Dilemma! Same house on same street, £34k cheaper

[Parisah]

Hi all!
This scenario in the SE:
House A: decent enough interior, few steps away from amazing school, north facing garden, last sold 2016, chain free, further from train tracks, north facing garden.

House B: older interior but not awful, other end of road so further from school (but relatively close still), last sold 1998, not chain free, closer to train tracks (they are at the end of the road) south facing garden.

Both Victorian semis. House B is £34k cheaper.

Can house A be worth so much more, maybe because of train tracks?

If House A is so close to the school, imagine what a nightmare it might be with idiotic parking around drop off/pick up time (see many threads on here).

I'd have thought House B would be worth £34k more for that reason alone!

They might just have different reasons for selling, one seeing what they could get, one who needs to move quickly?

@TheRattleBag school is on adjacent road, so should be fine on that front..

It also depends on the frequency of trains. One every hour or so is fine. Ten per hour at high speed and freight mean the South facing garden is never used

Clearly you prefer A. Do first thing I think is to decide what a reasonable offer would be and pay it.

I fell in love with A equilvalent (although then fell out of love with the school I bought it for and send DD and DS to the other local school!) and truthfully probably ended up paying 20-25k more than perhaps I should have done (4 to 5% over the odds) but it was my house. The house I wanted and 10 years later I am very happy here.

Away from the train tracks!

It wouldn't bother me that much but my husband wouldn't buy anywhere too near train tracks.

You don't have to pay the full £34k though, you can negotiate (but if it's desirable, others might).

I would get the first house, you obviously like it better and unless 34k is double the amount or something, it's not that huge a difference.

How long is the street? One end or the other makes a huge difference in the street where I live. What are the prices of the two houses - what proportion of the price does £34,000 represent? 34k on a 200k house is a big hike on 600k not so much.

It's the school, surely? I'm not SE but I know little things like you mention in later posts can have an impact.

I’m not sure you are over paying, close to train tracks and a dated interior can have a substantial price differential.

You need to feel it as well - which one has the wow factor for you or neither ?

The premium is Probably for the school.

Catchments for London schools can be incredibly small. There’s a school near us where about 3/4 years ago the three houses immediately around the front entrance (the one on the left, one on the right, and one over the road) got places, and literally nobody else did. Every other place was taken by siblings. Acquaintances lived two doors away from the school and had to home educate for 6 months while waiting for a place to come up.

Tbh for the extra closeness of the school and the generally nicer inside, I’d pay the extra.

I had a railway line at the back of a house years ago - for the first few nights I woke up every time a train went past then it just becomes background noise that you don’t notice. So I wouldn’t worry too much about that. A north facing garden would be a bigger issue for me - ours is nw facing and we get full sun from mid-day onwards in the summer but not at all from about mid Oct to mid March. It’s a bit crap.

Just because they’re asking for £34k more doesn’t mean they’ll get it.

Maybe they were advised to put it on lower but they insisted on £34k more? Perhaps the agents agreed for a short time.

House prices on the SE are metal anyway so it’s probably worth £500k so in that situation the £34k really isn’t significant

The close proximity to the train line will be the factor, not, believe it or not, the north facing garden, although personally I wouldn't purchase a property lacking a south facing garden, but that is not the critical factor pushing the price down. Definitely the train line.

Have you double checked how the distance criteria works?

It's often as the crow flies to x point in the school...

Also the school catchment and the train tracks probably make it about £34k more desirable and that’s the justification

@Crockof

Are they in same school catchment? And if they are what was the last place offered in catchment. Where I live catchment children don't get into the school if they live on the edge of catchment. Does it need structural work?

I would never buy a North facing garden, I think south facing is worth 34k!

North facing garden is a chilly no no. Barely anything will grow. East West facing in the best... Houses in our street can vary by £100k plus or more {similar Victorian houses} according as to what has been done or not.

Ignore me, I totally misread your post. Need coffee

That’s my hunch too @SurreyHillsGirl - also I’m edging towards a because both seller and us are chain free. We’ve found sellers in a chain find it hard to buy in this ridiculously expensive market.

don't look at school catchment, find out where the last place offered was. Fir example, last place offered was 0.5 mile from school. That may be the difference betweent he top and bottom of the street.

How long has each house been on the market?

Go for A. You won't regret it if it the house you want.

Maybe different postcodes?

@bookgirl1982 days! Both will sell, 100% and probs for asking. So I have to get a wriggle on :)

A sounds like house for you.