Your deal-breakers

[RunningThrough]

I wondered if everyone has similar deal breakers when it comes to buying property?

DH says I'm pretty fussy, and hardly any property would ever sell if they were as picky as me but I think they're standard!

My deal breakers (as in, I wouldn't offer or I would pull out if any of these were found):

• Flood risk
• Leasehold
• Neighbour dispute
• Listed
• Management Company
• Any 'shared' aspect like shared drive
• Damp
• Unadoped road
• Subsidence

Probably more I can't think of!

What are your red flags?

I like your list op. Listed wouldn’t worry me as long as I had money to deal with extra costs - friend lives in a grade 1 property - everything takes a kind time and costs a lot !
I still think a lot about a really perfect property I saw around 10 years ago - small but land and spectacular views over st michaels mount and st Ives - both directions BUT it had a public footpath which I just couldn’t get my head around living with. So I would definitely add that.
And any noisy environment - roads schools pubs pavement tables zebra crossings bus routes etc.

Grade II listing wouldn’t bother me, and tbh grade I houses tend to be rather amazing so wouldn’t say no either! Would also regard a conservation zone as a plus. Light is important to me.

@woodlandwalker

Agreed. Some areas are just more affordable than others. We left London to get more bang for our buck, but still within commutable distance (and with a home near, but not too near, the station too).

The irony could be that those who would not have less than a detached house, garage and 2 parking spaces live in areas that some people would not consider living in at all. Expensive areas are so for a reason, usually because of better (and higher paying) work opportunities or good places to retire. Even those who work from home require good transport links into the city, which impacts upon what areas they can afford because homes in well connected places tend to be more expensive too.

Someone with a £600k London flat could sell that and then easily afford a 5 bedroom house with a massive garden in another part of the country. But, they chose not to because of location. London is London, for example.

All of yours OP
Plus
Dodgy location
No parking
No dog walks or countryside nearby
Tiny windows
Dark pokey rooms
Not detached

As you move up the ladder you get more fussy.

All yours

Plus no sun in garden in evening summer time
Tiny windows and dark

I always want mains gas. Have lived in too many (beautiful) cold, rural properties which have cost us a fortune in logs and lpg.

Living on a main road. Just discounted a lovely house because it sits on an A road. Near power lines/pylons is a no for me. Discounted one house that had one right outside the window and I could hear it humming. Or near those big electricity metre containers you get on some residential streets. No parking would be a no for me.

A view of an electric pylon is a definite no for me

Thought I wrote the list OP!

I used to be fussy with the orientation (garden south/southeast facing only) but I’ve grown to be less bothered. It’s because I experienced north facing wasn’t bad at all (and I actually liked it!) and I wasn’t always able to choose such house when a row of houses were already built facing a certain direction.

We have just completed a house which pretty much ticked all the boxes. Wanting a very private waterfront property initially, we quickly realised that it could never be free of flood risk hence we have ruled that out. As long as the property has easy access to water & green, that’s ok for now.

Also, every room has to be squared and so is the garden plot. I don’t seem to deal with awkward shape of rooms and rooms with restricted headroom very well. The latter can only be storage/bonus space not a proper bedroom or as such.

I wouldn't be worried about listed as such, depending what's actually listed.

Lack of storage or not enough space in the rooms to have storage is a dealbreaker for me. We rejected moving to a nearby new build village as the houses have no built in storage and the rooms are small, so not enough space for storage furniture.

Once this move is done, my dealbreakers are

Any purple bricks in the chain
Any forced sale due to separations
Busy roads
North facing garden unless it was really long/wide
Anything quirky that would stop people buying- small garden/bus stop outside etc

Neighbour disputes really do depend on what they are. I've reported a neighbour for breaching a TPO. Im not their favourite person. But it wouldn't impact new owners at all if we or they were to sell.

We live on a hill and there is a reservoir about 5 miles away. We are considered at risk of flood. Never in the more than 150 years has there been a flood in the area.

@Lifeandjoy

We live on a hill and there is a reservoir about 5 miles away. We are considered at risk of flood. Never in the more than 150 years has there been a flood in the area.

The considered flood risk will be because you are in the zone of the reservoir dam failing (can and dies happen - remember Todbrook Reservoir at Whaley Bridge last year). The likelihood of failure is very, very small (reservoir dams are inspected a lot), but the impact is very, very high. Risk is a multiple of these.

