Would you stay in your new-build with average garden or old fashioned bungalow with huge garden?

[sarah13xx]

We’ve always been happy in our house. It’s a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, new-build, average sized garden, nice area, big driveway, garage. It’s very modern and probably more spacious and well built than a lot of new builds. We’ve not long had a baby and it’s become more evident since having him and seeing how much ‘stuff’ babies/children need that we will need to move to a bigger house at some point within a few years. We have our small third bedroom as a dressing room/ironing room/office all in one. We have no utility room but a large open plan kitchen/living room. We have a dog and I would really like a big utility room to be able to keep him out of the living room when my son is on the floor etc as he starts walking.

We had no plans to move at all but a very old fashioned reasonably sized bungalow has just came on the market. Same area as we currently live but just a nicer street. Basically everything in this house would need ripped out. There are a few walls I would knock down too without getting carried away. The major plus point of this house is the size of the garden. You could fit this bungalow in its own garden about another twice at least, it’s huge! It could be transformed into our home for life with an extension too, whereas our current house never would be. Alternatively we could build a second house in the garden and sell it or sell both. I have one of just about every trade person needed to build or renovate a house in my close family so that wouldn’t be an issue but it would obviously still cost a lot. The price difference would mean this bungalow was roughly £30,000 more expensive but we would need to move from our ‘nice’ house (with a small baby and our dog) into this old fashioned house to start this project.

Would you take the risk and potentially gain the price of a house or your house for life out of it OR stay put in your ‘nice’ house that’s fine for just now? 🤔 Part of me wants to be brave and go for it, knowing how stunning it would be when finished, you only live once etc but then I picture loading vans up with our things from our current house or driving past after we’d moved out and I feel really quite sad, like we’re maybe not ready to leave here yet! Help!

Thanks everyone, I was expecting more people to play it safe and say stay where you are! Glad to see people are encouraging me to do it 😂 I think we’ll put an offer in on Monday! We’re ‘only’ going 10 grand over the asking price though but I get the impression he’s looking for 20k more. He’s in no rush to move either so might not even consider it and presume someone will come along and offer him the 20k. I really doubt they will though but it’s just how much higher than 10 would people realistically go 🙄

Good luck! Sounds like a great opportunity!

I’d go for it!
Although I have to disagree that a 3 bed 3 bath isn’t big enough for 2 adults a baby and a dog lol

I'd absolutely rush at it and then take my time deciding what it needed. It sounds like a forever home.

I would do it but I hate new builds.

How old is baby? How much work needs to be down to make it livable? I wouldn't want to live in a work site with a baby that's crawling and mouthing everything.

Have you thought about writing a letter to go with your offer explaining why you want this home?
Not the development potential, but raising DC with the big garden etc.

@SleepingStandingUp 2 months old. You could physically live in it right now, he lives there as it is. I think it’s maybe a good thing that he’s so young and has to be carried everywhere. The main bedroom is massive and wouldn’t need changed and the baby is obviously still in with us so as long as we had that room with our own bed in it we could tackle the kitchen first then add another bathroom

@Weenurse for me that idea would work when we sell ours but this guy didn’t seem bothered by much. I took the baby in a baby carrier to view the house and was saying this would be his room etc but the guy couldn’t care less and had a kind of strange attitude about the whole thing 🙈

@meadowbleu I think that’s what we need to do, as long as we get it without the price being ridiculous so we still have money left to spend on it

@Mymapuddlington 😂 it’s definitely big enough for now but we plan to have at least one more child, possibly two so ideally I’d like us to end up in a 3 bedroom where all 3 rooms are decent sized. Our office/dressing room/ironing room etc etc is just a small box room so although it would fit a cot for another baby (god knows where the rest of the stuff in there is would go) it wouldn’t get us much beyond the baby stage once they both had lots of toys etc. Its better than ‘fine’ for now but there are just such little opportunities come up where I stay for this kind of house, just wish it was maybe happening 2 years from now!

Do it now whilst baby can't move, you're not dealing with two toddlers etc. Do you work? If so now also has the advantage of mat leave so you can be around a bit more to keep things straight

I do think it's sad to buy this great house with a great garden but then immediately think of building another house in its shadow then shopping out.

