How did you choose your house? Any compromises?

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A really open question I know! I’m house hunting and just can’t find anything that I like that I can afford. I have a small search area and everything seems to be such a compromise or hugely overpriced (there are some ones that have been listed a while that I like but can’t really afford!). Head or heart for these decisions?

I compromised on light, bedroom space smaller than ideal.
We were relocating to a new area and prioritised secondary catchment and all of us being able to walk to pubs and restaurants in 10 mins.

We've had to go with head for ours (hopefully exchanging soon).
Compromise was me having to drive and park at the station where as we were wanting to live within walking distance as we do now. In return we get a detached bungalow in a quiet cul de sac. We've had so much neighbour and noise problems over the last 10 years that we're hoping our mental well-being will improve as a result, and that we'll finally get decent sleep even if it does mean having to get up at 5am and costing more travel wise. Not what I thought we'd go for but hoping it works out

We had to compromise on parking. We wanted an older house with lots of character but in our price range that meant Edwardian so narrow street with no off street parking. But the house is exactly what we wanted and 200 yards away from an outstanding school with a minuscule catchment area.

I always go character rather than ease. A family trait. We may have had no central heating and only one plug in the sitting room, but by god, it was charming!

We compromised on size and prioritised location. We knew exactly where we wanted to be and I have no regrets about that, but we've only been here 2 years and want to upsize but want to live on the same estate so we are a little bit trapped as we'd need to sell to put in an offer on a house we liked. If I'm honest I wish we had stayed put and saved a big enough deposit to buy our forever home first (bought post kids) but I guess that's with hindsight as our income has jumped quite significantly and house prices haven't here, and it's always easy to have regrets about property with hindsight.

We prioritised location - stone's throw from town centre yet really quiet peaceful location and close to good schools, and old house with character and potential. However - house has lots of problems which will take quite a bit of money to sort out, parking situation isn't great! And a layout which would probably put many off..

Heart over head FOR SURE.

We worked out our priorities - location, garden size, number of bedrooms - and then looked within that bracket.

Don't go with head, go with heart (unless you're easily swayed by eg interior decor etc in which case ignore my advice!)

When you find the right house you just get a feeling about it. Same as with men and schools, IME!

I compromised with the kitchen, I hated it, it was too small and had a very low ceiling. The location was perfect for us. 7 years on we've been able to extend and I now have the kitchen of my dreams. We had the space to extend though, no children, so no catchment areas to worry about. Maybe do a list of pros and cons, it might help to clarify your concerns. Sounds simple but sometimes writing things down helps.

I had three main requirements: period property, walking distance to school, detached. I rejected the house I eventually bought because it was on a busy road. But most streets near the school are busy. It needed a lot of work but I realised the main living rooms were at the back overlooking the garden. The space was right, the distance to school was right. It is detached with a (now as I made it) in and out drive. And I can only hear traffic a bit when sitting in the garden. The same house further up the road at quieter end would have cost a lot more. So here we are!

I prioritised on looks (it's a 1970s style grey blerghhhh) for the location, plus you don't see the outside whilst you're sat inside.

We could have got a much larger house in the next town over, but we didn't want to live there. So we compromised on size. Ours is small but we can definitely fit another child in if we decide to have one more, if not, it's not too big for us three.
The garden is smaller than I'd like (and a really weird shape, so our dining room and son's bedroom overlook the neighbours garden) but we have a decent front garden to make up for it.

When we came to view the house it was horrible. Very, very, very old fashioned, the people who lived here before did everything DIY and botched jobs, it seemed like they had just used white emulsion to covered everything for years (including woodchip, skirting boards, doors, cabinets etc), they had weird, homemade built in wardrobes which were only about 4ft high, every door had detail attached around the corners, and one glass door had also had the glass painted with white emulsion.
It smelled awful (stale cigs), the carpets had no underlay and were threadbare and both gardens were massivly overgrown.

But we had 'the feeling'. The bones of the house were perfect. We've put an awful lot of time and effort into the house to get it where it is, and it's not there yet but much closer. We've also learned loads. I can now competently replace skirting boards and architrave, DH has learned all about gardening (never had one before). I've learned how to tile, DH learned how to skim a wall. We can both wallpaper in our sleep, and if you need any tips of removing 60+ years of woodchip and emulsion, we're your people.

So I'd say we also compromised on 'ease'. We could have got a slightly smaller new build for more or less the same, but we knew that this was our house.

We ended up compromising on cost when we couldn't find anything we could both agree on. Our budget ended up significantly more than our initial budget but we did hit every requirement and shouldn't need to move until the mortgage is paid off.

