What sacrifices did you make

[Ladyof]

I have a list of must haves and would like for my dream house.

Area is most important and unfortunately not many come up in the area I want. One has recently it needs a lot of work but it would mean the following sacrifices.

On a busy ish country road, not an A or B road and set back a little so not right on the road. No utility or ensuite and its at the top of our budget so not something we could change anytime soon and we wanted a good size garden for having bbqs etc.

It has a big wrap around garden but the back garden is only small, its bigger at the front and the sides. Do you think you could live with these sacrifices or would you hold on for something else? We have been looking since oct.

What sacrifices did you make on your houses and did you regret it?

I bought a house on a busy road so I could have the space and be walking distance to kid's school. For me it was fine- livingroom, kitchen and two of four bedrooms at the back. When I came to sell though the road was the number one thing that put people off. But it made it affordable for me (and I have sold it to another family).

How do all the millions of people without an ensuite or utility possibly cope

we have no ensuite, no utility, are on a busy road, no front garden and are mid terraced. All things I thought would put me off buying a home. But it was within budget, the kids' school is in walking distance, we have a very good sized back garden, it's a short but beautifully scenic walk into town and and it's a characterful period property. Unless you have very deep pockets you won't likely get everything on your dream home wishlist

Only you can decide if these are compromises (sacrifice is possibly too strong a word here) that you are willing or able to make.

Unfortunately with prices rising the way they have I think the majority of us are finding ourselves having to consider a house that’s possibly a step or two down the ladder from what had previously been within budget but you definitely just need to work out what your priorities are and go with that.

I personally could live without an en suite but that doesn’t mean you want to - especially if you have one currently.

My list of workable compromises has changed in the last couple of weeks without me even realising until thinking about it now. Previously I’d have said a house had to have two living rooms but that feels negotiable now. I’d even consider a house with one bedroom less than we’d like as long as it was spacious enough elsewhere. A couple of weeks ago I wouldn’t even have considered that. Frustratingly all down to the way prices have gone.

Good luck with your search. It’s just absolutely joyless at the moment.

Never had an ensuite or utility or lived in a house with either. In fact I think I only know one person who has an en suite.

Busy road would be a deal breaker for me as we have cats, but yours sounds ok.

The garden - it would depend on how private/overlooked the front and side are. Can you see your family BBQs happening there? Also how big/small are we talking for the front/back gardens? We have a tiny garden (6m x 8m with a brick outbuilding taking up a chunk of it) and have great BBQs with 10 or so people.

Garden size looks like the sacrifice we are going to have to make. Anything with the massive garden of my dreams goes within days at 10% above asking (although annoyingly recently one went for less than we may have offered, but the EA had so many viewings we couldn't even get in to look).

We compromised on the garden which was impractically sloped, in return for a more central location.

We spent money levelling it, but it's still tiered/stepped and not really child friendly, Didn't regret it until we had a toddler, but now I do.

Also compromised on one less bedroom because this house had an en-suite rather than a box room. Didn't regret it until WFH came in and now I wish we had the extra bedroom so I could have an office.

I made no compromises, my house is better than I was hoping for when I bought it 20+ years ago.
You need to think about what you are going to use it for for the years you live there. Are you having kids there, if so is the garden big and safe enough for kids, what are the schools like etc.
How many of your must haves does it have.

We compromised on a garage or lack thereof. We make it work. A busy road would be too much of a compromise for us. The other things you mention wouldn't be compromises for me. A utility is a bonus and an ensuite is another toilet to clean. A garden is a garden, our "main" garden is at the front but on a private road so very safe.

We didn't compromise on this one other than we would have liked a couple of acres of land. We still have a big enough plot. We are several rungs up the ladder though so have what we really wanted this time, but we have compromised previously.
Some people wouldn't mind some of the things you feel are a compromise. One thing that I would never budge on is lots of easy parking and nothing shared like a driveway.

How private are the side and front garden @Ladyof? If BBQs are important to you and the garden isn't ideal for that - it might put me off, especially if you're making sacrifices in other areas too

We compromised on a busy road. I don't like it, but the same house on a nice road, well number one didn't exist and number 2, if it did exist (going by the closest similar one we've seen with a much smaller garden) would be £200k more.

I am thrilled with the actual house though, it is so easy to live in. There are more compromises for you, by the sound of it?

We absolutely didn't want to compromise on no parking but did give up our dreams the garage and rent one locally for £50 a month. I would've loved to utility room but budget didn't stretch and as a family of five I'm really glad we didn't compromise on no ensuite otherwise getting ready in the morning would be a nightmare! I would never buy a house that is right on a busy road although having said that we are just off a busy road but not so close we feel the traffic rumbling past.

We compromised and bought on a busy road - something I didn't want to start with but I don't regret it at all.

We have a larger garden which is not overlooked, more parking and the house was immaculate/decorated to a really high standard (we didn't want to have to do much DIY).

Other ones we viewed which were not on a main road were smaller, with tiny over looked gardens and barely any parking. Our house has more space for us to grow.

