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.

I'm definitely head , I look at square foot , functionality, location and price. As long as it doesn't need gutting its fine. I've noticed the EA trend of staging shit small houses which stripped back aren't very good . OTT photos and excessive staging is a red flag for me.

I've bought two properties in my life and both times I just knew they were right for me when I walked in. I saw perhaps 30 properties each time, London flats so lots of variety. You think you should want to buy some of them and why are you faffing about. The agent is asking for viewing feedback and you don't have much to say.

I just think all the compromises suddenly don't seem so important when you know. It gives you the conviction to go through the stressful conveyancing process.

For me it was definitely mainly about location. I could have bought bigger places in less good (for me) locations. A good location makes me look past an awful lot as it's fixed forever.

Well we went for a second viewing and it’s turned out to be a heart house as well!

I always start with head first- I ruthlessly chuck out anything that doesn't fit my essential criteria before I get invested enough to have 'heart' in it. That stops me falling for a house that's attractive in some way but just not suitable. Having said that, we did once have a house purchase fall through and as we had a buyer in a tricky market, I had to trawl through the rejects again, and decided to check one out that had failed just one of my tests (it was in a village, I didn't fancy that). But it met the other requirements, so we viewed one evening. Offered asking price the next morning. Lived there over 30 happy years.

That's good to hear, all the best.🙂

It has been a rubbish spring and not all flowers are out yet.

Only 5% of our hedges have full growth.

It may still come when gardens look a lot nicer.

Sorry I don’t understand your post! I was talking about how there are usually loads of new listings after Easter but this year it’s not happening, at least not where we’re looking - there’s hardly anything coming on, just the odd reduction. So we aren’t going to hold out for the prospect of loads of other options.

I didn’t mean anything about hedges or gardens!

This is going to sound quite mad, but when I was 11 we went on a school trip to London to visit a museum. We were waiting for the coach back and I said to my friend “One day I’m going to live on this road.” Twenty five years later I bought my flat on that road. No intention of moving, ever. I love the flat and the location.

I've bought and sold quite a few houses over the years as we moved around a lot when we were younger. I've bought with my head and I've bought with my heart and the best profit we made on any house was when we bought with our head. I never loved that house as for me it didn't have the charm of other houses I had lived in. But it was very practical and walking distance to an Outstanding school, great local park etc.
I love our current house (bought with head & heart which is ideal) but sometimes you can't get both, in which case I think buying with your head is better if making a profit is important to you.

I love that!

People mostly put their houses on the market after Easter because gardens are in full bloom and look at their very best for potential buyers after looking rubbish all winter.

Right now, that is not the case.

My purchases

heart
head
heart
head

next move is going to be our final move and will be all heart

Location, location, location…

30-50 is way too much for most people. I like a good house hunt, but never needed more than half-a-dozen or so to know what's worth a shot. I'm pretty practical though. The love comes from the home that you make it, for me. As long as it ticks the 'head' boxes, the heart will take care of itself.

Forever house - heart

All the other houses in the run up - head

We've just moved into a my picture postcode heart house on a road I've wanted to live on since childhood. I love it but it's a total money pit and my head voice tells me daily that were bonkers to buy it. We are now spending all the money we made from selling the others - and more (I daren't count ).

All that is keeping me going at the moment is repeating the mantra - it'll be nice when it's done 🙃

I had no idea, I just thought fewer people would want to move around xmas, January etc.

I don’t think the lack of new properties is to do with gardens, it’s surely the state of the market