Small, immaculate house or fixer upper?

[Mingmoo]

We're a family of four in London, living in rented accommodation after selling our last property. We want to stay in a very specific area for work and school reasons. Our budget would currently get us a small ex-council house that has been very nicely extended and looked after but has two decent bedrooms and one small one. Doing the loft would be very expensive/difficult (which I think is why they are moving) - the design of the houses means that the ceilings have to be lowered to convert the lofts, so it's a huge job and very expensive, and the space you get is not huge.

Alternatively we could afford a bigger house with loads of potential but that is a total wreck and would need everything doing to it. I've been in the situation of living somewhere I couldn't afford to do up and it was grim so I don't want to be in that situation again but I think we'd be able to stay there forever. Option one feels safer as we would know what our mortgage and expenses were going to be up front but I'm worried that my DC (8 and 10) are about to become large teenagers and what works for us this year won't in three or four years time, plus there's literally no scope to change anything about how the house is and one of the DC will get a tiny box bedroom. We are all on top of one another in our rented flat so I can see space becoming an issue.

Because we're renting we wouldn't have to move into the wreck as it is; we could afford to put in a new IKEA type kitchen and bathroom without extending, do the heating and electrics and redecorate. The three bedrooms are more even in size and it's a nicer house with a bigger garden. It is, however, more expensive, and would cost more to fix up over time.

DH loves the wreck of a house, but would be happy with the smaller one. He is not the best at looking ahead though; I'm the forward planner...

Or we could just wait and hope prices come down so we can buy something else, I suppose. Does anyone have any experience of this? Regrets? Crystal ball?

No question at all. Buy the wreck. I have only ever bought wrecks (currently doing one up at the moment), and have never, ever regretted it.

Oooh I love a fixer upper. I'd buy the wreck, it sounds like you can afford to do all the important bits relatively quickly!

Wait for another year. Recession is coming and London property prices are about to dip I think. After that, look for a doer upper.

Buy the wreck. And don’t wait a year, there is a high chance we are through the dip and in a year you might end up not able to afford either in that bracket

I couldn’t buy a wreck, I don’t have the mental
Strength to deal with work men. Even hiring a handy man to regrout the bathroom sends my anxiety sky high.
How small is the small room on option 1- how many rooms downstairs?

I’d go for the wreck for the long term plan. The unfairness Of the tiny bedroom could cause big issues in the future. Being able to put in the kitchen and bathroom and decorate etc before hand means you don’t have to bear the worst part of it being a wreck. Feels like a no brainer to me- also means if you’re there longer term you don’t need to worry about a dip in the market. But I’d worry about buying the small one and having a big housing dip and then you deciding you HAD to have more space in 4 years time. You can’t add value to the small one, you can to the wreck...

Thank you, this is really helpful! I don't really want to wait if we can afford to do what we need to now. I think if we seem to overpay now it will even out over ten+ years of house price changes anyway. We don't want to move again for a good while, life permitting.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

I couldn’t buy a wreck, I don’t have the mental Strength to deal with work men. Even hiring a handy man to regrout the bathroom sends my anxiety sky high. How small is the small room on option 1- how many rooms downstairs?

I'm not a huge fan of getting workmen in either but I suppose with a wreck you know what you're getting/not getting.

Option 1 is open-plan downstairs apart from a tiny utility room and a downstairs loo and the small bedroom is 7 x 7. Other DC's bedroom would be 10 x 11.

Many years ago, my husband and I came very close to buying a wreck, but decided against it. We knew the people who did buy it, and it turned out to be an absolute nightmare money pit. The repairs needed ending up being far more extensive than even the survey had indicated. I have always been so glad we passed on that house.

@Aquamarine1029

Many years ago, my husband and I came very close to buying a wreck, but decided against it. We knew the people who did buy it, and it turned out to be an absolute nightmare money pit. The repairs needed ending up being far more extensive than even the survey had indicated. I have always been so glad we passed on that house.

This is my nightmare.

Set against that it's one in a terrace where almost all the houses have been renovated to a very good standard and we know people who live there so I've a good idea of how they were built originally and what is possible. We almost bought the house next door to it a few years ago but bought a different house that looked as if it needed no work. (As it turned out it was one of those properties where lots had been done, but done badly, and we had paid much more for it so we couldn't afford to fix everything. In the end we lived in it for five years, hating it, and sold it on almost unchanged but having fixed some of the non-glamorous invisible issues. It was very frustrating. Houses of that size in this area that are properly renovated are way out of our budget, so we're going to be compromising on something.

Definitely get the doer upper! You will add value and not pay for someone else's choice in decor. Plus if it's bigger it's a no brainer imo