Can you find this house please?

[TheHillsAreAliveWithTheSoundOfEtc]

Before I start, I know that this is a bit mad and it sounds like we want the moon on a stick, but bear with me.

We have £500k cash.
Both can work from anywhere.
Current property is sold, we are confident that we can find another buyer if it all fell through. We had 3 offers on this house, it's a desirable area etc.
We don't want to dick anyone around, similarly we want to find the right place for us.

In addition to our cash we could get up to £500k mortgage. We don't want to buy a £1 million house, we want to buy a house and make it the way we want.
Ideally we want to buy a house for £500k, and take up to £200k mortgage for 'improvements'.

We are middle aged. DCs have left home.
We have difficult relationships with both sets of our parents, they are all in the South West. We want to be far enough away, but not too far. Am the only daughter on my side & only wife on DH's side, if we stay, care of parents will fall to me.

We want:
A house with views, maybe on a hill or in a valley, with views. Areas we would consider (price permitting):
Herefordshire
South Wales inc Carmarthenshire/Pembrokeshire
Anywhere on the Wales/England border, up to and including Shropshire

The house;
4+ beds
Plenty of outside space - at least 1/2 an acre
Lots of parking inc space for double garage if one doesn't already exist
Outbuildings if possible

We want to be able to sit and enjoy dinner in the sunset.
We particularly like South Wales

One example of the type of house we like:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/123993128#/?channel=RES_BUY

All ideas gratefully received and considered!
Thank you

Why not go for the house you linked to OP? That might give me a better idea of why that isn't for you.

OP says clearly in the first post that they want to spend around 500k.

Loads of the initial links are to houses way above that.

We are in a very similar position to the OP and if you shifted a lot of these properties a bit more towards the SW then they would be right up out street!

We are also in our 60s but we want a house with room for the children and grandchildren to come and stay. No way do we want a 1or 2 bed just because there are only two of us. We would like a music room and a craft/sewing room in addition to the usual living space.

She said they could spend up to a mill. Some of those houses have movement in cost and she's happy to put money into a house that needs work.

I don't know the area around South Wales at all, so have just done a search purely on the criteria and what looks nice to me:

£700,000 Newport - 4 bed detached with lovely views

This one that a PP posted is beautiful!

£650,000 Milford Haven

I'm just going through the replies.
Firstly, thank you to everyone who has replied.

@Orangetapemeasure we have DCs who will come to stay, one is expecting, in the circumstances we are likely to need at least 4 bedrooms.
If my answer had been 'we're really into wife swapping and people don't want to drive home', that too would have been none of your business! We are middle aged, I'm not 50 yet! We are not baby boomers. We might need to go for the small 2 bed 30 years from now. In the meantime we'd like the space to enjoy our lives, please.

I know that there are not enough family-sized houses for sale in the UK. We really have felt the pain of that ourselves, as we had our children. Please do not lay the blame for that at people like us.

Thank you @ApolloandDaphne, @greenspaces4peace for 'getting it'.

Future proof yourselves with a Bungalow would be my advice.
Also, your uterus doesn’t mean you have to look after everyone’s parents in their old age you know

@MintJulia that is exactly one of the areas we want to avoid! - that area of Wiltshire.

Thank you though, I agree that it is beautiful, but if we lived there my parents/my in-laws (not specifying who lives there) would expect me to look after them even though i) they are very wealthy and ii) DH is still verbally abused as an adult iii) I have a sibling locally who has always received favourable treatment. My childhood was abusive, there's was not. Now it's over to that sibling to sort it out.

@TheHillsAreAliveWithTheSoundOfEtc

Gosh, sorry. When you said west country, I thought you meant Cornwall.

Carmarthen area sounds good. 😊

Thank you for all the links, I'm just working my way through them in order now...

@potandcoffee it's lovely, but not enough land.

@GoodChat again, lovely but listed and I don't like thatched roofs relative had one as a child, rats live in them!

@GoodChat huge and great, but we don't want to take on £350k of mortgage at our age.

@GoodChat almost perfect but listed.

@Carrotpuffs and @Elsanore tell me about it. Have spent my whole life trying to explain equality to my parents.
The treatment my brothers have received is so different from me.

Honestly, that's a whole thread of it's own e.g. my parents kicked me out of their (very large) house when I was 16, before my GCSEs because 'girls should make their own home'.
They paid for my brother's Uni, I had to pay for my own because I could 'marry well' and I didn't need a degree because I was a girl.

My younger sister ended her own life in her teens. I'm crying writing this, just remembering it. I wish I had known and I wish I had taken her in.

@Beth262 thank you. I know that Carmarthenshire is cheaper and it's where we would like to be, but I wanted to give a wider area for people to consider.

Thank you, that's really kind. I may well be in touch.

I can see me being on Rightmove all night now 😂 www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/124261904

This one has glorious views
North yorks www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/127914470

Here are my suggestions OP

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/130253738#/?channel=RES_BUY

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/123481526#/?channel=RES_BUY

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125122472#/?channel=RES_BUY

I am so sorry about all of this.
Live somewhere you love and don’t take these awful people’s needs into account at all

Listed would put me off too, to be fair!

This is stunning but would have to be to your taste www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125061767

@ImBlueDab 1 & 3 are my favourites there, thank you!

@BookwormButNoTime love the bungalow (for building on) in your first post, but would like to spend less.

Again, Stepaside bungalow is great if it was £100k cheaper!
Milford Haven lovely, needs more land!
Kilgetty great, though would like better views (I know I'm being really picky)!
Tillington, might look at that. It's spendy and would prefer to have our own planning permission, then we can work with the planning officers to get what we want/what they want.
Glasbury, lovely but has agricultural occupancy.

@TeaChocKitKat Abercynon. That! We will absolutely look at that, exactly what we are after.
Pontyclun. That too!

I'm so sad hearing your story. Please move to the North, it's beautiful and cheaper, and away from those awful people.

@CellophaneFlower we sympathise too, we've been there.
Our first house (because it was all we could afford) was a 2 up, 2 down terrace, it was a repo, they had taken everything including radiators, skirting boards, everything. The first thing we had to do was get gas to make it safe!
We saved like buggery, didn't go out and allowed ourselves an alcoholic drink once a week.

Please don't think that we are unsympathetic. We've been through it too.

With all due respect, I'm not going to downsize just because a 2 bedroom isn't suitable for some person I've never met.

That one is on our shortlist too!!

Lovely.

I think you've tagged the wrong person!

This is 3-bed but also has a ‘studio’
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/85781001#/?channel=RES_BUY

3/4 bed with potential and hill views
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/128388296#/?channel=RES_BUY

fully done barn conversion
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/128174237#/?channel=RES_BUY

’potential to develop’
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129387935#/?channel=RES_BUY