Should we buy this Victorian house?

[Wigeon]

Help! Agreed a sale on our house almost 5 weeks ago, have looked at around 12 houses, and finally viewed this one (Rightmove link) which is the first we are considering offering on.

However, we never thought we’d be going for a Victorian property - most of the ones in our budget/location are 1930s or later (this is over budget but it’s been on the market a month with no offers and the owners told us they’ve found somewhere they want to move to, and the agent says they’re open to offers).

What should we look out for? Are the heating costs going to be mad, with the high ceilings, and is it going to be draughty? Is the maintenance bound to be a money pit? We’d get a full survey.

Other cons:

I don’t like that you can’t see the garden from either the dining room or main reception. Not totally sure how to use the second reception area (the bit next to the dining area).

There isn’t a massive amount of room for the gazillion coats and shoes our family has.

Small garden.

Bit further from the children’s school and DH work, altho they’d still all cycle (prob 30 min cycle for the youngest DC, faster for the other two as they cycle quicker).

Pros:
3 big bedrooms, smaller one would be my working at home study. Big loft and big tanked basement.

Three loos and two showers when we currently have one loo and one shower between the four of us!

Very close to train station (I’ll be commuting once or twice a week), the town centre, the huge beautiful park, close to my children’s friends and their various activities, they’ll be able to get to all that independently (they’re going into Y7 and Y10). Generally one of the most desirable locations in the town (and we can’t afford the bit right next to the park, which is the most desirable bit).

Masses of period features, most places we’ve been viewing are much blander modern places.

Help help help! External /objective perspectives needed!

That's absolutely beautiful.

I agree. It’s a beautiful house. I would go for it.

I’d buy it in a flash, but ask them about heating bills if you are concerned. It looks well looked after. Are the windows double glazed? If there are uncarpeted floors are they insulated or just the boards?

I like it. I have a victorian semi which is smaller and double glazed so is warm in winter and cool in summer. With rooms that size it's going to cost a lot to heat, just as true as any big house so it depends on the insulation and windows etc. It is lovely though.

It’s a lovely house. Nice garden too. Things like coat storage can be sorted with some imagination.

I'd buy that just for the glass in those back doors!

If I were living there, I'd use the second reception area as a sort of informal daytime, family living area centred primarily around the children. It would have any consoles there as well as study homework stuff.

I'd reserve the main living room as a more adult space for the evenings, and keep it really nice for a beautiful, tidy place to relax at the end of a long day.

Half an hour cycle in bad weather isn't great, but I guess you could drive them if you wfh?

House is fine, yes cold in winter but also cool in summer. Just need to budget for constant upkeep and mortgage rate rises if it's over budget.

My questions would be:
parking, it looks like it’s on road parking, that’s fine if it’s quiet enough.
bathrooms, you have the one big bathroom off the bedroom and the family shower room looks small, will that work for you.
windows, are they sash windows?

Being able to see that garden is an issue depending on the age of the children.
Is there a cupboard under the stairs for coats etc?

It’s beautiful and worth have a look at.

Beautiful house. Garden is small but if you're not keen gardeners then that won't matter.

Is there scope to create a cupboard/hanging space under the stairs for coats and shoes?

It would definitely be a contender for me. Other cons are the bathroom arrangement means to have a bath requires using the back bedroom en suite, also I doubt I’d ever use the front reception as we’d end up in the little room opening onto the garden.

What's under the stairs? Can that not be made into coat storage? Are you sure there's not already storage under there?

We found ours was already made into 2 cupboards but done so badly it all needs redoing 🙄

It's a lovely house. As someone already said, the glass in those doors is beautiful. In your situation I'd be putting in an offer asap.

We love our Edwardian semi, they are lovely family homes full of character.

I don't think our survey was too bad, just asked for a new damp course (hundreds of pounds to rectify) and otherwise recognised things like movement were 'in line' for a house of that age.

We don't find out house particularly cold but we have double glazing throughout, laminate flooring (not bare floorboards), plenty of loft insulation, wood burner in the back.

If anything, I'd be reflecting on these types of features, what is there and what might need upgrading.

PS only just noticed the link, it's gorgeous looking! I'd go for it!

It's beautiful. The extra reception room could be a children playroom/den/games room and/or with a day bed or sofa bed in for guests.

It is beautiful, I love the doors at the back. I think the bathroom arrangement would annoy me. Maybe that's why it's not selling so fast, there's no obvious (and cheap) way to change the access. But then I suppose if you and dh use that one and the kids use the downstairs one? Or would you let them come through your room in the night if they needed a wee?
It will cost to heat, you'll need to invest in thick curtains and lots of thick rugs.

It is a lovely house.
I would ask about heating bills.

The only thing that would put me off is the garden being overlooked.

It’s beautiful!

Could you put all coats shoes etc in the basement?

Ooh it’s gorgeous.
Only you can work out whether it is the right location for your family though

I think it looks good. As above I’d check double glazing and the windows if they are sashes don’t need too much work. We have a similar age house and had to do some remedial flashing and pointing on chimneys etc but don’t have any major issues. Your solicitor will advise but the passageway that you’d own would probably have a flying freehold if next door have the space above it?

It's gorgeous, and is so out of my budget that it's a lottery-win fantasy. My concerns would be that the main bathroom has a shower and no bath, and that there isn't a utility room. But it's a gorgeous house to raise a family in - beautiful, with space for both privacy and togetherness, and a nice natural separation between the busy/noisy living space of the kitchen /dining/reception rooms at the back of the house and a quieter space at the front.

It's a beautiful house but I'd never spend that much on a terrace. Granted, I'm not living in the kinds of areas you are for an end terrace to go for almost a mill!

Thanks so much for replies. To answer some of the Qs:

It’s almost all double glazed sash windows altho they look quite sympathetic to me rather than horrid PVC (altho they must be PVC?). The door to the Juliet balcony in the master bedroom is single glazed, as is the front door and garden door from the second reception (not sure that one’s original despite the stained glass). Bit concerned about them. Underfloor heating in the kitchen tho.

Hallway understairs - that leads straight to a staircase down to the big basement, so can’t be a proper coat cupboard. Might possibly have room for a few coat hooks at the very top of the stairs.

Yes to onstreet parking in a controlled parking zone (due to proximity to the station). Bit of a pain, almost everywhere else we’ve viewed has a driveway, but we don’t use the car every day. Also a pain in terms of potentially getting an electric car when our current one (14 yr old hybrid, almost 100k on the clock) gives up. Fortunately vendor was there and we asked about parking and she said she does almost always get a space right outside or just nearby.

Although it’s a bit weird that the big bathroom with the bath is an en-suite to the master, and the “family bathroom” is a small shower, I think that’ll actually be fine for the 4 of us.

This is a beautiful house OP. Add cupboards under the stairs, you can get some really lovely built in ones that make the most of the space. I would rejig the upstairs layout a bit so that the larger bathroom can be accessed off the landing - create a hallway between the two back bedrooms and then turn the shower room into an en-suite for the large bedroom at the front. These are all relatively minor works that don’t need to be done right away.
P.S this is my dream house so I’m biased.

It's beautiful @Wigeon but I'd want a very thorough survey. Need know the full condition of the wiring, boiler, heating.
It also looks to have concrete tiles on the roof, I'd want that fully inspected as sometimes these are too heavy for the orignal roof trusses and can cause issues.
It's going to be ££££ to heat but it is stunning!