Our compromise is that the house we have offered on is a pretty unattractive house ☹️. We have a good budget and have looked at loads of houses but there is always something .......

Lots of the houses we looked at were period country houses. We settled on a more modern house which isn't our chocolate box ideal but which gives us a fab internal space, a huge SW facing garden which is currently just grass but will be amazing, great storage and significantly fewer

Pressed send by mistake! Significantly fewer problems than many of the houses we have looked at.

Would you be able to see the kids playing in the side garden? If not that would put me off and I like side gardens!

Lol at sacrifices.

We compromised on garden for location and size. It’s a big period house on a small plot.

It’s also semidetached when we probably should have stretched more and got detached.

I’m really jealous of friends with big gardens…but ours Is big enough and private, for a decent bbq a bit of decent planting and the dog.

Front garden is where I’ve gone mad on the planting, but the road is quiet enough that I don’t mind pottering out there.

We will move at some point, probably retirement in 10 years, for a bigger garden and by then we won’t have the same commitments re location and will be able to sell this easily due to its location.

We settled for a garden that has a 45 degree slope which we've continually put off getting sorted. We thought the slope would be an issue with kids, but my nieces and nephews love rolling/running up and down the hill. It's a pain to cut the grass on the slant though so it'll be going later this year!

Priority was location. We live in a small town within walking distance of shops, train station, a nice park, good schools, etc and the area we live in is a lovely friendly place. Definitely worth the compromise.

We have had an offer accepted recently. The house is great except it has a very small kitchen. It has two bathrooms both of which are bigger than the kitchen! There is scope to extend which we will do eventually, but will have to live with it as it is for at least a year.
It’s going to be our home for at least 10 years so happy to compromise and do the work needed to make it perfect.

no ensuite, on purpose. I hate the idea.

we had a big extension & lot of building work done in our house, so I now have what was one of my dreams: an upstairs laundry room.
not sure what you mean by utility, something similar?

I think the shape, size and level of privacy of the back garden is very important. I couldn't compromise on that.
if you don't like it now, you'll probably hate it later, sorry.

we live next to a busy road. we are the last house on the road so no house between as & road, but we have tall & thick hedges that cut down on the noise.
before buying we spent a little bit of time in the garden to see if we minded the noise, it was a concern.
didn't bother us, don't even notice it anymore unless emergency services whizz by.

we were very lucky with our house. we bought it to extend it and now have everything we wanted. not living at home for 9 months during the works was quite tough though.

Our house is an ugly 70s box rather than the attractive house with period features I would have preferred. However, it is detached, on a very quiet road on the edge of woodland and has 4 bedrooms. The beautiful houses we looked at in this area were much smaller for the same price.

The lack of ensuite and utility wouldn't bother me at all. We didn't even consider them on the list of things to want when we looked. The busy road and garden would put me off though - front and side gardens are maintenance for the sake of it if you aren't going to use them (which I wouldn't). Not sure if it would be a deal breaker though.

We made a few big (for me) sacrifices when we bought our house in Jan - it's a 2 bed rather than the 3 we wanted (although we can extend and make it 3 bed at some point in the future), no period features and it has no bath (bathroom is only 2 years old and is very nice so we're not prepared to rip it out yet but I love having a bath).

All of this is offset by the big back garden, driveway for 3 cars and the rest of the house being lovely. Biggest plus is that the house is in our ideal area, where we were aiming to end up living in 5-10 years when we could afford it. For that I'd have made a few more sacrifices if I'm honest.

What do you mean by area and why is it the top priority? I’m not being glib just curious? Is it postcode? Proximity to schools? Does it put you within a particular distance of certain amenities? Walking distance if something important? Investment potential?
Maybe if you can drill down you might have a clearer sense of which sacrifices are worthwhile.

Our compromise was living on a busy road. I know that the road had put off a lot of other buyers (that and it being overpriced, anyway). People often say to me, oh I couldn’t live on that road!

It’s actually fine, and I don’t regret it at all. It’s really only busy at rush hour, and also on sunny weekends when people use it as a rat run to the coast. The rest of the time it’s pretty quiet, and practically nothing at all goes through at night. Our kitchen and lounge are on the garden side, so you don’t hear the traffic from there at all. We moved the master bedroom from the road side to the attic, because the early morning rush hour traffic was a bit annoying. Ds is also on that side though and it doesn’t bother him.

You don’t hear the traffic in the back garden at all. You do hear it in the side garden, because that is along the road, but that garden is functional (orchard, veg beds, greenhouse, guinea pigs etc) rather than for relaxing in so it doesn’t bother me. To be honest, if we didn’t have the back garden, just the side garden, I’d probably still be fine with it. This house is worth it.

The road will probably affect sale value in the future, but as I love this house and intend to be here till I am old and decrepit, I don’t care about that. I still think it’s the best house in the village, bar one that is worth £3m so I can only dream about that one! That one is a longer walk to the pub anyway…