@SleepingStandingUp yes I usually work 5 days a week so would struggle to do that as well! Hopefully if we can do things in short bursts we could at least have a kitchen and our bedroom sorted quite quickly then another bathroom shouldn’t take too long hopefully 🙈 It would only be from a financial point of view we’d consider doing that because if we did it would be a great money maker and would set us up with an amazing house somewhere. I just think once we were in I’d want to keep spending money on it and make that our home for life 🤔 we wouldn’t have to decide that for a while though, we could do all the internal stuff and in a couple of years decide to either extend and keep it or sell it/ it and one in the garden. I think the prospect of that is the main reason DH is interested 😂

We made an offer! 😃🤞🏼

Good luck and fingers crossed 🤞

We bought a bungalow when my children were younger, mainly for the large plot and not being overlooked.
Our's was a chalet bungalow with a large upstairs space which was not fully converted. We did not have to extend it as such but knocked through in to more of the attic making a much larger room and added an en suite.
We had a large long hall, living rooms etc on one side and bedrooms on another so sound travelling was certainly never an issue. So basically it will depend on your layout.
It was in a lovely area and all the other neighbours were retirees. Bare this in mind if you want your children to play with neighbour's children, it is highly unlikely that there will be any.

@crimsonlake good point about the children thing. There aren’t any young children or babies in that street but there’s also none in mine right now either. There is another young couple a few doors up from the new house so maybe

we have this - often say that we bought an amazing garden that happened to have a house on it. We are currently extending the bungalow after 6 years; decided to go out and stay a bungalow than go up and comprimise head height and have dormers etc. as it doesnt impact the garden at all. i love it, it's not noisy, and we live in the garden much of the year. We also built an office at the bottom of the garden which has been a godsend this past 18 months. Two things though - gardens can be a time- and money- pit, be clear how much time you'll have to maintain it. And if it's like ours and a 1930's buils, be prepared to have to insulate every external wall.

[quote sarah13xx]@WithLargeTableMouse I wondered about the noise thing with a bungalow. Even just with my husband I sometimes like the fact one of us can be downstairs and the other one can be upstairs, you feel like you’re far away from each other.. might not feel like that it you’re just across a corridor 🤔 I think we might make an offer but not the full amount he wants for it then let fate decide 🙈[/quote]
Most of our house is a bungalow. It's incredibly quiet, room to room. It really depends on how it was built- ours is 1920s- with solid brick walls between the rooms.You can here less here room to room than you could in our 1960s house from one end to the other. It's almost eerily quiet.
Even with a sprung floor and not a concrete one, you can barely hear the washing machine in the room next door.
Also, bwein on a bigger footprint, it's a long way from one end to the other.
Especially in your circs, with builders in the family, I'd go for it.

@BlueMongoose that’s good to know 😊 we’ve put in several verbal offers today back and forwards. The owner repeatedly asked for the home report again and again even after we made the first offer but he has now budged down slightly. We had suggested just under what he’s moved to so hoping it’s a goer tomorrow and we can put it in writing 🤞🏼

@ScoopyDoo yes I think this!! The garden is just mainly grass and hedges. The grass will be easy for my partner to maintain (although it’s way bigger than ours just now, he might be better with a ride on lawnmower 😂). The hedges might be a bit more hassle but he’ll manage! The insulation thing will definitely be the biggest shock to us as our house barely ever needs heating on, it’s always so so warm!

Hedges mostly aren't a big deal, I thoroughly enjoy wielding the hedge trimmer once a year and making everything neat Grass is actually much more work!

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername oh that’s good to know, he gets some sort of weird manly enjoyment out of saying he’s away to cut the grass. Only difference is he’ll be away a lot longer now 😂

Good point, @BlueMongoose my bungalow is 1970s and self built and according to my neighbour who has lived here since before mine was built, it wasn’t built very well so that’s probably why it isn’t very well sound insulated. I’ve got the most stylish avocado sunken bathroom suite though Also my bedrooms are very small which doesn’t help. As previous poster have said, you can sound insulate whilst renovating which would be easier than extending upstairs and that’s what we’ll do if we ever get round to it. I still wholeheartedly recommend bungalow life with a big garden, I love it

Glad you recommend it @WithLargeTableMouse

We’ve only gone and had our offer accepted, eeek! 😅 half delighted/half terrified by this haha