Which house would you choose?

[OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared]

Help! I have been house hunting for months and there was very little of interest on the market, now I am in a position of potentially having 3 to choose from, and struggling a bit. Which would you choose?

All houses are in the same village, which we have chosen for the schools and general location (proximity/transport links to nearby city for work). We have 2 primary age children.

A. Beautiful large detached 1930s house, with a beautiful large garden. Located on outskirts of village so further from the school (1.5 miles) and garden backs onto field but also distant view of busy A-road from end of garden.
Owner is a retired lady who has furnished and decorated it beautifully but some things wouldn't be hugely practical for us so we would want to make a few changes. However it's the absolute top of our budget so large mortgage payments and we wouldn't necessarily be able to spend lots of money on changes and redecoration, we'd have to do it gradually. It is more than liveable though and has a "forever home" feel about it.

B. Large detached house with large garden, not sure when it was originally built, has been extended/renovated and wouldn't need much doing to it. Very well located in centre of village, 0.6 miles to the school. Only downside is road is slightly busier than the others (it's on a bus route and there is some through traffic). Within budget.

C. Semi-detached house with medium size garden, built around 1930s-1940s, we would want to do a lot of work to it. Well under budget so could afford extensive renovations and renting elsewhere while we do them. Main advantage of this house is that it's on my favourite street in the village, quiet and friendly with lots of families with children. As we are new to the village it would be nice to make friends with some neighbours. Reasonably central in the village, 0.8 miles to the school.

C is my favourite location but I'm torn about the renovations, part of me would love a project and would love to make the house exactly how I want it, but I am also aware of the stress and disruption, and probably shouldn't be embarking on it given that moving house will be challenging enough.

DH really wants a detached house so he is leaning towards B.

We actually already made an offer on A, before B and C came on the market, so we need to decide whether to withdraw our offer. Argh!

No plans, it's owned by an agricultural research organisation and apparently can't be built on anyway.

Final update: we have decided against A, too far from the school and centre of village, and DH didn't love it as much as me, so we concluded that it's not worth going to the top of our budget for. If it was better located and we both loved it, we'd be willing to max the budget. I am a bit sad but it feels like the right decision. And we already ruled out C so it's back to the search... All rather frustrating but it has helped us to narrow down our priorities which are detached house no more than a mile away from the school, preferably less.

Thanks all for your thoughts and moral support - they have been much appreciated.

I will try and remember to come back and update again if and when we ever find the right house, but it could be a while!

Hello, me again. I would welcome your thoughts on another house we are looking at, I'll call it House D.

Positives:

• very good location, quiet street within reasonable distance of the school, centre of village
• detached with good size garden
• period property

Negatives:

• it's too small; smaller than our current house and we wanted more space not less, so we would need to do an extension and loft conversion as soon as possible
• it's not very well maintained so while it'll liveable, it wouldn't be very pleasant to live in while we plan for the renovations.

We had been hoping to avoid lots of work but there seems to be so little on the market in this area that ticks our boxes, I am wondering if we are ever going to find anything that ticks all of them... plus part of me wants to do the work so I can make it how I want (rather than paying a premium for someone else's choices, IYSWIM?)

Am I mad?! Should I sit tight and wait to see if something better turns up in the new year? (If we wait, we'll almost certainly lose our buyers who have already been waiting months for us to find something - we can put ours on the market again but ugh the tidying/cleaning for viewings!)

Could it be a forever home?

How period - would you get planning approval for the work you want?

Waiting is fine but didn't you say its not a huge area, so limited on choice by the size of the place?

How would it work out price wise? Because it sounds like a lot of building work and work is very expensive these days, possibility of going over budget, etc? How much value would it add? Which i know may not be vital if it’s a long term home but if the house is costing 400k and work costs 100k you don’t want to end up with a house worth 475k.

once all the work is done will it be big enough and will the layout and room sizes work? Remember some existing rooms will still be their current size?

How does the price compare with the semi? Careful not to overpay because the extensions will be expensive.

Whether you take the work on is very much a personal decision. It will likely take longer, and be more expensive and stressful than you anticipate. But if you feel strongly about the village, then I guess f you eliminate the impossible then whatever remains, however improbable...

b

Yes definitely forever home, or if not forever then 15-20 years plus. We hope/intend to stay for a long time!

Not listed. I think it was built in the 1930s (though it's not as nice as some of the other 30s houses we've seen, I'd hope we could make it nice) and lots of the other houses in the street have done extensions and loft conversions so I doubt planning permission would be an issue.

Correct, it's a village and houses come up so rarely that we could be waiting a very long time indeed for the perfect house.

Want to be in by summer 2025 at the latest (in time for DC2 to start school in September, and for DC1 to start Y4 at the same school).

Good points, thank you. We think the asking price is too high and we'd offer under. We are certainly factoring in the cost of extensive renovations (£200k-£250k worth) which we can afford. Even allowing for going over budget it would be less in total than house A!

Given the market in the village we're confident that renovations would add equivalent value to the house. In any case, we'd be staying many years so we are not too worried about it.

I do think that once the work is done it would be big enough, the rooms are decent sizes and the hallway is nice and wide (which is one of the things that bothers me about our current house, very cramped hallway!)

We moved to our village 16 years ago and rented for two years initially before buying our current house.
agree that, being a village with varied properties and only ever one or two on the market, it’s unlikely that you’ll find something perfect.
our house definitely wasn’t, but I’ve grown to love it. And actually nothing has come up in the village in 14 years that would have been ‘the one’, or even better than ours!

House D - asking price £700k (but I think it should be £650k tbh)
House B - asking price £650k (recently reduced)

Whilst I think work will cost a fortune now, in these circumstances I probably go for making it fit my requirements and sucking up the cost and inevitable hassle to get myself in the right place.

Thank you. I'm leaning towards that, too.

I agree, I think go for it.