We've had an awful time of it with house buying. We've had two sales collapse - one where we were gazumped and the price went stupidly high, and another where the sellers just changed their mind. We were gutted as spent a fair bit on both and lost our buyers after the second one.
We are now in a state of confusion and there are two properties we like and they are very different. We have an offer from a buyer who hasn't sold theirs yet, and we are continuing to market ours in the meantime but we have five viewings this weekend, and we know they have six viewings on theirs so we are hopeful something goes our way soon! Ours is a three bedroom terraced property and we desperately need more space as we both work from home FT now and ideally also want four bedrooms too as we have three DC living with us (one might not be long term, they aren't our child). Plus storage. Boy do we need storage space!
Property A we really like. It isn't quite as good for us as the one we just lost. Inside is lovely but it is on a very busy road. It's a semi-detached four bedroom house, garden isn't overlooked other than by the neighbour but is quite small and the traffic noise is a worry, but more so at rush hour when we wouldn't be outside anyway. House inside needs no work at all, it's immaculate and while not 100% our taste we'd happily move in right away. It's in our budget and offers the space we need as it has both a big kitchen/diner and a separate dining room we can use as an office.
Property B I love, DH is less keen because it is a complete renovation project. It feels like a big step up the property ladder and the sort of property we could only dream of owning. It's detached, set in 2 acres of land (mostly wooded) and has 6 bedrooms and 4 reception rooms. No main road nearby, very peaceful. It is also a complete state. Nobody has lived there for three years. It's been reduced and now, at the very top of our budget, we could, just about, stretch to buy it.
Structurally the main house is sound. The roof is okay, windows are double glazed and mostly okay (two are blown). It was under offer and had a survey done on it in April but the buyer pulled out for reasons unrelated to the property. It needs rewiring. The boiler probably needs replacing but has been tested and works. An extension that was added on probably needs demolishing (it's a timber extension added to the brick house but looks like a giant rotten shed). All the carpet needs replacing, it's got three bathrooms that need replacing, the kitchen is old fashioned but functional, there is brown wallpaper on every wall. But it is bright, warm, doesn't smell. It's probably the ugliest house you'll ever see but doesn't need kerb appeal as it can't be seen from the road!
If we brought it we would have so little money left, we'd have to do the work slowly and a lot of it ourselves. I'm fairly practical, DH less so. We could cover the mortgage and still save a bit each month as long as we both stay in our current jobs. The mortgage is a stretch but we think we'd be able to save £700/month if we don't do expensive holidays or eat out (both of which we do spend on at the moment). We have a DIP already via a mortgage broker we were dealing with on our last purchase, that would allow us to buy it. Just.
After buying it and fees, we would have about £20,000 left. I think we should be able to get the rewiring and one bathroom done for that (just the most basic bathroom suite you can get, doing the tiling ourselves which I've done before). But that's it. We'd be living in a mostly empty, ugly cavernous house decorated in brown and orange throughout, but at least storage space wouldn't be an issue. To be fair we aren't immaculate new build types. In time we'd want to reconfigure the layout, new kitchen, knock down the weird timber thing plus all the other niceties. I'm happy to look at it as a 10 year project. DH less so. It's the sort of house we could never in a million years afford normally.
What option would you go for? Are we being unrealistic about renovations?