Two houses! Help me choose please!

[billyidol]

Both 3 bed detached which is our requirement

House 1
23 years old Barratt home.
Preferred location
Integral garage which impacts on downstairs space quite a bit. Downstairs living smaller than we’d like and layout not ideal - have to walk through lounge to galley kitchen.
Pretty garden but overlooked
Almost brand new kitchen and 2 bathrooms. Beautifully decorated
Bedrooms really good sizes

House 2
4 years old Persimmon
Not ideal location
Detached garage
Slightly larger downstairs than house 1 as the garage is separate
Preferred layout with hall and rooms that are separate.
Nicely but blandly decorated and kitchen is cheap flat pack persimmon standard kitchen
20k under the price of house 1
South facing garden not overlooked

I actually love house 1 and have discounted and gone back to it time and time again to see if we could make the smaller space work for us. House 2 would be more a ‘ticks more boxes’ buy.
So mixed up!

Don't spend thousands extra on hypothetical grandchildren visits.. in hypothetical 10 years time...which maybe for 10? 15? 20 nights a year. Put that thousands aside to pay for hotels or air bnbs for everyone to stay in together instead.

20k/30k extra for something that may happen in 10 years?

House 2 looks super pokey. I’d go house 1.

House 1 given your circumstances. When you're too old to drive, you'll want to be close to shops etc for walking or a taxi.

In your situation I would definitely go for house 1 - it seems to be superior in every respect apart from a slightly smaller downstairs and the 'overlooked' north facing garden. The location sounds really important to you, and you've said house 1 is in a much better spot.

You could get round the space issue downstairs by converting the garage into a second living room if you really feel like you need the space once you've moved in, but with three decent sized bedrooms upstairs I don't think that will be necessary.

As for the gardens, I was surprised by how hemmed in garden 2 was when you described it as not being overlooked - I understand that there's no windows looking out onto it, but I'd still feel very hemmed in there because it's very small and surrounded by other buildings. Apart from the north facing aspect garden 1 is much nicer, it looks like that seating area at the far end is a real sun trap, and you could plant trees along that boundary for privacy without them casting shade on your garden. The front of the house will also benefit from being south facing so you'll have a lovely sunny living room and bedroom. If you're sociable you could also put a bench out the front which would be another lovely spot to catch the sun and say hello to passers by.

Like a PP said don’t worry about hypothetical grandchildren… my DC have never spent a night at their grandparents… nothing to do with not wanting to. My DC are horrible sleepers and no one would cope. So buying a house for potential grandchildren isn’t wise whereas you are 100% guaranteed to get older.

I wouldn't put an orangery or conservatory onto the back of the house where it is north facing. I'd stick a shed for storage out there, and would convert the garage into a sitting room with big south facing windows. If you're determined to keep the garage for storage then look into whether you can get permission to build the orangery out the front where it will benefit from the sun. I've seen that done a couple of times and it makes for a lovely welcoming entry area with comfortable seating where visitors can enjoy the sun, although it does mean it is overlooked.

Of the two, house one is lovely.
But would you settle for an overlooked north facing garden? In retirement, ime, people spend a lot of time in the garden, I would hate to be overlooked without much sun.

If that's not important to you...go for No1.

Bore da!!
House 1 is significantly nicer, and that coupled with location would swing it for me.
The garden isn’t as overlooked as I imagined and you could plant some pleached trees to help with that anyway. Would you/could you convert the garage to more living space?

House 1 is on the flat and walkable to train station, shops, local pub etc. House 2 is up a hill and down again and a further 10 / 15 minutes walk to everything. Only will be DH and myself but this is meant to be a downsize / retirement move

House 1 makes so much more sense. If this is for retirement you do need to look ahead to a tme when you might not be able to drive for whatever reason. Having transport and shops walkable is really important. The up and down hill of house two could end up making your life difficult when you are older.

And then I saw the listings. House 1 is miles better than house 2.
As you are downsizing everything is going to seem smaller but house 2 is really poky. If it's just the galley kitchen you don't like, I think you will get used to it and the rest of the advantages of the house outweighs that. The living room isn't the biggest but it's manageable.

I also commented on the conservatory idea earlier. I think it would be a crazy waste of money to put it on the rear with a north facing garden. It won’t get the sun. And I would urge again to look at how much sun that lovely seating area at the end of the garden actually gets. If it’s just an hour or two at the end of the evening in summer then you may be disappointed. As you’re downsizing for retirements I’m guessing you’d want to spend quite a bit of day time in the garden. Evening sun is fine when you’re out working all day and want to come home and catch a bit of sun. Less so if you’re retired and waiting all day for that elusive sunshine! The photo looks great but i expect the vendor arranged for the optimum time!

