Would you live in a small house for a nicer area?

[Faith50]

Dh and I are desperate to move with very little equity. We would be looking at a tiny three bed (1000 square foot max) but in a much nicer environment. No fly tipping, over stuffed bins, streets full of litter and graffiti. My anxiety is heightened when I return home each day.

I’d pick a better area over everything else. Having access to the right amenities/good commute/etc is really important to us, and I think more and more people are thinking about property this way.

That’s also why I think lifestyle-based tools like SearchSmartly are the future of property search, because they make it really easy to find the “right area” based on the things that matter most to you.

Yes, I did. I bought a smaller house than planned because it was in the perfect location. A far nicer area than I was looking in. I've never regretted it

We live in a crap area precisely because we could afford a better house.

Yes there is graffiti and fly tipping and it's scruffy. But we have a beautiful garden overlooking woods, we can walk everywhere and our neighbours are lovely.

And we have three bedrooms which we could never afford in a nicer area.

So for me it's worth it.

I've lived in both small flats and large family size houses fairly recently. I am about to move back into a small flat (divorcing, so it's necessary) but I would choose nicer area over bigger house everytime.

The bigger houses have never made me as happy as the nicer surroundings have. More space just encourages you to accumulate crap (then forget where you put it!)

Definitely area over house size for me. I've lived in small houses in good areas and larger ones in less good areas, fortunately none in a truly grotty area. I've always been happier in my home when living in the nicer places.

Betty777 A nicer area would certainly bring down my anxiety levels. The fly tipping, refuse sacks outside shops, dog shit, glass bottles and graffiti in town depress me no end.

We have been trying to move for five or six years. I was close to a breakdown when no-one wanted to buy our home. I resigned myself to the fact that we would be stuck here forever which put me into a deep depression.

Depends on the relative costs of the houses and if it makes financial sense. FWIW we have a big ish 2100sq ft house in an ok area. If we wanted the same size house in the "naice" postcode two miles away, wed need to find another £400-500k!!

minesdecaff In my opinion, 2100 square foot is big. Our current home is under 800 square foot.

AgeLikeWine We’re planning on moving back to East mids. Definitely area over property size for us. There is a very nice village we have our eye on but nothing hardly ever comes up for sale. It did last year but we weren’t ready to proceed. Definitely all about location though.