mark but could stretch to more LondonHousingAdventure for the right property. It's what we done.

We found a fixer upper in Essex for £290k but our budget was only £260k, ended up getting it for £250k!

I bought my desperation property (a flat) after looking for over a year. Ended up selling it at auction at a loss just to get rid of it because it was cheap in the first place for a good reason.

I wholeheartedly agree with your DH about only looking at freehold, my leasehold was a nightmare purchase.

I can't remember if you said you've seen this property yet @LondonHousingAdventure. Did you dislike it looking round, or are you going by the Rightmove listing?

Maybe you should have a look to get a feel for whether you could live with everything that's currently putting you off?

If they ask about your budget, tell them it depends on the house. You don't have to answer! Or lie, god knows they do it plenty.

Yes we've viewed it Meyamoo

Could you or DH get a second job for a while to boost what you could afford?

Currently working 54 hours a week so we could gry the mortgage we wanted. Hard but with it fir what we want

WBWIFE

Potentially, but he doesn't want to take on any more debt than necessary. He wants a house for under 300k. Trying to make him understand that we don't get a shed for that in London is very frustrating.

It might be helpful to list what you like/don’t like in specific properties (anyone’s), and what you need.

It's quite expensive for what it is - which may be why it's been on the market for two months. In 2014 it sold for 278k - and I'm not sure that it'll be worth much more than 300k.

The bath would be impossible with children imo. I remember something similar on a Sarah Beeny programme years ago and I couldn't see how it would work. Maybe it would but unless the bathroom could be reconfigured it would rule it out for me.

No

It wouldn't be for me. I don't know the area do I don't know if the price/potential to improve is good or not. From a streetview perspective the road looks a bit bleak and soulless.

cakeandchampagne

It's mainly size that I tend to dislike. I like the garden.

I grew up with a separate dining and living room so I hate the cramped set up with nowhere to put a proper table or have people over. We rent a tiny one bed flat at the moment and most things we look at don't feel like much of an improvement on our current set up. It's really demoralising.

In this particular house it's also the bathroom that's a problem for me. DP thinks it's fine. I would want to extend or move it upstairs, but then we would lose a bedroom. I said how would I get in or out of it 8-9 months pregnant, I could slip etc? He says just sit on the edge of the bath and swing round into it!

Tbh DP would live anywhere in anything. He almost never dislikes properties and I suspect he thinks I'm being difficult.

I'm currently on the Sims trying to build and decorate the house and see what we could do with it the answer seems to be "not much", although we could make one of the bedrooms bigger by moving the door to the master bedroom and extending the left bedroom into the space where the hallway and built in wardrobe currently is.

MyFamilyAndOtherAnimals1

The EA said that it has already dropped in price, I think it was on for £350 before? Absolute madness for the size and location. Local amenities are basically the estate agent, charity shops and betting shops - although it is just 15-20 minutes by bus to Surbiton and 30 minutes to Kingston...