What was your criteria for buying first home? And what compromises did you make?

[decisionschoices]

As the title of the thread says, what was your criteria for buying your first home and what compromises did you make?
In the areas we are looking to buy in, we are struggling with narrowing down our criteria. There are no houses that stand out that are affordable and we are struggling to work out what would make a house a good buy. We are FTBs planning to start a family soon. Thanks.

My first house was in a not nice area to live. It was small. It had a horrible kitchen. It was all we could afford and we were still over the moon when we got it. Room by room we did it up until it looked lovely inside. We carried on saving and after 4 years, when I was 3 months pregnant we moved to a nicer area with a conservatory. We made £4k on our first house. Years ago that was a lot. Still 2 bedrooms in our second house but a little extra living space. Our next move was to a 3 bedroom in the same area. Again we made money in a rising market.

We got our house in our absolute dream location, it's also a big house and the kids have lots of friends and we are within walking distance of everything that's important to us. The down side is it does need redecorating and I would very much love a new kitchen. We also have forfeited our en-suite but compared to our tiny 3bed semi I'm happy in my 5 bed detached house with double garage ( we'll spend our pretend lotto win doing it up 🤣)

The only criteria were a) two bedrooms and b) affordable. It was a flat on a major road in a rough part of London that I bought with a friend. Lorries rumbled past the door day and night.

It was the late 80s. We were both desperate to get onto the property ladder as house prices were increasing rapidly. Neither of us had a partner and we couldn't afford to buy even a studio flat alone.

It was the worst financial decision I ever made. Shortly after, interest rates rose to 15% and the bottom fell out of the housing market. A few years later the friend bought me out at 15% less than we had originally paid. Just to add insult to injury, we had an endowment mortgage which massively underperformed!

I went on to buy a house with my then fiancé. The main criteria for that were that it had to be in a quieter greener area within 15 minutes walk of a tube station. The main compromise was on condition. It needed a huge amount doing to it (eg we completely replaced the kitchen, not just because it was a bit dated but as a condition of the mortgage). The other was that it was quite a long way out (zone 6) so commuting time and costs increased.

I wanted 2 bedrooms and an upstairs bathroom in a cul de sac. My first house was a dream. Open plan and freshly done up with very quiet neighbors. I loved that house.

I viewed about 20 one Saturday and this house was the last one!

I had a list of suburbs that weren’t terrible and basically ordered them by how much I would have liked to live there, then picked the highest locations that had houses within my budget (areas around Leeds).

I compromised on space (my first house was small!), location in the way described above (I would have preferred a naice suburb but all were out of my budget) and after that, garden size and parking. It was important to me to be near a station for commuting. I also knew I wouldn’t have a lot of budget to do major renovations so ruled out a doer upper. Now I have DH who is very handy, and a bit more money, we do live in a doer upper.

I offered in Feb - waiting exchange.

Must haves:
2 bedrooms and a garden; 30 mins from my parents / close family members

Wanted: house rather than flat; old (character) rather than new; fireplaces / wood burner; decent condition; 'good/safe end of town'; 65m sq+

Got: 2 bed house with garden, 30 minutes from parents, decent condition, good area
Didn't get: character, fireplace or wood burner, 65m sq+ :(
Got that wasn't on my wish list: EPC B rating

Was really sad not to get a character property but after well over a year of looking I was fed up as my options within my budget were very limited and getting worse each month with the house price rises (now in reverse). The house I ended up going for felt 'low risk' and easy to maintain, and something that would sell on again easily. I can have a character property that eats all my money next time...

Musts:

2 bedrooms, at least
Character and original features
Hallway
Walking distance from my work
Some outdoor space

Compromises:

Not a glamorous area, but has the potential to upcoming in a few years

Tiny enclosed coat yard, which is the size of a postage stamp. Though, we are grateful as we hadn’t had any outdoor space previously!

When we bought our first house, our criteria were:

• 3 Bedrooms
• No Mould
• Parking
• Good transport links
• Affordable

We weren't actually that fussy if I'm honest. We just wanted a place of our own, where we weren't beholden to a landlord.

We compromised on outdoor space and a garage, in the end. We bought a New Build "townhouse" (3 storey mid terrace).

It was lovely, and fine as a started home. We backed onto the local park, which had it's positives and negatives. It ultimately wasn't right for us though and we moved last year with a MUCH bigger list of criteria 😂

Late 80s property boom so anything we could afford! It needed to be commutable to central London and we knew we didn't want kids so we bought a 1 bedroom flat in Anerley and were very happy there for a couple of years before we upsized and moved further out.

We wanted: big garden, semi or detached, small town and pleasant looking. Location (general location) was the most important as we moved to be closer to family.
We bought an ugly terraced house with a small garden. The house was a bit of a wild card but I went to see it anyway and actually it's lovely and we got a hell of a lot more house than we had seen before, an extra bedroom and a garage. With our tiny budget we didn't have a load of choices and it would have been silly of us to pass up this one.

Two bedrooms in (then) unfashionable Brockley. I ended up with a huge ex-council flat that was incredibly well built and central. Area up and came about five minutes after I bought.

I couldn’t afford to have much of a wishlist buying on my own in London. I compromised slightly on area to get a one bed flat rather than a studio. I absolutely loved that flat.

Location ( walking distance to school and grandparents, nice neighbourhood), price, number of bedrooms, garden. All equally important and all those ticked. Compromised on aesthetic( it's a bland new build and I don't love the layout) size ( it's a wee bit small esp kitchen) and garage / parking : parking is a weirdly located space at the back of the house. Overall very happy, as beggars can't be choosers and I'm not that well off.