Which house do we buy?

[YellowEllis]

Help please, this is a very last minute thought and I'm struggling to weigh up the pros/cons. These are both new builds, both by small local developers and both done to a high standard/similar spec.

House A.

4 bed detached, front and rear gardens, 2 parking spaces
Garage optional extra, can't be added on to mortgage and is £15k (we can't afford this, so can't have it)
Great location, walking distance to beach, park, childcare, shops and public transport links
Downstairs room sizes are a generous length, but slightly narrower than we would ideally like. However we have planned rooms out and measured everything and all our furniture will fit comfortably, so it's more preference than need.
Upstairs, child's room, spare room and bathroom are perfectly fine. The master bedroom is smaller than we'd like, although we can fit our king bed, chest of drawers and 2 bedside tables in there, we can't fit our wardrobes. The second spare room (smaller) would need to be used as a dressing room/office so all hung up clothes would need to be stored in there.
General concerns about storage space, between lack of built in storage and being unable to afford the garage.
Garden is private, not overlooked and a decent size.
We have reserved, completed valuation/solicitor searches and have an approved mortgage in place and are literally days from exchanging on this house. It would be ready to move in to by March.

House B.

4 bed detached, front and rear gardens, 2 parking spaces and internal garage included in price and can be mortgaged
10 minute drive from house A, but into a more rural area. Unable to walk to shops, childcare, park etc and would need to drive 10 mins to the location of house A for these things.
All room sizes are bigger, not loads bigger but enough to make the house feel more comfortable. There are built in wardrobes in two of the four bedrooms (however not the master with en-suite, so clothes would still be in a different room)
Garden is a bit smaller than house A.
We would lose our valuation fee/solicitor searches fee, be back to square one on application and the house won't be ready for 18 months.

@averythinline

Of those 2 house a due being able to walk places.. but that is small for a master..

Yes it is. It's pretty much the same size as the two other bedrooms with only the fourth being a bit smaller.

A. The location sounds ideal and those kind of things contribute massively to your quality of life if they are things you value. We don't have a garage. We have a large shed and a bike shed. The biggest issue is not being able to have a spare fridge or freezer in the garage like most people we know. If we'd thought of it when we had our kitchen extended I'd have got a bigger fridge freezer for the kitchen. It's not something that bothers me very often, only when we're entertaining.

Are you sure the bedroom isn't big enough for a wardrobe? That does sound small if not.

Yes we would like room for a spare freezer I am worried integrated won't be enough. I don't think we'd comfortably get wardrobe in master no

Presumably there's the space to build the garage down the line? You could free up some equity and do it that way?

I don't think house B is worth giving up House A for.

How much total square feet is it?

Could you negotiate on the garage/fitted wardrobes with the developer?

I was literally just about to type what IndecentFeminist has suggested! See what the developers of House A say then you might have less things to niggle as you'll have the outdoor storage space you want.

Could you take out a bank loan for £15K to enable you to build a garage at House A?

Definitely A. The location is so much better. You can get a shed for storage. I would love to live within walking distance of a beach.

Doubt we could get a mortgage and a bank loan at the same time. Pretty sure our broker said to not take out any credit until completion and by that point it'll be too late to get the garage through the developer. They said they aren't taking any profit on the garage, so can't make it any cheaper unfortunately. We asked about incentives and were told the demand is too high for these houses so they weren't offering anything, we managed to haggle the house price down 5k but nothing more and that just made our mortgage less so no money saved now for the garage. We do have the planning to add it later I guess, but we'd have to do so ourselves.

I'd go for A, having to drive not everything will be an expensive pain in the neck. The children will grow to be teenagers and 1mins from the beach would be heaven...
If it's an unbuilt house and a local company, is there any chance they could move an internal wall or two? That might solve your problem...

*10 mins not 1

@Mysa74

I'd go for A, having to drive not everything will be an expensive pain in the neck. The children will grow to be teenagers and 1mins from the beach would be heaven... If it's an unbuilt house and a local company, is there any chance they could move an internal wall or two? That might solve your problem...

House A is too far ahead to change anything structurally as foundations are down and bricks have started to be laid. They did offer to leave out the en-suite so we could use that as a walk in wardrobe but warned us it would devalue the house so DH was too worried incase end up selling up sooner than planned. We could convert this ourselves at some point though

If it's not built can't you rearrange the floorplan? Neither sound ideal. I'd pick location though.

House A for sure. Location definitely beats a small amount of extra living space. It’s all well and good people saying ‘neither, wait for the perfect house’, but if house B were to be built in house A location you probably couldn’t afford it!! In real life we have to make compromises, and I’d sooner have wardrobe in the spare room than have to drive 10 minutes to amenities etc (and in fact I have made that exact same compromise myself!)

Does it have an ensuite you could swap for the master?
We had hidden wardrobes built over a chimney breast so it looks like a panelled wall. Our bed sits in the middle with doors either side. You could do this and ditch your other furniture as ours are full length so have lots of storage. The carpenter fitted ikea inserts we chose and a decorator painted. All in cost less than £1500 and they're brilliant.

Op I say would it depends on how long your willing to wait to move. If your living a house now that you desperately can't wait to move out of, I would go for A. But do seriously consider storage spaces, they are soooo vital! I moved from a house with a lot of storage rooms to a house which is far far bigger but lacks storage. But we have a loft and garage which we used to store. And if we wanted to later on can get a shed in the garden to further store. But you can't really store hoover and iron board in there as those are pretty much everyday things

Also with young children defo better to live walking distance from school, if car breaks down or out of use then getting to school isn't a problem

House A. It's lovely being able to walk to school, shops, beach etc. Bigger garden too. Bit less storage but ime a lot of storage space just means you keep stuff you don't need.

We bought a new build and are in town centre and I can't say enough how lovely it is to be able to walk to the supermarket, town centre, train station etc. We are not coastal but I would love to be walking distance to the beech.

House A sounds great.

Location location location.

House B sounds better inside. But the long delay would put me off.

House A. Better location, and you’ll find ways to manage storage.

Oh gosh that's hard. If you know without a shadow of an doubt you will always have a car then B (have lived rurally without a car and it is isolating imo, even for someone who doesn't much like being around people!). The lack of storage in A would be a pain. I think if you can stay where you are for 18 months without it causing too much hardship (financially, emotionally etc.) then stay put and get the more spacious house!

@YellowEllis - the best show 😄 good luck with your move whatever you decide!

I think we're going to go with A.. we were thinking it would be our first home, and our forever home but perhaps it'll just be our first if we do decide we need more space. I'd probably wait 18 months for house B if it was in the right location but I feel like everyone is right about not being able to walk anywhere being frustrating.