Deciding to buy a house: heart or head?

[greensquirrel]

When you’ve decided to offer on a house, have you tended to go with your heart or your head?

We are FTBs, or trying to be. I’ve fallen in love with two houses so far. House 1: we both loved everything about it and didn’t want to go home from the viewing. Had offer accepted but fell through (sellers couldn’t find a house to buy and are staying put). House 2 was everything we wanted at a great price but someone beat us to it.

Since we missed out on house 2, I’ve stopped getting excited and emotional about houses. I think I’m all head now, not heart, as I’m wary of being disappointed again.

This is perhaps sensible, but is making it much harder to determine how I feel!

We’re in price negotiations about another house now. It’s not quite what we imagined and needs more work than we wanted but it’s a good size and location with lots of potential.

I just can’t work out how much I care about it.

We’re going for a second viewing today. Should I just be thinking about which boxes it ticks, or waiting for a house that grabs my heart too? It’s the only decent thing we’ve seen in our budget in some time (spring rush never materialised) and I’m worried that if we don’t go for it we’ll be waiting ages for anything else, but I also don’t want to buy the wrong house!

DH is already all head and maybe I’m just being silly. Would appreciate advice. It’s our first house but we’re in our 40s, buying an 3-bed and looking to stay for a long time.

No rush, if you’re FTB, at least go for 30-50 viewings, otherwise you have no idea what you are buying.

have you check the flooding map? Crime rates? Schools? What class of people living around you? Any council houses (no offense)?

do you have any idea how much to get a new boiler? Have you check the boiler of each house? Any windows need replaced?

We are looking in one specific area and there just aren’t that many properties that we could view that many! We are also absolutely desperate to leave our awful rental.

Checked all that, and also this house has a fairly new boiler and new windows.

It kind of depends...like what is it you loved about the houses you didn’t get?

We had a similar situation when we moved house a couple of years ago. Put a couple of offers on houses and were head over heels in love, houses fell through for various reasons and we were so disappointed each time, even offering way over asking to try and secure with no luck.
Fast forward to when we found the house we’re in now, and much like you, didn’t love it straight away but we checked all other elements (schools, location etc) and went with our heads. We actually nearly didn’t put the offer in because we get so ‘meh’ about it. We’re now unbelievably grateful that the other houses didn’t go through as there were various problems in those areas and now, we are completely in love with our house.

Long story short - everything happens for a reason & with a purchase as big as a house it’s probably best to use your head :)
Best of luck I know how stressful it can feel!!

I think some of it was surface / cosmetic stuff, if I’m honest! And some was to do with things like having the layout I wanted and certain things like a utility room.

This is helpful, thank you. Glad it’s all worked out for you!

go to another area and do more and more viewings

the point never about what area you’re looking at
the point is get the “feeling” “muscle memory”, then somehow you will get the full picture and get rid from tunnel vision

I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with a house we’ve bought and we’re living in our third. I had a list of things I wanted - drive, amount of bedrooms, cost of house and just looked at it all practically.

Wouldn’t this just be taking the piss wasting people’s time though?

When I say we are looking in one area I mean one town - we are looking in lots of bits of that town.

There just aren’t that many houses around though! Like I say the spring rush hasn’t materialised.

It depends if you see this house as being your 'forever' home or not. Also if it is not, is there the possibility to make it so in the future?

Our first home was very much a head purchase. It was an excellent price and gave us everything we needed but didn't feel like 'home'. If we had to stay there, it was fit for purpose. If I could describe it, it was very much like an IKEA Kallax- very functional but not much personality.

Our current home was very much a heart purchase. We actually intended on buying another house but we couldn't get an offer agreed (divorcing spouses- one accepted the other didn't). We had already sold so was in a rush to find something. Ended up viewing over 15 houses in two weeks and were running out of things to look at.

While I was away, this house popped back up in searches as the previous sale fell through. Funnily enough I discounted it initially as it didn't look great in pictures, but with limited stock we thought we would give it a look. Not sure what it was, but as soon I stepped in I knew it was our family home. We had barely left before we put in our offer and moved in a few months later.

As we had always intended on moving in the future if we had the means, the first house purchase didn't matter to me too much. We bought before I qualified, so knew my salary would increase a lot in the future. It did cost about 20k in moving costs, but the appreciation in buying our first home more than made up for it.

We’re both very much head - it has to meet enough of your criteria on paper. If you’re too ‘heart’ you could risk overlooking things that might come up in the survey or searches. We’re buying now and the house ticks enough boxes, and I can see us living there, but I don’t think it’s some dream home

@Alarae I honestly don’t know that it’s a forever home but we could stay for a long time and it does have lots of potential, including to extend.

Thanks everyone!