(I work in flood risk management).

The hill is slowing down at a substantial angle. I am no expert but struggle to see how that street/hill would be flooded. The physics of it seems impossible to me unless it’s a tsunami.

I don’t think that’s fussy at all. Everything you said (except for estate charges as I live in a new build, although it is a pain and the AGM’s are a bit nuts).

No en- suite. Need the downstairs loo, family bathroom and one on master.

Probably nothing more than 30 years old. Nothing listed obviously.

Nothing with structural work. We’re going to do new kitchen/ bathrooms on our new place but wouldn’t want to knock through walls or anything.

Not too overlooked (lived with that for 5 years and it’s been fine but really looking forward to more private garden on new place).

Walking distance to school (can’t wait to walk DD to/ from primary school and talk about her day, better for play dates etc.)

Decent garden that can be made safe for toddler/ pets.

No busy roads.

Country walks.

We do home insurance quotes to make sure nothing flags up too.

@woodlandwalker

I find it amazing that detached, a garage and a driveway for at least 2 cars is considered essential. Where I live that would cost well over 1M and where I moved from is virtually non-existent, despite it being a more expensive area. I was viewing flats with a first time buyer friend and her priorities were own garden (hence limited number of possible places), near station for commuting, high ceilings (hence period properties only), preferably not living room and kitchen in one (which is very common now). I think people's priorities must vary a lot depending on whether they have an average or very high income and mostly by whereabouts in the country they are.

Yeah, her list is very much like the wishlist that got me the flat where I live now (two bedrooms, space for books, somewhere to put a dining table, a bathroom with a bath in it, kitchen preferably separate from the living room). People quite frequently comment on here that they couldn't possibly live in a house that wasn't detached, or whatever, and I can only assume they're in a very different situation to me!

@ThePerfectRose

Yeah ‘not overlooked’ for more privacy is on my list. Harder to achieve with new builds as those plots get snapped up quickly.

Also, I worry about uneven gardens. Water going away from the house is ok. But I worry about gardens that slope towards the house; they won’t get flagged up as a flood risk in the searches imo but they will inevitably have drainage issues. Sloping gardens are difficult for landscapers because they’ve got to work with the lay of the land.

Oh from experience may I add in no industrial land based wind turbines in eye sight. Or ear sight. Or dead bird sight.

@woodlandwalker

I find it amazing that detached, a garage and a driveway for at least 2 cars is considered essential. Where I live that would cost well over 1M and where I moved from is virtually non-existent, despite it being a more expensive area. I was viewing flats with a first time buyer friend and her priorities were own garden (hence limited number of possible places), near station for commuting, high ceilings (hence period properties only), preferably not living room and kitchen in one (which is very common now). I think people's priorities must vary a lot depending on whether they have an average or very high income and mostly by whereabouts in the country they are.

I assume they’re the same people who helpfully comment on the “Why isn’t my flat selling?” threads with responses like “It’s obvious! Because it’s a flat! I’d never ever live in a flat! And it’s ridiculously overpriced, over half a million for a flat, you’d expect a twelve bedroom mansion with land in my area for that price!” apparently unaware that there are differences between London and their former pit town near Doncaster or wherever.

I don’t have many dealbreakers, really. I wouldn’t live within the Congestion Charging zone because I have several cars and don’t want to pay for them all. Not keen on living near a school because of the noise and asshole parents doing drop offs and pick ups. Listed is fine as long as it doesn’t include interiors; even subsidence, provided it’s fairly historical and can be remedied, isn’t the end of the world for the right place.

we had very few wants when we bought this house
essentials were
2 bedrooms, a decent size kitchen, a reasonable garden, and a garage
no nos were
certain areas of our town , too much work we needed to live in while renovating, OHs no was non standard construction, main road due to owning four cats,

Having a public sewer crossing my property. It's a ball ache to extend a property if it's close to the house as was the case when we wanted to extend

@ComtesseDeSpair

I think that unless you have lived in London or familiar with the London housing market, then it's hard to grasp the difference and the fact that a London home comes with a lifestyle that isn't in other places. Some people can be a bit parochial.

London is a bit like New York or Paris or Milan; a major international city where property is expensive because there's more money in town and lots going on. However, I did read that Manhattan apartments have started to go down in price since the recession.

Location, location, location.

*covid

recession is still in early stages, imo