What to compromise on (or hold out for perfection)?

[AVeryMedievalChristmas]

I seem to be spending my life either on Rightmove or viewing properties at the moment.

Long story short, we are downsizing as, for painful and upsetting reasons I won't go into, DH and I find ourselves in a much larger house than we need and I am haemorrhaging money on heating, council tax etc.

I have clear ideas about what I want from a smaller house, but location is a constraint. I don't drive, so ideally need to be within walking distance of work (public transport isn't great here). The type of smaller house I like - low ceilings, pokey, awkward head-bumping cottage type of property - is available in abundance in outlying areas, but not in urban areas.

I have two on my shortlist at the moment - both Victorian terraces of the two-up two down type with a converted attic bedroom. Sadly the high ceiling type, not the cottage type.

House 1 - up to date decor, we would not need to redecorate, has an ensuite bathroom (rare for house type) as well as family bathroom. Has small utility room in cellar. Small yard to sit out in.

House 2 - very dated decor. Only one bathroom. Bigger kitchen than 1 but slightly smaller living room. Small garden to sit out in and a porch you could sit in in winter. Big plus of this one is that it has 2 large basement cellar rooms, both with full windows, that could be converted (other identical houses on the street have done this) to give a better living area as the living room really is tiny. Slightly further from work than the first one but still eminently walkable. Slightly more expensive asking price than first one.

Husband prefers house 1. I prefer house 2 as it has more potential, with the caveat that I'd worry I would intend to get the cellars converted but not actually do it when it came to it due to hassle of it. It has the same space as 1 so an ensuite could also be added if we wanted.

I like 1 but I don't love it. 2 I think I could love with the work done to it. If I had to move in to each as it was, with no possibility of doing any work to it, I would choose 1.

I'm torn and part of me thinks I should hold out for 'the perfect house' but I'm tired of money going down the drain servicing the one I am in, plus due to the situation I referenced above, it is really getting me down continuing to rattle round in here.

Thanks if you have borne with my ramblings. Any opinions welcome.

Personally, I'd go for house 1. After a tough time, it'd be nice to move into a new home that you could enjoy immediately. Renovations can be costly and stressful.

I too would go for house 1.
House 2 would vist a lot more overall with the cellar and redecorating.

Thank you @IceIceSlippyIce and @Usernameaplenty - that is very much my husband's line of thinking. I need to use my head not my heart I think!

House 1. The en suite is worth a smallish living room
any day. My current living room is about half the size of my last (I moved from a double front large Victorian far outside London to a three bed terrace in London) and I don’t miss the extra space at all. I really miss my en suite though!

1 without a doubt.

1 definitely

Will you be able to 'settle' for house 1? If so then 1.

It sounds like money is at least part of the reason you are downsizing. Converting a celar has money pit written all over it. For that reason I would go with house 1.

House 1. Cellars are/can be problematic.

That is a very good point. My ensuite has been a godsend, especially now I seem to need to use it about 10 times a night.

All very good points raised, thank you. Money is a significant reason for doing this - I want to be able to save more money ahead of retirement in the next 10-15 years. I've just shown my husband the thread and he was heartened to see so much agreement!

Sorry you’ve had a tough time. I wouldn’t like basement rooms, so it would be house 1 for me too.

You will never. Find the “perfect” home so work out, create a list, of what aspects are deal breakers and what’s nice to have and what’s a definite “no”.

there will be a little compromise. My advice would be to keep looking, you need to have some “love” for it before y look u move. If seem too many posts here where people have moved and hated a house they bought ‘because’.

are there any villages with a train or bus route you could look at?

What’s the price difference between the 2?

What’s the price difference between the 2?

There's a difference of £5000 in the asking price - both are under £200k (up north) so it's approx an 8% difference. The one requiring work is the more expensive one which I think is down to area. Both are regarded as 'nice' areas but the more expensive one is in the area that's regarded as most prestigious in the town.

It's a toughie, @AVeryMedievalChristmas, but I'll give you my experience which may (or not!) help -

In late 2024 we moved from fairly inexpensive rural Wales - where we'd lived for six and a half years, renovating an old detached mill - back to the comparatively expensive south coast of England where our family are. We'd already downsized when we purchased the Welsh property, selling a much larger, more architecturally stunning house I loved in order to get more land/change of lifestyle...and now we were having to do it again as family were encouraging us to return home (although to be fair, Wales hadn't suited us at all).

