Would you buy a home you didn't love?

[floofycroissant]

Just that really, and did it work out or did you regret buying it?

We've been looking since the summer and with everything going on there's so little choice. The houses are either £50k under or over budget and nothing in between that hangs around long enough for us to view.

Meanwhile each month were throwing away almost 3 times what we'd pay on a mortgage renting and eating into our deposit.

I have. We lived in the house I didn't love for 5 long years and I regretted buying it the day we moved in.

Made worse I think because, just one week before we were due to exchange contracts on the house I didn't love, my dream house on my dream road went up for sale. DH wasn't having any of it, talked some sense into me and said it was too late to back out and so we moved into the house I didn't love. It wasn't a bad move, it was a very sensible, wise move on a good road. I just didn't love it.

A few years later we were on the move again, we'd put in a offer on a nice house and it was all going through and guess what?
The twin of my lovely dream house on my dream road went up for sale. This time - I wasn't letting DH tell me it was too late. We pulled out of the first house and put in an offer without even viewing it. It was accepted and we moved in a few weeks later.
We have moved house many, many times but I am never moving again. I'm finally here. I love it so much. In fact I think I love it more than the one that slipped through the net all those years ago. Fate has a funny way of making thinks happen.

What are your prerequisites OP? Make a list of what you NEED in a house, then look for that. If you feel up to it, maybe post a rough area and some posters may be able to find you a nice little gem. (that happened for me) if you don't feel comfortable, sit down and look at your areas, consider expanding it by 10 miles and just seeing what comes up. I found a house massively under budget, but that had so much potential that I didn't love it, but I loved what I could do with it. Before, I hadn't even looked in that price range.

I don’t love my house. It’s remarkably ugly on the outside and a bit weird when it comes to the layout.

But i do really love the town I live in and the lifestyle that the house makes possible (enough space for everyone, reasonable sized garden that’s not overlooked and not so crazy expensive that there’s no money left at the end of the month!)

I think property programmes have a lot to answer for when it comes to giving people the idea that there is such a thing as “a perfect house”. There’s always a compromise somewhere, but it’s worth it as long as the pros outweigh the cons

@Crazzzycat sounds like mine. I literally (proper use of the word literally) haven’t met anyone with an uglier house. It’s like grey pebble dash.

It’s larger than other we could have had, has space for 4 cars and a decent garden. So maybe I need to focus on that!

We are buying our first house, haven’t managed to get a deposit together before now and lived abroad in it twenties when friends were getting 100-110% mortgages!
So we are now FTB with an average budget but trying to buy a big enough house for our needs which is peak space time - 3 kids in early teens so don’t have the option of buying a lovely little flat or cottage like FTB do with our budget but can’t afford the massive lovely houses that other people our age can because they have built up equity in properties over the years.
The house we are buying is great, it’s ticks most of the boxes but it’s just an extended bog standard 3 bed semi, it’s not a ‘dream’ house not I don’t think many peoples dream house that sort of house so there must be lots of people not loving on their dream house as half the country is 3 bed 50s semis!

I’ve not loved either house we’ve owned. Both were bought practically. There was a house I loved when searching for our current one but it was 40k more than where we are and 30% smaller with 2 of the 3 bedrooms being box rooms. Ours I didn’t love but it has 4 bedrooms, 3 being double and the 4th not a box and is only 2 streets away from the one I loved so still in a nice area. We’re making it our own though and I’m growing to love things about it as we do work. No house you buy will be just right, it needs your love and personality injected into it so I’m glad we went with DH’s practical approach about what met our needs most rather than which felt nicer.

@AIMD mine is grey pebble dash too! It’s the ugliest house I’ve ever seen and not just because of the pebble dash. It’s also ridiculously square and featureless. My DH suggested growing some climbing roses on it, but in the end we agreed that would probably just highlight how ugly it is

It actually ended up bothering me a lot less than I thought it would. It’s my neighbours I feel sorry for, in their lovely houses with a view of my pebble dashed monstrosity 😳

Yes I did. And it did stick with me as a grudge for a long time. It instigated me wanting to move so we came close to putting an offer in. But when it all came down to it I realised I do actually like my house and we are staying put. We have made it our home.

I would go for it. Especially FTB.

crazzzycat
Why not just paint it white? Thats what we did with our grey pebble dash and it looks so much better!

Yes we did. It was our second home and we bought something which had lots of potential but needed loads of work, on a nice road but not exactly the area where we wanted to be. However, decent garden, garage, sheds etc so overall a good buy but I never loved the house.
Even on the day we moved in it was a case of looking round and wondering why we had bought it tbh, where we had moved from was small but in a lovely location with a view.
However we needed to move and it was the best option we could afford at the time.

In time, we have grown to like it, largely due to the community, nice neighbours and it is easy to walk to town/park/school more so than where we would have chosen to live. Therefore it has been a practical move for where we are in our life with young children and also now we have made so many changes I consider it our home...it did take a few years to think that way though.

Hated our last house but were stuck as my income wasn’t high. Bought it. Did zero major work. And made a 100k when we finally bought the house of our dreams.

