Did you love the house you moved into?

[Chasingthewind11]

We are moving out of London with 3 kids towards family in Woking. We have a budget of around 550k maybe stretching to 600k. It will buy us a 3 bed with a small/medium garden or a 4 bed but not in such good condition.

My question is, did you love the house you bought? We haven't loved any we've seen, we are trying to figure out how some of them would work, my DH WFH so needs an office space as well as 3 beds (the younger 2 kids will have to share). Wondering whether to settle for a house that could possibly work or if we should hold out for something better. We really want 4 bedrooms but it's a stretch on the budget

I think it depends what you mean by ‘haven’t loved’. Do you actively dislike them, are they missing things that are dealbreakers for you, or do they just not feel like home?

Be practical above anything else. With 3DC you need space above anything else, don't count bedrooms, look at the square metres of space and how it's split up. If a house needs refurbishment or just updating can you afford to do it and have the time to do it? Is the location good for schools?

Also you might want to think about the following:
Do you need room to WFH or a guest bedroom?
Does the house have two or more bathrooms?
Does it have a utility room?
What council tax banding is it and have the current owners extended (which will probably mean your banding will go up)?
How big a garden do you want?
How close to the town centre is the house, it it walking distance/if not, how good is the bus service into town (very important when your DC are teenagers)?
How quiet is the street and how goodis the double glazing?

I'm not convinced that 'loving' a house ever completely outweighs the practicalities so work out what you need and if you can afford it. If you can't afford it what are you prepared to compromise on. I do love this house but that's because it fits our needs. I didn't love the houses I viewed that didn't fit our needs.

No, it hadn't been decorated in decades. We moved in because it was a good price in a good area, next to a great school and friends/family and we then renovated it and love it.

Yes for my current and next house, no for the one before that.

the ones I love(d) weren’t perfect and needed a lot of redecoration and re-jigging of layout but just felt like good places and had good period details which I am a massive sucker for. So I guess it is/ was easy to have a vision for what they will be like that I love.

the one before - which I didn’t love - was big and practical but had very little in the way of character and had layout issues that would have been expensive to change and would have added little value so we couldn’t justify doing. However we did things to it over the five years I was there that did make it much better and if we’d had to stay there longer I do believe I could have made it a place I’d liked a lot more.

but it did bother me every day that it didn’t feel like my home somehow and I was always a bit sheepish about inviting people over as I just felt a bit ‘ugh’ about it.

I love my house and loved it as soon as I saw it.
We need to move now too but I haven't found anywhere else that I love as much as my own house, making choosing another property really difficult!

Yes. The minute I set foot in it to view it I could see myself living here. So much so I put an offer in as soon as I left the viewing. Still love it now

Could you put a pod shed thing in the office for husband to use? Check out Hullypods on Insta they seem to be quite good

If you have enough space and the right location you might just need a bit of imagination to think how you could make it a home you love. If you have a decent garden you could put in a garden room, it’s a great way of separating work.

Our first house was the best of a really fucking awful bad bunch. We grew to like it. Although as we were moving I’d say that like moved to tolerance as every small annoying thing was amplified. This house I loved it but it wasn’t perfect but did tick most of the boxes.

It took us 9 months and countless viewings to find a house we loved. So many we liked but we didn't love and am so glad we held out for a home we love rather than making do. I think you know when you know. I wanted to repeat the feeling I got when I first viewed my current home which was my first time buy.

Not at all, nearly didn't get out of estate agents car as exterior was so 70s. Inside reeked of fags and decor was hideous.

But was good size, good location and could see how to cheaply get two more rooms out of it so made cheeky offer and am now very happy in it.

We loved our house from the moment we saw it on rightmove. We fought off several other bids and won. The house needed a lot of work to get it to modern standards which we have nearly completed and now I love it even more!

I loved my house on sight - the kerb appeal and the fab location were the winners. Interior layout was fine. The interiors were not part of the love, let's just say the house had had one "enthusiastic engineer" owner followed by a "cowboy builder" owner ... there was a lot to pull out and make good, but those internal things were rectified over the years. I did have a bug bear with the extension - it was badly designed, the placement of the back door was ridiculous, there was no direct access straight out to the garden, but the room was perfectly useable, it just wasn't bad enough to warrant being changed quickly. So we waited and this was finally rectified after 20 years, haha! Now it is perfect.

Yes, I did. I bought it for its character and location.

There are compromises, of course, as there are with anything. There are things about it that aren't ideal - but I still love it and always have done. I've lived here 25 years now and will not be moving.

I loved the garden & location. The house was okay
After 15 years we've finally got it how we wanted. 2 extensions, lots of internal reconfiguration and i absolutely love it. It's perfect for us.

Thanks so much everyone. I think we need to hold out for something that feels more right or has lots of potential for change. As someone said, space is so important! I've been desperate for a big garden, so many are tiny. With 3 kids I think this is really important to us

A garden is lovely with kids. Doesn't really get used once they hit their teens imo except for entertaining.

I didn't love ours, but it ticked every box on our list. It was a new build (second hand) and I love houses with character, the decor was also horrific which didn't help. But 6 months in, with new flooring throughout and redecorating entire house and I love it now.

Loved it more than the others but its a project so loved it more for the potential. Every house comes with compromise though so its just finding the one you can live with.