The 'It will do for now' house or hold out for the 'forever' home?

[CornerOfTheSky]

We are house hunting at the moment but have the time constraint of needing to move before secondary school applications next October, and also would be a bonus to move before the stamp duty holiday ends at the end of March.

We've been looking for a few months and in that time only one house has come up that fit most of our tick list (and we lost out on that house, boo). Our requirements are 5 bedrooms (or scope to eventually extend to create 5 beds), a decent sized garden, and within the school catchment.

We've just viewed a house that has the exact internal space that we need. One of the biggest we've viewed so far. I'm doubtful that as big a house will come up again before we need to move, as we've been keeping an eye on the market for a while. It's also very reasonably priced, not right at the top of our budget as a lot of the other houses have been (the reason for this is because it's location is less central to the high street, and it needs a lot of cosmetic work, but neither of those things bother us). We wouldn't get outbid on this house.

BUT....the garden isn't huge. It is average for the area, but there are some roads within school catchment with larger gardens. And it's north east facing, which we'd be OK with if it was a long garden, but it is 60 feet, which I'm not sure is long enough to get any afternoon / evening sun, which is one thing both me and my husband really wanted in our next house. We have four kids who love sports and a decent garden is really something we would value a lot, moving from our postage stamp London garden. I think we've had it in our heads that if we move a bit further out of London, one huge bonus would be a bigger, sunnier garden, so it's slightly disappointing to think about moving to a house that doesn't fulfil our garden size wishlist.

If the house was on the other side of the road (before you ask, there are no houses on the other side so that will never be an option), it would be completely perfect. It is a great 'It will do for now, and possibly forever' house, but part of me doesn't feel excited about it, because although the inside space is perfect for us, the outside space is not what we would have picked. Perhaps once living there we would find we actually love it, But perhaps we would always be wondering if we could have found something that ticked every single box.

In an ideal world, we would hold out for the exact right house that we could get really excited about, but obviously we have the time constraint of school applications, which is the more important priority at this stage, and the house fits what we need in every other way, which most of the houses haven't: only 2 so far, and we've seen around 15. Either the gardens were tiny, or we wouldn't have been able to create the number of bedrooms that we need. I've stalked the listings of previously sold houses in many of the roads within school catchment, so feel I have a pretty good idea of the housing stock, larger gardens do exist but are not super common, and the footprint of the house is one of the largest you can get in the area.

Would you hold out longer in case the forever home happens to crop up in the next few months? Or would you make a good offer on the reasonably priced house that ticks most of the boxes and means we can stop worrying about the imminent school application deadline?

Obviously you want the beta house possible, but there's a reasonable chance that it just won't happen in your timeframe.

So, would you be more gutted if a better house popped up once you'd bought this one, or if you didn't go for this one and ended up having to buy something much smaller? I'd probably let the answer to that make the decision for me.

I’d also consider renting for a finite period of time.
It will solve the school admissions issue and give you the chance to get what you want and possibly at a lower price in an couple of years time.

I’d put a very definitive period of time on it for renting....like 18 months or 2 years. If you’ve got something to sell, selling now before prices drop is probably a good move and you won’t find you’re priced out whilst not owning, but might in fact benefit.

It’s a flexible option but probably doesn’t feel like the easiest as it involves more moves (not pleasant) and a longer period of uncertainty about where you will be longer term. Depends if you can cope with those downsides for the potential of the forever house. But you have to be realistic about the forever house.....only go for this renting plan if there is a very good chance it will come up. If your forever house is just a pipe dream or only comes up every 10 years in this location, you’ll just have to settle.

So lots of things to weigh up really and you can either have not-perfect certainty, or uncertain possible perfection. Essentially those are your options.

@WombatChocolate it’s a hard call. I think just as good houses with a better aspect will crop up occasionally throughout the year. But it does make me nervous to take our money out of property for too long. I know prices are predicted to drop or plateau, but if they increase like they have done in the last year, we’d be priced out of the area entirely. Plus there’s the fact that there aren’t really any family sized rentals, it’s all 2 bed flats so I don’t think renting would be a possibility.

We've got a smaller than we wanted North facing garden, and it's fine. Again it was the compromise to get the house we wanted, we have 4 children too. Not gloomy at all, still plenty of sun but opportunities to sit outside in shade too, which has been great with the increasingly hot summers.
We have room to kick a ball about, have a trampoline etc, and maintenance of the garden is not onerous at all. We don't want to spend the weekends always weeding.
I think you should go for it. There's always a compromise to be made, and this one seems like a reasonable one to make. The perfect house might not ever materialise.

@TenShortStories that’s the question I keep asking myself and honestly I’m not sure. I think we wouldn’t end up somewhere loads smaller, but maybe a little bit smaller rooms all round, or a house that was a lot smaller but with the potential to extend and make it a decent living space for us. I think the thing that worries me the most is our timeframe so I’m keen to crack on with the best house that is available now rather than wait too long. I’ve wanted this move for ages, so I think I’d be kicking myself if we waited too long and missed the boat with our school deadline.

If you don't love it, could you rent in catchment? The house does sound pretty much ok though.. could you Iove it eventually?

Why don't you arrange a second viewing and have another long look at the garden? Think what you could do to it to improve it and make it work for your family.

I’d go for the house you’ve found. The footprint size is important with a large family, especially in winter. We went for a house that is not overlooked with what we wanted in the garden. We now have an extra child and the living areas are too small. There is nowhere to get peace except in the garden, and it’s too hot for that for a good chunk of the year. So a decent-ish garden with bigger internal is what I’d go for.

Hello!

My garden faces NNE - so a little more northerly than your potential one. It’s also only c.40 feet long (tho that’s a decent size for London where we are). I love gardening and having a family garden, and it was the issue I was most concerned about in buying this house. In fact, the garden is fabulous and I absolutely love it!

We’ve made A patio at the far end which is an absolute sun trap - sunny in the evenings even now. And there is only one part of the garden (right side nearest the house) that never gets any direct sun at all.

It was lovely this summer - we always had a cool place to be, and a sunny place if we wanted. We have had the back of the house slightly extended, and big crittal windows/door across the back and right hand side. This actually works brilliantly because it is very light but not too hot. Would be like a greenhouse if south facing.

I now genuinely don’t understand why people are concerned about north facing gardens!

It sounds like there are other reasons why this house may not be the one - but I promise NE facing gardens can really work.

Sorry, realised you’re also concerned about gloom at the back of the house. Hard to describe but our extension doesn’t go all the way across the back of the house - and the small wall into the back of the house (that’s basically east facing) is crittal glass, so we get loads of light into the rest of the kitchen.

We had an architect do the plans for us, with the brief of maximising light. What they did was really simple but it’s super light.

Sorry to bang on - basically saying it doesn’t have to be gloomy!

We had this dilemma when house hunting.

We opted for the house that met our needs and a compromise garden ( small patio albeit south facing). It is v near a lovely Victorian town park with playground etc which was a factor too. We had a baby and since had another.
Kids are now tweens and we’ve never regretted it.

@Mumofwho
Over looked garden means other people’s upstairs windows look down/ out over your property.

Some people may have trees/ bushes blocking the views or bigger detached house will be far enough apart to stop this .

Ours is over looked a bit on both sides but not on the back as its further back that the others and nobody lives behind us .

My garden is nowhere near 60ft and is NE facing, in the height of summer the sun stays in the garden til about 7:30pm depends a lot on the buildings around the house I guess. I don't find the back of my house gloomy at all either.