OP it sounds like you're getting abut desperate because you've been looking for so long and nothing suitable has came up yet

We accepted an offer in November but unfortunately the market had started to grind to a halt a few weeks before then, absolutely nothing was coming on that was suitable. Two weeks later we took our's off the market before the buyer spent money on searches etc

When I look back at some of the houses we did view I'd say only one out of about ten was actually right for us. We started looking at houses that we pretty much knew weren't suitable but we were slowly getting more desperate

We've decided to stay out for eighteen months and then try again when we may have as much as £700 a month more. We can hopefully then look at houses that were out of our reach before

I'm keeping an eye on RightMove, looking at three towns locally and the pickings are very slim right now. Don't buy the wrong house!

I walked into a perfectly nice house and didn't like it
Bought it as were desperate had the worst most unhappy times there

I now live in a house that I love no dramas here... all happy times

Also would like to say both houses are mid Victorian terraces quite the same, but the feeling was VERY different walking in

We bought ours 18 months ago and needed to compromise between size / location / character. In the end we prioritised size and bought something a bit ugly on the outside. Don’t regret it for a moment, especially as we’ve been stuck inside it or in the garden for most of the past year!

Yes.
But we loved the neighbourhood and this slightly ugly house was the only one we could afford here with enough space.

Over time I’ve made the inside something I’m proud of. We will (eventually) convert the attic and get nice new windows and front door.

It will never have the utility/boot room of my ideal home but that’s worth it for living here without stretching ourselves into financial stress.

I didn’t love the house we bought . I only liked it. To get everything we wanted - house size , backyard, location etc , we needed an extra 100k which we didn’t have . We went with the best that we could with the location being our number one priority . That was 5 years ago and we are only now starting renovations/an extension. I’m hoping to finally get a house I love !

[quote AIMD]@Crazzzycat sounds like mine. I literally (proper use of the word literally) haven’t met anyone with an uglier house. It’s like grey pebble dash.

It’s larger than other we could have had, has space for 4 cars and a decent garden. So maybe I need to focus on that![/quote]
You know that you can re render pebble dash. Or put on external wall insulation.

And growing plants up the house will make a huge improvement. But not roses , unless they are with other plants. They are an ugly mess of tangled stems for half the year. Evergreens are better.

Get the right plants and prune them correctly . Plant them in the ground and not containers . You can take up slabs / mono block to do this.

Any plants in your front garden will make it look much better than having it like a council car park. Even if you do have to Park there, can you still have it landscaped properly .

Yes. I don't love this house but the kind of houses I do love would not have been practical for what I need.

I bought a house my parents could move into with me, as they were not doing so good. That meant a certain amount of rooms, bathrooms etc. The compromise was the age and land with the house.

Perosnally, I'd have preferred a much older house with more garden and less indoor rooms but it would not have been as easy for us all to live in. Plus, I was about to take a few months off work so needed to make sure cost was still manageable.

I don't hate it, but it doesn't really inspire me with any feelings.

Compared to an isolated, much older (and more run down) house I once only rented but absolutely adored.

This is all really helpful and I do think I am practically minded enough to choose head over heart. Honestly it's highlighted that my DH is very much a dreamer and will nit pick to the nth degree. He didn't want a garden originally, that was my requirement but now he insists it must be south facing only... that kind of thing.

Meanwhile a box ticking house came on in our budget on Monday and sold in less than a day

Yes. It ticked a lot of boxes and we've been able to really make the best of it, so that I almost do love it now. It's been great for us.

I still think in the end we'll move on to the One but that wouldn't be possible without this "one before the One"

We had the choice of buying a house that we thought we loved.... but we pulled out and bought a different one which was nearly half the price which meant we could also buy a flat in another city.

The house we bought was a mess and on a busy road, but with a plot of nearly an acre. It was structurally sound but was so ugly and in such a state inside we could do what we wanted with it, including, changing the exterior, reorganising all the internal spaces, two large extensions, granny annexe. We could possibly build another house at the edge of the plot in the future too.

I love living in it now as there is so much room etc.... and we still have the other property too, so it was such a good investment.

We are just about to exchange (eeeep!) on our "head" house - it is the right size, in just about the right location, within budget and shouldn't require any work as it has just been extended and renovated.

We saw our heart house last summer but missed out on it - it was perfect location but a third smaller than the one we are buying and a 3 bed (we need 4 as MIL stays often and DH now works from home permanently) which would have meant an extension out and up. It could have been wonderful but I am so glad we are not embarking on a major renovation at the moment with the stress and cost (I feel at least we know what we are getting and won't potentially end up with spiralling build costs).

I am excited about leaving our old house and moving somewhere bigger but I can't say I am in love with the house - I think a big factor is the location, it is right on the edge of our search area but we would not have been able to afford the same house in the perfect location so....

Fingers crossed for you Fleurchamp

I did and regretted it. Had to wait 6 years before I could move again and grew to really hate the house. There was nothing wrong with it but I would never buy a house I didn't love again.