Please help us decide between these two houses

[Inneedofspace]

We are FTBs with young kids, who have always lived in a flat, so this would be our first house ever, and we are super excited (mostly about having a garden for the kids). Having always lived in a flat, we would love a detached property, but these are rare to come by within our budget, so we were thrilled to see one that matched our criteria recently (House 1, link below). We are obviously looking at all other houses in our area of interest, and we have found a lovely done-up semi-detached (House 2, also link below).

From what we can tell, house 1 will need some work done, but we are not sure about the extent of it, and how feasible that would be considering we are WFT and have young kids (we could stay in our rental for some time initially). House 2 seems ready to move in, but we are not sure if it would feel like we are living in someone else’s home (we will not have the money to change much unfortunately as it’s already at the top of our budget). We slightly prefer the location of House 2, but it will need to be extended some time down the line, as we would ideally need an extra room (so that the kids have separate rooms). We would probably prefer a terraced to a semi, just because a semi somehow seems like we are getting half of an ideal detached property (I am aware this probably sounds ridiculous to most…). We have viewings scheduled for both and are ready to make an offer, but not sure if we are considering everything here and if there is something crucial we are missing. We are somewhat familiar with both areas, schools and catchments, but the house itself is more difficult to judge, so we would appreciate any advice please. Which would you go for?

House 1: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/170883104#/?channel=RES_BUY
House 2: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/170881130#/?channel=RES_BUY

Thank you for any advice and thoughts.

I also think you could make box room bigger by moving the wall back over the stairs and building wardrobe into the bulkhead.

See how you feel upon viewings.. the answer might be that neither is right and to keep looking. There's a lot on the market around Woodford Green, Chingford and even further out along the central line towards Theydon Bois and Epping

Haha, before you edited to correct the typo, you had me looking for 5 minutes up and down Google street view for a mean dog/pup, all while thinking, is this to be considered as well? 😂

We have been looking for a while already, but the good schools have small catchments, so that alone excludes a lot of properties. We definitely won’t rush with our decision now, as this thread has been very helpful and made us realise that there is still much to consider and decide what to compromise on before committing.

Thank you again, everyone, for your comments and advice.

We have just moved from terraced to detached and the difference is night and day. More space, can’t hear the neighbours all the time, all the walls belong to us. BLISS!

House 1. The lack of potential to develop house two as your family changes would put me off. It's not the fact that it's done that bothers me, it's the fact that there is little you can do to add rooms or space.

The pub isn’t 4 doors down and it’s quite a nice place, actually!

OP the road that house 1 is in on is quite busy, that would put me off. Highams Park is nice with good schools, but I’m not keen on that specific location.

House 2 is in a lovely spot and is walking distance to good shops and the tube.

Do you live close to either of them at the moment?

We live in a very similar house. Swapping the box room and bathroom around is far more complicated than you’d think due to the location of the soil pipe.

Thank you, that’s good to know. We live somewhere in between, but we are more familiar with House 2’s area in general.

House 1 is better value for money, better for your needs. Not sure what you mean by 'a lot of work', its cosmetic, nothing is falling down. You might want to knock down to have a kitchen diner, thats fine but its not urgent and its not unworkable

The only issue thta would put me off is the road and where it is on the road. It looks a busy road, opposite shops and things

Thats pros and cons though.

Ha ha. I’m sorry. Definitely pub.

You cant tell anything from previous listing pictures.

When I look at our house, it shows the pictures as they were in 2014 when we tried to move. So the decor is my decor now. But we bought it in 2009 so that is the date on RM of the listing and did a huge amount of work but the 2009 pictures are not there any more. It looks as if we've made no changes since we bought it in 2009

You can, we have done that in our house (same style) its now a good size single or small double. The wardrobe as you say is above the bulkhead.

It cost about £2000 all in for stud wall moving/rebuilding plastering and new carpet. The master bedroom is still kingsize and has fitted wardrobes onto the 2nd bedroom so still loads of storage.

I am not a fan of either as they both have flat roof extensions. House 1's extension is now showing signs of the brickwork deteriorating on the photos. House 2: Does it have roof lanterns, i.e. light source in the top? If so that could be an ongoing maintenance issue.

Personally I wouldn't buy either, but that's a personal thing.

Like this

Purely looking at the houses, then House 1 without question.

Then I looked at the prices, and can only assume house 2 is located in a MUCH nicer area.

Detached usually come at a big premium, for a good reason - it is ideal to not share a wall with neighbours. Not only because of noise they might make but also in terms of how it restricts noise you might make. But it is also bigger, and has more rooms.

If you wfh, I don't understand why you would be considering knocking down walls and creating fewer rooms. In House 1, you have 2 big and one small bedroom upstairs plus a ready made study (during the day when you are at work) come room for dc to hang out / game / practice piano / whatever needs doing away from TV in the family room, ready made. Seems ideal

The price difference is giving big vibes that there is something undesirable (or 'less desirable') about House 1 though, compared with House 2.

Couldn't be doing with a galley kitchen, so against the grain it would be House 2 for me.

House 2. 1 looks fab on the outside. House 2 has a better feel imo

Without knowing the area, I would definitely prefer the first house. It looks perfectly habitable and it looks like it’s still got the original layout downstairs whereas house 2 has been knocked around and has the sort of horrible open plan layout thst I really hate.

I think you need to factor in costs. Get a builder or two to give you a quote for opening out that kitchen/Diner/ Conservatory on house one. Personally I wouldn't want to live with that tiny corridor kitchen with small kids for any time at all but I suspect renovations will be pricey and involve steels and skylights as well as the cost of a new kitchen. House one does have a bit more space and that side room would be a great playroom but the garden isn't as nice and in the photo there's a fence missing which makes it look bigger. If you can afford to do the work in the next year or so then go for it but if not, if it could be 5 years or so the go for house two.

I prefer house 1 bit voted house 2. Sorry! House 1 looks perfectly livable. It's very much NOT in Woodford though!! I live in the area. House 2 is a hot if a walk to South Woodford station but not bad. House 1 looks very close to the overground. Personally I don't like house 2's decor, just not for me (grey kitchen, which looks very new)! The space in House 1 is so much better.

It would be house 2 for me. The finish looks very high quality and the plot is straightforward. Doing building work in House 1 with all the weird angles will be really tricky.

House 2
Closest primary school is Outstanding. You are also closer to the better secondary schools within walking distance. You'd need to check catchment polices though
It's on a quiet residential street, not on a busy corner opposite lots of businesses open late which will drive traffic and noise and parking issues.
2nd bedroom is a decent size, remove the wardrobes from Bedroom 3 temporarily if you don't want the kids to share but long term that's your route to the loft.
West facing [which is lovely] private garden with no boundary issues to navigate on your first day.
Plan for a Loft extension. Get your surveyor to value the house and check you can access at that point. Cheaper to check it's feasible now.
Garden office and store long term if needed.
Not sure if you need the station but worth checking bus routes to and from.

Local houses look quite varied in design so price comparison is tricky but suspect £725k is high end of estimate too in current market so worth starting on a smaller offer given you will need to do the loft
If you look at the satellite view you can see some houses with loft conversions done.

The weird garden situation in house 1 is enough for me to say no

Likewise. Why is there no fence, and where is the actual boundary? There could be all manner of legal nonsense sorting that out.

Don’t like the busy road house no 1 is on.

Is this no good? https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/87423714#/?channel=RES_BUY