We bought a house pre pandemic in an area where house prices have sky rocketed. We didn’t love the house, but there wasn’t much on the market and location wise ticked our boxes. What we didn’t like about it was that it was a bit smaller than we would have liked, the garden was a bit small and it is a semi (we wanted detached)....it also needs a lot of work. It was well under budget. We’ve been going back and forth with an architect for over a year trying to find a design that gives us the space we need and can’t decide whether to spend a lot of money on a renovation project that gives us everything we want, but on a semi will almost certainly never get the money back, or spend less money to make the house Ok. We are likely to be here 10 years. Then our elderly (mid eighties) neighbours announced they were thinking of downsizing. Within an hour we had offered to cash buy their house. They seemed delighted at this prospect. This would be a complete game changer for us. It would give us the space both inside and out that we want and would enable us to create our forever home. What has followed is the slow realisation, for us at least, that whilst they might be thinking of down sizing they are psychologically no where close to actually moving. They have been there for 50 years. (To save drip feeding we have been shown their house inside, they have had it valued, we have made a formal offer slightly under their top evaluation-which they stand no chance of getting.....zoopla values their house at £150k under their top valuation, and the builder we took round said that it really wasn’t worth what they were asking.... but the main reason they say they haven’t moved is because they can’t find anything they want to move into, and In the current market they are neither fast enough or aggressive enough to get a look in).
So they might move, or be forced to move due to deteriorating health in a couple of months or still be there in 10 years time. So my question is WWYD? Sit tight in a house that does need a lot of work and spend just enough to make it bearable or spend a tonne of money on making our house lovely in the knowledge that if they do move out and we buy next door a sizeable portion of what we do would get ripped out....but we’d have 2-10 years in a very nice opposed to bearable house?