Looks and size. Plus a downstairs bathroom. I thought I'd made a terrible mistake when I finally moved in with the DC.

But. It's got a beautiful large garden in a wonderful village with a fantastic community vibe. We've been here 18 months and the negatives are still obviously there, but all 3 of us reguarly say how happy we are with where we live.

I'd love 20-30k to sort the issues out!

we compromised for now on a dining room the house we liked the most had a dining room, that fell through as the seller messed us around, we have now found a house that yes it needs doing up but has no dining room, i wouldnt mind but OH has his head set on one so next spring we will be doing a small extension to accomadate one and will redo the kitchen

I compromised on the kitchen. I wanted one I could put a dinner table in but I can't. It's only a stud wall between the dining room and kitchen can be easily rectified if we feel like it but it is a nice sized house with a big garden and driveway, which my partner wanted. The kitchen is still nice though

It was the first house we viewed together as a couple (we both had our own houses and were moving in together) we looked around and just fell in love with it.
We were very fortunate that we had a big budget so it had everything we wanted and we won't move for a long time (we have been here almost 12 years)

We viewed it early in our search just after we had sold. I discounted it as garden wasn't south facing, also in my least favourite area as no train station nearby, it's 2 mile drive.

Fast forward 5 weeks later and it's 2 weeks till we move out, it still hasn't sold which I was surprised at. We went back and I was surprised that I had ruled it out so quickly. Seemed much nicer than the first time (maybe after all the other shit houses I had seen 😂) Loved the idea of knocking down dining room wall to open up a kitchen diner (which we have done) also made 1 car drive way into 3 car driveway. House sits on a big plot with land at the aide, a big back garden and not close to the other houses.

I don't mind the area now, we both drive so not an issue. Garden gets sun all day till about 5pm and then the bottom corner gets it till about 7pm so not too much of a compromise.

You could always try a low offer with the ones that aren't selling. We got our house a few grand cheaper as the boiler was old (we replaced now) but weren't to go to the full home report value.

Thank you for all of your replies. It makes it easier to know others have compromised too!

We need a certain location for school catchment and that’s our main priority. After that it’s a choice between a larger detached house with a good sized garden in a less desirable part of the catchment but good value for money or a smaller detached with small garden backing onto a main A road but in a better area (my other thread has made me rule this out though due to noise and pollution!) or a crammed in new build style with a very overlooked garden and with limited parking in a more desirable location; a smaller terraced or semi house with limited parking and small garden in a more desirable location or very expensive detached and in the right location options that technically we could afford but the mortgage would be around 30% of our take home pay plus larger council tax.

Heart says grab one of the 30% ones but the head says be more sensible about money!

Priorities; location, parking and size
Compromised; lay out and amount of work to do. 4 years later still living on a building site!

I assume you'll be in this house for the next 15 years or more. Are you both in stable careers with hopes of promotion? If so, the 30% is what it will be now; in a few years it might be more like 25 or even 20 if there's a chance of advancement.

Then again, I have in the past bought a cheaper house entirely in cash somas to avoid a mortgage (living in a very, very cheap area).

@Nancydrawn we want this to be our last move until retirement or at all. Between us there is likely to be some promotion and salary increase but we are in the public sector so our pay increases have been very restricted for a long time now.

At the moment our mortgage is more like 15% of take home pay so to 30% is quite a jump. The lower value options in my pp are more like 20-25% of our take home pay.

We prioritised financial stability with our most recent move and compromised everything else except needing four bedrooms.

We left a house that we had completely renovated, with a lovely back garden, near our kids schools for a house with a paved back yard, 20 mins drive from schools which needed everything doing and was completely filthy.

I can afford now to be a SAHP which was crucial because two of my children need extra support due to disability.

Turns out we love the new area and the house. Wish we'd done it years ago!

It is something of both (head and heart).
There will be things that you have to have, and then other things you'd like to have. that's where the heart comes in. I've looked at houses that theoretically tick the boxes, but felt nothing, but then you walk into one house and your heart takes over.

I do agree with previous poster though, that I wouldn't be concerned about my mortgage being 30% of take home pay at all. (Depending on other factors like other debts / expenses and what the actual amounts are).

We didn’t think that we had compromised on anything... big mistake! The biggest mistake was not being able to walk anywhere. NEarest pub is 1 mile away and the road has no footpath so we can’t walk to the pub! NEarest town is 5 miles away. I can cope with driving to town but NOT to walking safely to a pub!