I do feel that comparing the two houses together, house 1 looks immediately much more attractive, which is why it’s easier to sway towards it. But why are you set on just these two? I would try to look objectively just at house 1, not comparing it but asking yourselves, is this the layout we want? Am I happy with a galley kitchen (which you say is an expensive newly fitted one, so you’re paying for that and there won’t be a financial incentive to remodel the downstairs) Find out the actual hours of sun that seating area gets in spring and summer. Not just high summer but for half the year. Ask yourselves if you’re happy with that. If you still feel objectively that you’re happy with the answers then it sounds like house 1 is your better option. If you’re not totally sure, keep looking. These are estate houses so there will invariably be others with different orientations so you won’t have a north facing garden and where the configuration of rooms may suit you better

A conservatory on a north facing fall works far better than south or west facing where it becomes too hot to handle in the summer months. They all need rooves and heating.

We've got a south facing sun room with half bricked walls, a proper roof and central heating and it's never too hot to use. On particularly hot days we adjust the blinds on the south facing wall to prevent the sun glaring in during the middle of the day and open a couple of windows for a through draft (the south facing wall has the majority of the windows, but we also have them west and north facing so can still enjoy the views). The problem if anything is that it is too cold in winter at night and on grey days because of all the glass (which is why I wouldn't build one north-facing), but even a bit of summer sun warms it up to a comfortable temperature and makes it a very pleasant place to get some vitamin D.

Is vitamin D absorbed through glass?

Keep looking. If you are asking strangers to help you choose you are not sure about either. The right one will sing to you, warts and all if there are any. I don't think either of these two houses is the right one for you.

Bide your time, the right one will turn up. It's getting more and more a buyer's market now too, which is in your favour.

Maybe not, but it certainly gives me a mood boost sitting there on a cold day enjoying the warmth.

Neither or house 1.

I wouldn't compromise on location at this point in life. Hence I would ideally wait for the right house to come up in the right location.

I think we need to know how “not ideal” the location of the second one is. It sounds better on paper but I would question why they are selling so soon.

Do you need a garage? Could you extend into the integrated one in number one?

I’ve just seen you have posted the links - house one is the superior house imo

Use this as an opportunity to get new furniture!

House 1 is lovely!

I can tell.you from experience that a detached garage is a PITA and especially in the winter. We had one built 30 plus years ago - never again!
Think about when it's icy and you need to get something from the garage.☹️

We moved soon afterwards and now have an integral garage accessed from our utility and love it. We have two huge chest freezers and all the gardening equipment in there. So easy to access.♥️ (We have a big double drive and can't be bothered parking the car in the garage 😄.)

Unless you are really expert gardeners or love sunbathing all day long I honestly wouldn't worry about north facing either. Ours is North East facing and it doesn't cause any issues at all. We get plenty of sun. 😎 We have a gorgeous huge lawn and spacious patio area with furniture. Our front is south facing and that can be a real nuisance at times as things just melt. When we had a new garage door fitted last year the surround just melted off so we had to bring the guy back to bolt it on. 🙄 Have had similar with other things as have the neighbours.

Definitely no. 1 for me. 👍

Where's the fire? Just keep looking.

House two location is less ideal for retirement. Being in much easier walking distance has been a blessing since I had a stroke (at only 55)

House 1 for me! 2 appears to be more overlooked than 1. 1 seems to give off nice vibes.😀

Forget the grandchildren think about your old age. No 1 gives you the ability to have a bedroom and shower room downstairs I think. You could do a garage conversion. Never underestimate how much room you actually need if you become disabled on old age.

House 1 is much more attractive

House 1 is much nicer imo and with a bit of effort could be made perfect @billyidol.

We're in our fifties and downsized in 2024. Having previously had a six bed house with lots of large furniture and the luxury of several living spaces, it was important to us to retain a spacious feel as well as more than one living room to accommodate the stuff we weren't prepared to part with!

We specifically wanted a period house and were moving from a cheaper location (rural Wales) back to a more expensive one (south coast of England), so knew large, plentiful rooms would be hard to find on our not massive budget.

The Georgian cottage we purchased has three beds and an integral garage. As there's just two of us living here, we chose to sacrifice the main bedroom which is a decent size (15' x 14') to use as a TV room. Eventually we'll swap one of the sofas in there for a sofa bed for visiting family/friends. We have the second bedroom (13' x 10') which is plenty big enough for our super king bed etc.

Additionally, we swapped kitchen and living room so we have a kitchen/diner rather than the living/dining we inherited on purchase.
We've already converted part of the garage into a boot room and will also be moving the existing downstairs toilet to the garage space.

The location was perfect (two minutes walk from the beach), and as we're able to DIY most of the work, we felt the house was worth buying to reconfigure into the layout we wanted.