Bigger house in posher street or smaller in more practical location?

[wawawoo142]

Trying to decide between two houses to buy to live in for next 10+ years. Two kids, both houses same distance to walk to school so that's not an issue.

One has all the space and more, in a posher area of town, but still walkable - but the extra 10 minutes walk will mean I drive more often. House needs renovated, but nothing major, just updating to our taste.

The other has everything we need, just the rooms are all a bit smaller (normal sized rather than huge), more recently renovated and to our taste, more of a mixed street but still quite nice and very easy to walk into town, kids to activities, etc.

Both options are similar price. The bigger one probably has more potential to grow in value due to the posher location, whereas the smaller one is at it's full potential and probably one of the nicest houses on the street.

What would you choose???

Bigger, we went for a smaller home and now bursting at the seams but can’t afford to move

Thanks for the update @wawawoo142 . I can actually understand your dilemma better. If the small house wasn't at its ceiling price for the road I might have been more in favour. Convenience really does matter and I get the difference between 15 mins 'pop' into town and a 25 minute walk.

I'd go for the bigger house

Bigger.

You had me at double glazing

Posher, bigger, sunnier

I’d go for the bigger house too. The extra ten minutes walk doesn’t sound like a deal breaker to me for more space. Yes you might drive it more but you at least could walk it if you wanted.

Buy the bigger house and commit to doing the walking. It’s good for you!

Bigger south facing house sounds good.

We had a few options when we moved here, including bigger or posher.

We chose our house because it was big enough, small garden but facing a large green, good transport links and local services (shops, takeaways, etc), nice walks locally and a community feel.

We'd lasted less than 3 years in previous place and came here thinking 5-10 years. Instead, we extended up and out when we needed more space, and are still here 21 years later.

Oh, and we slowly upgraded from the urgent things (new bathroom, replaced single with double glazing) to more "when we have the money" things like cosmetic work, improved insulation, properly lagged hot water tank and modern boiler, stove instead of open fire, solar panels....

But not spending all the budget up front meant we had funds for the urgent and it didn't take that long to build up funds for other things.