Has anybody bought a house with their head (not because they loved it) and then grown to love it?

[FatGirlThin]

Me and dh have seen a house that needs loads of work doing to it (that doesn't bother us). It has a great garden and all the room we need. The only thing that's holding me back is that I didn't get a great feel to it when I walked in. We bought our present house when it needed everything doing to it and it didn't look good but I still had a great feeling about it.
I know the alterations we would make to this house could make it a fantastic family home for us.
Anyone else had a similar situation, how did it work out? I am really confused!

Well, we moved last year. DH was possibly less convinced than I was but has grown to really like it. It is possible. But consider:

Think about how much stamp duty and renovations are going to cost you. In our case it felt horrific. If I wasn't convinced I would be happy here for some time - for me that needs to be at least five years - it would have killed me to be spending that sort of cash. If this were the sort of market you could turn the house around in quickly and not lose money, I would feel differently. But think about how you'll feel if the market stays bad for a while and you couldn't sell it w/o losing money.

I think you can afford to leave it a bit longer and see if there isn't something else you prefer.

Yes,we bought our house because of where it is,I didn't like the house much really.I have grown used to it,but it still needs lots of work before it feels 'ours'.I still idolized our old house which we left 4 years ago and even dreamt about it.Then on Friday night,I parked in our old street en route to a takeaway and the people who bought our old house were just coming out of the front door as we walked by.They invited us in to look around and I'm so glad they did.It wasn't as spacious as I'd remembered,the hall seemed cramped and the stairs very steep.It was lovely,but not what I'd been imagining it was all these years.Added to that,the cars up on bricks further up the street,the lads swigging beer and revving their car engines and the litter,all served to remind e why we actually moved away.

Am in exactly the same position as you, FGT (are you sure you're not me?!).

No idea why I don't love the one and only possible house on the market (which needs heaps of work doing, as did similar one which I loved utterly). And no idea what to do if vendors drop their price - am half hoping they won't

Am watching thread with interest!

LOL Elibean! I know what you mean, we are in similar situations. I think at the moment we are just going to sit tight on buying and just push forward with our sale, I've seen somewhere that would be great to rent near where I live so I'm keeping an eye on that.

I've contacted ALL the local estate agents and explained our position and what we are looking and will nag them on a weekly basis if necessary so that I stick in their minds and then if they so much as value something that could be of interest they will hopefully get in touch. The HIP thing is a pain, one local estate agent, who does know me, says she has valued something in the exact area we want and thought of us although she said she didn't know if it was 'good enough for us' - whatever that means, but until she gets the HIP through she couldn't even tell me what road it was in

Furious George - I know exactly what you mean, I LOVE this house and now that we are leaving it (particularly with nowhere else to go) I am remembering why I love it and feel quite sick about leaving. BUT I just need to remind myself why we are moving in the first place and all the things that drive me mad about living here (easier said than done)

We rented for 15 months and then lost our 'dream' house at exchange!I am liking the house we are in more every day just got up this morning and thought this is lovely and I was thinking of selling it 6 weeks ago!if you rent get somewherre really nice and comfortable then you won't be rushed to buy

If you are doing a huge amount of work to it then you will be putting your own stamp on it and I think this will make it feel a lot more like home.Are you in love with your plans for it ?

hate my house. We brought it because it was thr right price and could move quick (i was preggy with 1st dd att)
6 years later, loads of work done an still dont love it. I want my flat back

I do think it depends on how long you are planning to be there. We knew with our last house we couldn't afford our "forever" house, so we bought a sensible house, in a good area, that we knew would always be sellable. lived there for a few reasonable years (hated the neighbours! House was OK!) Did a bit of work to it, sold it on for a decent profit and bought our "forever" house

It suited our purposes at the time, and we had to be realistic about what we could afford, so I've never regretted it.

Just found this thread and read with interest. We LOVE our house, have been here for 10 years and thought we'd be here forever but unfortunately area has gone downhill and we feel we need to move while DS is still young and gets too settled. Really don't want him growing up here as a teenager. We are having real problems finding somewhere we like to buy - well even finding somewhere is a prob as there is so little on the market where we want to move to. Have the possibility of a house which we quite like but is smaller than our current house but which we could extend. However, it is going to cost quite a lot to get it to what we have now. Going back to view for 2nd time this weekend and will need to make a decision. Our only other option at the mo is to rent but it's also difficult to find rental properties in our chosen location and we will have to pay around 3 times what our current mortgage is.

FGT - what did you decide to do? Like you we Love our house and I feel sick at the thought of leaving it but know that we have to go. We also got an asking price offer so don't want to let that go but I am really dreading the day and sure there will be lots of tears!

Mins - we decided not to go with it. I thought it was mainly me who did not have the right 'feel' to the house but after discussing it with dh he felt the same way. We may have to go into rented too (although it doesn't sound as expensive as where you are). I just think a buying a house is such a HUGE decision that if we both didn't think this was the right place for us then it wasn't.

TBH, I don't think I've ever really fallen in love with a house when I first saw it - I think I always get a bit homesick for where we are at the moment IYSWIM.

I certainly didn't fall in love with the flat DH and I currently have, the vendor was a PITA, it needed a huge amount of work and the block is rundown. We've now down the work, passed the vendor's address on to his creditors, the block has been done up and some lovely people have moved in. It was never going to be the forever house but has been fun, taught us a lot about wiring, plumbing, building etc and given us some great friends.

It was also where DD was born so I have much more of a soft spot for it now!