We bought our first two homes because we fell in love with them on the first viewing. They each had loads of character and traditional Victorian features.
The house we're in now - we viewed it and went "meh, not bothered". It's an 80s-build with zero character. But it ticked a load of practical boxes: detached, driveway and garage, near a train station etc etc.
5 years on I LOVE it. We've decorared to our taste and added our nice wooden furniture, which has given it a sort of character. And its warm, dry and cheap to run.

This is also an 80s build with limited character but great energy efficiency (currently shivering in a draughty damp rental).

You’re all helping me realise I feel a bit protective of this house as an option and it might be a bit heart as well as head.

Anyway we are going for another viewing today and you’re all giving me lots to think about, thank you!

So cosmetic stuff, honestly, I’d ignore that, you can and probably will change them anyway.

Layout... that’d depend, for me open plan would be a deal breaker, I don’t like it, I don’t want it. Other things I might have as what I’d really want, but could live with them being different, so that should be a head decision really.

stuff like a utility room usually comes down to budget.

So you end up with a mix of how you make a decision tbh.

@OP - I have bought 2 houses with my heart - the one I am in ( 3rd) now was with my head - area just lovely , neighbours fantastic , walking distance to so many things. It ( house ) was rubbish when I first viewed it & I thought too small , too few original features but some years on with some work & my choices I love it. Cosmetic things can be changed . Even building work can get the rooms you want . Nothing can change the location of the house.

I think most houses are a compromise - depends on the compromises you are willing to make .

At least 30-50 viewings?? There isn't that many properties for sale in a year in my town! I've bought seven properties in my lifetime and only did more than 10 in the two occasions I was buying flats in cities.

I didn't love my house after viewing, was very meh about it and wasn't sure whether to offer, we did in the end as wanted to be in this village, been in nearly 2 years now and i really do love my house, i think at viewing we were too focused on what it didn't have (an office, a log burner, a bigger garden) but none of that matters now, we're working on the garden which it turns out is a gorgeous private place to sit in summer, made alternative space to WFH and don't actually miss cleaning out a log burner 😄
If it's the area you want to be in you can make changes to the house to suit you. Good luck

We offered on, won, and then saw fall through two houses that were enormously heart. We’re now in the head house. And I can safely say that those two first houses would not have worked out for us long term because we fell in love with features and ignored the overall practicality of the houses. This slightly harsher decision - number of rooms, locations, square foot etc - were the right ones for the forever home.

My advice is don't count anything out that you have only seen online.
Go and view every house in your budget that meets most of your criteria, i.e. your absolute non-negotiables.

Buy with your head and turn it into a home that your heart loves.

Our first purchase was more heart - ticked the minimal boxes we had set (location, number of bedrooms, actual bath) but head would have sent us somewhere bigger with less character. I think because we loved it we made it work a lot longer than it should have!

Second purchase was more head - we'd had 3 offers fall through and just needed to buy somewhere before the stamp duty rules changed and to get us out of staying with relatives! 2 years on and we're definitely making it ours, and all the head reasons for going for it do mean it's a house that really works for us.

Oh yes adverts can definitely lie in both directions!

As first time buyers, I'd say fully prioritise head over heart. It's very rare to be lucky enough to buy your 'forever' home that is 100% perfect in every way including cosmetically on your first go, most people either start with something cheaper than their ideal home and through building equity/capital value increases eventually trade up for something bigger/prettier/nicer area and/or buy a doer-upper and effectively make their own ideal home.

I've pretty much strongly disliked something (or in one case, nearly everything!) about every property I've ever bought, from the too-small flat on the dodgy estate to the bigger one above shops on a busy road to the small house with no garden or parking to the bigger house that needed everything doing to it, even to our very beautiful period 'downsize' retirement cottage with roses round the door (it's too small and not terribly practical for old age), but it doesn't mean those were mistakes or bad choices overall, they all served a function for that time of my life - the remarkable thing is how once you've moved all your stuff in and (not to sound too cheesy) the people you love live there too, it starts to feel strongly like home and you can overlook/get used to/forgive a lot of what you previously thought were non-negotiables. This is particularly the case if the compromise is it's an ugly on the outside/lacking kerb appeal kind of house as you spend very little time realistically looking at the outside of your house if it's nice on the inside.

If it's in (roughly) the right area and has the number of rooms/space you need (nb not want), is structurally sound (or can be made so) and is (roughly) the right price I'd buy it and work out the rest later, cosmetics are very easily fixed, you'd be amazed the difference that can be made with a lick of paint, new cupboard doors, new carpet etc even without having to get into the realm of brand new kitchens/bathrooms and the benefit of doing at least a little bit of work yourself is you get to make the decisions and have everything exactly to your taste rather than having to try and shop around to find someone else who shares your preferences and has already done everything. Call me fickle/easily pleased but even with places that are so ugly I've cried when I first moved in, I was pretty easily placated by a trip to the shops and a splurge on nice soft furnishings, plants, artwork etc and like I say when you put in your own books, photos, trinkets etc everything looks a lot better!