How much are the houses you REALLY want?

Jhoney_2

Depends how much I really think about it.

Imo, we are aspirational by default, for ourselves, our chidren etc so flat wants house/garden/peace and quiet, terrace wants semi/detached etc etc. Sometimes its a practical reason e.g noise pollution or to be near family.

I am in the latter category and would be happy enough to move my home/neighbours, street and DC's school if I could. That's where i'd spend the money, relocate everyone with me, lol.

Luckily, I am just about in touch or not too far from the cost of doing that move - possibly even an upgrade to a semi fixer upper, for which I have to admit I am deeply grateful. i will be moving further afield.

Cannot replace my neighbours though and regarding the house, at least you take the memories with you for free. Those things are pricesless.

glasgowdan

Yes, I was kind of getting at what a 'reasonably achievable' house would cost you, and whether it's always that one that's just 5-10% above budget. The one that makes you think you could ACTUALLY have it, almost!

There are two that I've my eye on. One has been for sale since January at the same price, and the other has been up for over a year with two price drops (to a level that's still 10% out of our range). I think if they're still for sale by July I'll book viewings and chuck in our top offer and see.

dirty_magic

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Well - I was taking it as a perfectly standard/ordinary type house myself and not a luxury one.

Thankfully, I dont even want a luxury one and wouldnt have it if I had the money to do so personally.

Just a 3/4 bedroom, 1/2 bathroom standard size detached house with reasonable storage space (eg decent size garage) with reasonable garden in reasonable (or, preferably, nice area) in location of choice and that would do me.

I just look at "luxury" type ones and think "All that housework - or careful interviewing of cleaners to do the housework for me etc etc" and I'd feel very "conspicuous" in a luxury level house.

I agree with this, there's only 2 of us so we'd just rattle around in a 7 bed mansion with loads of reception rooms. I just want a nice cottage in the country with a big garden! A 4 bed would be nice so we can have a study for our books, a room to use as a dressing room because we work different hours and a guest bedroom.

Jhoney_2

dirty_magic wrote: »

I agree with this, there's only 2 of us so we'd just rattle around in a 7 bed mansion with loads of reception rooms. I just want a nice cottage in the country with a big garden! A 4 bed would be nice so we can have a study for our books, a room to use as a dressing room because we work different hours and a guest bedroom.

Wow, 2 of you need/want a 4 bed? Couldn't some of the requirements share space in the other room(s)? Not a criticism, just wondering how many books, clothes and guests you have to cater for.:D

We are a family of 3 and have a 3 bed (the home came first), one of which is mostly empty and kept clean but homely - ready to recieve guests if you will, but OH allegedly uses it as an office. Mind you I know that it's normally unused for that either as the laptop is normally in tow around the house and on the sofa.:).

If I run out of space, OH goes first then i'll think about a move to a larger home - any clutter is largely down to OH, not DC.

ratechaser

csgohan4 wrote: »

There's a house in Kensington, Cheslea that i want to buy for 37,000,000 but sadly won't even earn that in my lifetime.

Well not with a defeatist attitude like that you won't

Honestly though, most of those Kensington piles are just narrow high-rises with dubious foundations due to all the excavating going on. Not sure that John Lewis furnishings would quite cut it there either...

phoebe1989seb

Somewhere between two and five million £££ :eek:

Our *dream* house would be one by CFA Voysey.......there's at least one currently for sale, but it's out of our price range by quite a bit! Last time we moved - from a perfectly lovely (if you like thatched houses!) 2500 sq ft Georgian property we'd restored from an unmortgageable wreck - I was determined to buy something more in keeping with our love of the Arts & Crafts movement.

We ended up with a one-off 1850s detached house that has a later Arts & Crafts extension, at which point the whole house was altered to suit that style. It's a beautiful - if as yet unrestored (we're working on it!) - house with a delightfully quirky garden.......we absolutely love it, but we had to move quite a long way out of our chosen area to get it and couldn't have afforded it there

moneyistooshorttomention

ratechaser wrote: »

Well not with a defeatist attitude like that you won't

Honestly though, most of those Kensington piles are just narrow high-rises with dubious foundations due to all the excavating going on. Not sure that John Lewis furnishings would quite cut it there either...

I would feel seriously dubious about a "Kensington pile" myself with all those basement excavations going on. Was only reading earlier this week of someone being forced to move from their home because they'd had to put up with years of the neighbours doing this.

Yep...it would have to be Harrods furnishings in a place like that too wouldnt it?:rotfl:

My "John Lewis" tastes and I would feel very out of place and downmarket there...:rotfl:

Any time I've ever been in those sort of areas it's been obvious that I counted as "visiting scruff of the area"...and could only "get away with it" because I was a young woman at the time (ie visiting there with a boyfriend).

dirty_magic

Jhoney wrote: »

Wow, 2 of you need/want a 4 bed? Couldn't some of the requirements share space in the other room(s)? Not a criticism, just wondering how many books, clothes and guests you have to cater for.:D

We are a family of 3 and have a 3 bed (the home came first), one of which is mostly empty and kept clean but homely - ready to recieve guests if you will, but OH allegedly uses it as an office. Mind you I know that it's normally unused for that either as the laptop is normally in tow around the house and on the sofa.:).

If I run out of space, OH goes first then i'll think about a move to a larger home - any clutter is largely down to OH, not DC.

Yeah they could do, we're in a 3 bed now and it's fine, but a dream house would have 4 bedrooms. I'd just like a proper dressing room with lots of wardrobe space and a dressing table. There's no point us having a wardrobe in our room, we can't get ready in there because one of us is always asleep in there!

We do have a lot of books and lever arch files full of OHs work. I wouldn't mind so much if they were pretty leather bound books that would look good in another room but they're mostly reference books. I doubt he'd actually work in there, but I'd like a room we can hide them in along with the printer. If there was a small room downstairs that could be used as a study a 3 bed would be ok!

moneyistooshorttomention

There is something rather ironic about the fact that houses are getting built smaller than they used to be - at just the time many of us need or want a study (all the working from home these days.....):cool:.

Add the fact we tend to have more possessions these days. I certainly grin when I look at the size of the built-in wardrobe in my house and it probably counted as "generous" when the house was built in the 1970s. It's not nearly big enough for me and I've had to get extra wardrobe space.

MERFE

There are certainly million plus pound houses round here, I'm not after one of them. The £440000 one that I would really love is 3 bed but with decent space, it's the huge garden that is attractive.

TBH one was available at the end of our little row of terraces and would have been perfectly fine but it was still over our budget at £189000. Hasn't sold though just been taken off the market. Nothing sells fast round here I guess its too far from anything unless you want to move here for a reason like OH has a job in the village and we wanted to cut out commuting, then you probably wouldn't want to pay the extra prices when there are much cheaper properties outside the village. Gonna be interesting looking once we have the deposit saved