Compromise on location vs size/type of house

[Notnowjo]

Asking for opinions from others who have faced the same issue please? We need to move for a number of reasons and I am struggling to find the right house in the right location and I don’t know what to compromise on.

my kids are older so we need more space, where we live and where we are looking to move to (other side of town) tends to have older and smaller houses. Our home suburb was formerly poor, came up and is now falling again (combo of things around house quality/availability, size, condition, cost, schools and zones, traffic etc. Our secondary schools especially are poor I now have my kid into the best (IMHO) school in town but it’s across town. Hence we thought to move closer to make things easier. However that area has more better bigger houses but they tend to be further out of the suburb so you start running into longer walks for public transport and driving to your local area for that pink of milk/glass of wine/whatever local job you need to do.

I’m looking for experience did you compromise on area to get a bigger house? Did you regret it? Do you live further out with teens? Driving them everywhere? Is it all a pain? I’m just going round and round and round. I find a nice looking house then realise it’s 20 mins walk away from anything? I see a great location then realise everything around is a 2 bed! How do I decide?
Thanks

20 minutes walk is nothing for teens.

We moved from a cheaper and less desirable area. My husband had moved into the area, because it was cheaper before we met and had children. Once out son came along, schools were top of the agenda, and we knew the schools where we lived weren't good. So we moved into another area, within our town, where property prices are higher and schools excellent. Your child is already at the right school, so that's good. For us it was location, even if we'd had to have moved into a similar sized property that we'd left (as it happened, we moved into a bigger property). A friend of mine moved into an area which is expensive, but public transport is rubbish and she's had no choice but to run around after her 2 son's. Driving them to secondary school, as it wasn't walkable, taking them into town because the buses in their area are awful. If you move slightly out of town, then be prepared to be your child's chauffeur as they get older!

The right location is key with good public transport links. We are 2 mins from bus stop, bus at least every 30 mins up to midnight (normally less), 8 mins from Tesco and Morrisons plus B&Q, 10 mins from vet and Aldi - all walking. Lovely area and 1998 built houses. You can change house internally, outside parking has to be right, look at the neighbours' houses outside in general to get the feel.

Location is always more important for me. We're a 5 min walk to school, a 10 min cycle to work. We barely use the car and like to get out to different places at weekends/school holidays, and a 20 min walk to public transport would be a pain (we are 6 mins walk to a tube station and tons of bus routes, and it makes for much simpler journeys anywhere across town). We have pretty much every amenity nearby, and popping to the city centre for a click and collect at bigger stores can be done in less than an hour's round trip We don't have off-street parking and it's not an issue for us... it would be nice to have it but the houses that have it in our area cost twice as much.