Although we were expecting to make huge compromises, we really struggled to find the period house by the sea that we wanted. We particularly wanted a project as renovating (DIY) is our thing, but during 2024 when we were looking there was a real dearth of suitable cottages available.

The one I fell in love with (our house #2 - the 'heart' Georgian, 4 bed, link-detached cottage) couldn't be bought for our budget allowing sufficient left over to sympathetically restore. We were getting desperate as we couldn't easily go into rented/stay with family and our buyers were applying pressure. House #1 (the smaller, cheaper but still in need of as much work as #2 Georgian, 3 bed, semi-detached cottage in the next road) was OH's 'head' choice.

I took a load of convincing as I felt absolutely nothing for it emotionally which I have with every house we've previously bought. We actually withdrew our offer two months into the process as I was sure we were making a mistake. But there was literally nothing else coming onto the market and winter was fast approaching. So we told the vendors (probate sale) we'd reconsidered and we exchanged/completed shortly afterwards.

One year on and we've made so many changes (relocated the kitchen, removed walls etc, although there's loads still to do including reincorporating the integral garage into the cottage) that I actually quite like the cottage now, plus we're getting to see our family all the time which is fabulous!

However, as @HarryVanderspeigle said, renovations are ridiculously expensive these days, so if money is part of the reason for moving @AVeryMedievalChristmas, a project might not be the best decision. If you can wait till early Spring there will hopefully be more available on the market.....

For me, our cottage won't ever be 'the one' - and we might move again when our renovations are done - but I no longer regret our decision and admit it was probably the right choice at the time.

Thank you for sharing your experience @LibertyLily . I think you might be a bit like me in wanting to have an emotional pull to the property you choose, and it also sounds like you have strong visions for making houses your own. I have the strong visions but often lack the 'oomph' to see the more complicated ones through. The move process wipes me out and by the time I've recuperated, I've lost motivation.

I have the strong vision for house 2, but I can see the above factor, plus natural reluctance to spend a huge amount of money, resulting in it not being followed through. The problem with house 1 is that there's very little scope for changing anything. The answer might well be to wait but I'm nervous of losing out on both these and then finding nothing coming up at all (as you did when you initially pulled out of your eventual purchase).

Having said that, however much comes onto the market, there's always the risk that something better will come on after you've committed to a purchase, unless you do find your dream home, which I probably won't at my budget. I could up my budget and still find a smaller house that was cheaper to run, but I wanted to put a chunk of equity into my less-than-enormous pension.

My problem can probably be summed up as wanting to have my cake and eat it!

It's good to hear that you have been able to make your compromise property your own, and have become fond of it - that gives me hope that, whatever happens, it may work out for the best!

Im an outlier in thinking - house 2 - but just don't do much to it at this point. You know the possibility is there for change but live with existing unmodrrnised basement rooms whilst you adjust to new area.

A garden for sitting out in would be important to me and moving twice would be more expensive than factoring in renovations

@Nettleskeins That's exactly where I have been coming from in my discussions with DH. We don't have to do anything with the basement - it has lighting and it seems dry so would be fine to use for some types of storage as it is. It would be a good place to escape summer heatwaves in its current format if nothing else.

I did have the idea of leaving one room more or less as it is and using it as a painting studio - I enjoy oil and acrylic painting (strictly as a hobby, I'm not very good!) but I rarely do it because of the hassle of getting everything out and then putting it away, and inevitably getting paint where I don't want paint in the house. It would be amazing to leave everything lying about and not worry about mess, and there's a sink down there. It would probably be too cold to use in winter but with luck, OK at other times of the year.

At the moment my plan is to see what goes on Rightmove over the next couple of weeks - I am told the New Year is often a time when the traffic picks up and think about these two properties in the meantime. If I "lose" one or both of them I will have to file it under 'not meant to be' but if nothing better comes along it will help me firm up a decision. As I said earlier, I could wait forever for the perfect house, and all the time I am losing money and feeling depressed in my current one.