Should I buy this house? Pls help!

[MovingDilemmas]

Please can you check out this Rightmove link and tell me what you think?

Link: House on a hill with a lower ground kitchen

Pros:

• I LOVE the location. Far nicer than many roads around here.
• Affordable - most houses are period properties and therefore more expensive - not many come up that we can afford.
• End of terrace. Noise and having quiet space v important to me for work reasons. We are moving from an end of terrace currently so reluctant to go back to terrace.

Cons:

• The kitchen is in the basement (it's on a hill), down some stairs, so not on the level when you walk in.
• Kitchen is small, no space to sit more than 1-2 people at a table in current configuration.
• It's been listed for sale, then de-listed, 3 times in the past 3 years. Zoopla history suggests it's really struggled to sell. It also didn't sell in 2012.

We could potentially move the kitchen up a level so it's on ground floor when you walk in - but to access the garden you'd still have to go down stairs.

Which one is worse - no direct access to the garden out the kitchen, or kitchen being cut off and not social? Moving it up would make it more sociable.

Would you ever consider this house? Will it be impossible to sell on if I do?

I don’t know Bristol but I’m aware it’s hilly! When I saw it was at the bottom of the hill, I was going to advise the obvious about checking flood history. Then I saw the kitchen is in the basement and think you need to research well. Has it recently been developed and the kitchen moved down?
I lived near the junction of a road and thought it was ok, when I moved nearer the middle of a road (next road!) it was quieter as vehicles weren’t slowing down and speeding up to round the corner, just coasting.
I think the house and garden are really neat, access to the garden would be my preference so I’d keep the kitchen where it is but do a lot of research and ask experts before committing. Love the proximity to the park and station!

I personally wouldn't because there's only one bathroom which means you'd have to go up two flights of stairs from the kitchen to the bathroom every time you needed a wee. Like pp, I do prefer to be able to access the garden (and the outside bins) directly from the kitchen too. Unless you could squeeze a downstairs loo into the little bit of redundant hallway next to the basement stairs?

We lived in a house where you had to go through the basement to get to the garden and it was a pita with young kids. Probably fine once they are old enough to do stairs. You could probably out a loo on the ground floor if you sacrificed a section of the rear living room?
I like it and I think you would get used to the stairs pretty quickly.

key info - what direction does garden face??. V naughty that floor plan doesn’t showing. I’m guessing north as they always mention if it’s south or west. Perhaps east.

Not the point of the thread, but OMG the price! That house would be about £180k where I live. Do you have to live in Bristol?

It's a common house layout in the area. However, the price looks a bit high for a 2 bed (which is what it actually is!)
Lots of houses in Bristol have the bathroom on the middle floor so you're only ever one flight of stairs away.

It's actually at the top of the hill (rather than the bottom) so less of a stress about flooding than some of the others I've looked at. The garden is South! So it's a good one. But it's teeny, only space to sit and have a coffee (but that's fine because the park is so close).

The lack of loos on the basement and ground floor bothers me more than the layout. If that was correctable, I would consider it.

I don’t think it will be that much of a pain. It’s a small house, you’re not going to be entertaining lots of people in it, so the kitchen doesn’t need to be social. I’m guessing it’s just you or two of you. Moving the kitchen would be prohibitively expensive and for no real benefit. In the summer you will probably want to eat outside so having the garden there would be much better.

@TrousersOfTime that's really interesting / useful to know. So hopefully the house layout won't put people off. But yeh I agree, it feels like a 2 bed rather than 3.

@ILoveHolidaysAbroad yeh sadly I have to be there. My friend recently bought a 5 bed house in Darlington for less which definitely puts it in perspective!

Also moving the kitchen won’t be any more social (less so as you won’t be near the garden). The stairs are in the middle, so you can’t open it up, it’s the same size room as upstairs and you’ll still be tucked away. Also you’d never use the basement floor if you moved the kitchen, so would be wasted space. I think the house looks fine for the price and location. There are lots of similar style houses around there.

I wouldn't. Because it's on a junction- risk of car through a room or wall in the house would make it a no from me
Mainly because being on a main road, near a junction, at the bottom (due to flood risk) or very top of a hill (risk when icy driving up it) or having a very sloped drive is an absolute no go for me

The lack of loos would be challenge if you have a child or elderly parent visiting. Speaking from experience we rented a similar terraced and I was potty training my toddler.

If I bought it I would move the kitchen up and have outside steps leading down to the garden. The basement could be storage, spare bedroom, cinema room etc.
The only things that puts me off are the failure to sell (could be the survey comes up with some horrors) and the parking (being on the corner means extra fighting every day for a space).

Its amazing how prices are so different in different parts of the country.

There is a house a stones throw from mine near identical to this, its been on sale nearly 3 years and has never gone SSTC as its way overpriced at £150k (its probably worth no more than £110k but sellers seem insistent on £150, they have had 3 EA list it now at that price even though the EA know its not worth that much).

No use to you obviously as we are 300 miles away but mad you could pick up an identical style house and just move it to a different city and its suddenly worth 4-5x as much.

Looking at the Rightmove listing, I personally would not buy this house.

The location of the kitchen would be a PITA.
The garden is tiny.
It is right on a junction, next to a school zone, so I would imagine parking will be an absolute nightmare.
There is only one bathroom / toilet.

But, if it ticks all your boxes, then go for it!

Could the bamboo in the garden be a reason it's not sold?

It looks like there's a lot of it and bamboo can cause serious structural damage if not controlled carefully

I would not like it, but I'm not the one on a budget in Bristol. That said your reservations about how "hard" it is to sell appear to be reasonable worries given what we see in the listing.

presumably priced as 3 bed but poor layout for such. Do you need a family house for kids or an adult house for WFH? I note ambivalent listing by EA as reception / bedroom. Not really suited as conventional dining room given kitchen situation but would be great as a home office, but are you buying for 2 beds or 3 ???

one toilet only and that on the top floor. Long walk when you need to "go" from either garden or kitchen. That on its own would kill it for me.

I love it, exactly my style of house. Beautiful.

Medium crime according to statistics-

https://www.streetcheck.co.uk/crime/bs165an

Personally I would have to have that hideous decor downstairs changes an all the carpets/floors replaced.

Garden is low maintenance but tiny but that may be your preference.

The house is pretty typical for the area, however victoria park can be pretty dodgy

Here we go again

There is a gate at the end of the garden. If you can easily get access from the street to the kitchen via that gate (ie put a lock with key or key pad on it) then you could easily gain entry to the kitchen from ground floor via the garden. So that wouldn’t bother me. Particularly as you won’t be parking out front as it is a double yellow line.

what does bother me is that the ONLY bathroom is at the top of the house. You need to climb all those stairs if you’re in the kitchen and need the loo. Speaking of the bathroom, no shower. What is the reason for this? No water pressure? Have you checked that? While everything looks fairly fresh, is a shower with pressure high n your list and could you redo the bathroom to accommodate? Loos and showers were on our list (parking too so for me, this would be no go but I know for others this does not matter).

I wouldn't buy it, I don't like kitchens on a different floor from the living space. And if you move it to the ground floor, what are you going to do with the basement? You'll probably never go down there except to get to the garden. So it's a no from me.

Do you have to go through the back reception/bedroom to get to the stairs to go either up or down? If so then it's quite a limited market as it's only a 2 bed, unless you use the front reception as a bedroom. Does the price therefore reflect that it's a 2 bed with a bonus reception room or are other proper 3 beds more expensive?

Do you have or hope to have children in future as it isn't a family home in my eyes due to layout. Also depends on what market the area is aimed at which may explain why it's not selling if it's out of kilter with the area and may not be the best investment unless you plan to stay a while