How many houses did you view?

ElsieMonkey

Emmazom wrote: »

We can settle with off street parking but as this isn't a designated spot it's not always likely to be available, we would quite happily park over the road, or further down the street but again there isn't a lot available.

Especially with us planning on having a child I don't particularly want to walk miles from where I have parked come rain or shine. There's also no rear access to the property (it's terraced) so again would need somewhere for vans etc to stop.

We're aware that to get somewhere with space to park we will probably have to settle for a different style of house, as edwardian/victorian homes aren't known for their winding drives, I'm just struggling to visualise putting an offer in on a house I don't love.

I'm on right move etc every day so feel I have a good grasp of what's out there and what we can afford, we're currently looking, tipton/wednesbury/west bromwich in the Midlands

Will you be using the car every day?

Every property will have something about it that will annoy you, and that you have to learn to live with. You spend most of your life in the house, not parking, so for me I wouldn't worry about the parking. If you have a child and have to park a little up the road, and it's raining, it's a momentary annoyance at worst.

missprice

We looked at 2 tried to look at a third but EA was having none of that malarkey😂
First one was fine but at the time of viewing they couldn't find the keys to garage and no invite to go back and look later. We would have bought it too if we had seen inside garage.
Second one we live in now and it's just what we wanted. Third one was obviously a wreck as only one picture on right move and it was in the same set of streets we live in now. But no one was willing to let us look .
We had a specific area and it had to have a garage but that's all. If a flat had come up with a garage (unlikely I know) then we would have bought it

Cakeguts

Here is another thought for you. Older houses tend to need more maintenance and use more energy. So if this is your first house you might do well to learn how to maintain and pay for one that doesn't need an endless supply of money for maintenance. Then you can go for the older style property when you have learned how much owning a house costs.

So my advice would be this. Go for a much more modern house. One that has cavity walls so that you can fill them with insulation to keep heating costs down. Victorian and Edwardian will be likely to have solid walls. The only way that you can get the best wall insulation on an old house straight away is to buy a mid terrace. The neighbours on either side help a bit in stopping lost heat through the walls.

Don't buy a house because it looks nice inside. When the present owners take out their pictures and furniture it may not look so nice. You can get an idea of the size of a room by looking at the ceiling.

For a first house where you are going to experience a huge learning curve you want that curve to be as shallow as possible. So I would like to suggest this. Find an area that you can live with. Then look for a house that was built in the last 20 years. One of this age is likely to have a driveway and it is likely to have a not enormous garden. You have to find out if you like gardening before you buy a house with a huge garden. If you like spending your weekends going out will you be happy to have to spend all of Saturday morning cutting a huge lawn or would you rather sit in the garden and enjoy it. A 20 year old house will not have reached the age where it needs major refurbishment. You might like to add a new kitchen and bathroom but you won't have to. There won't be any lead piping which there might still be in an older house. You shouldn't need to rewire. The roof should be in good condition. The walls will be insulated. It will probably have double glazing and a modern boiler. All of these things mean that living in it will cost less and your maintenance bills will be lower.

Then when you have had a go at living in a house you own you can look round for your ideal Edwardian or Victorian house and you will have a much better idea of what you are looking at.

Clutterfree

Cakeguts wrote: »

Here is another thought for you. Older houses tend to need more maintenance and use more energy. So if this is your first house you might do well to learn how to maintain and pay for one that doesn't need an endless supply of money for maintenance. Then you can go for the older style property when you have learned how much owning a house costs.

So my advice would be this. Go for a much more modern house. One that has cavity walls so that you can fill them with insulation to keep heating costs down. Victorian and Edwardian will be likely to have solid walls. The only way that you can get the best wall insulation on an old house straight away is to buy a mid terrace. The neighbours on either side help a bit in stopping lost heat through the walls.

Don't buy a house because it looks nice inside. When the present owners take out their pictures and furniture it may not look so nice. You can get an idea of the size of a room by looking at the ceiling.

For a first house where you are going to experience a huge learning curve you want that curve to be as shallow as possible. So I would like to suggest this. Find an area that you can live with. Then look for a house that was built in the last 20 years. One of this age is likely to have a driveway and it is likely to have a not enormous garden. You have to find out if you like gardening before you buy a house with a huge garden. If you like spending your weekends going out will you be happy to have to spend all of Saturday morning cutting a huge lawn or would you rather sit in the garden and enjoy it. A 20 year old house will not have reached the age where it needs major refurbishment. You might like to add a new kitchen and bathroom but you won't have to. There won't be any lead piping which there might still be in an older house. You shouldn't need to rewire. The roof should be in good condition. The walls will be insulated. It will probably have double glazing and a modern boiler. All of these things mean that living in it will cost less and your maintenance bills will be lower.

Then when you have had a go at living in a house you own you can look round for your ideal Edwardian or Victorian house and you will have a much better idea of what you are looking at.

Sound advice!
Our first home was a 1970s 3 bed semi on an estate.
It suited our needs for 11 years but was never going to be our dream home.
Since then we have gone for period properties. Yes they do require a lot of maintenance. You also pay a premium for a period property. Around here you get a larger modern ish house much cheaper than a smaller period property.

ElsieMonkey

Cakeguts wrote: »

Here is another thought for you. Older houses tend to need more maintenance and use more energy. So if this is your first house you might do well to learn how to maintain and pay for one that doesn't need an endless supply of money for maintenance. Then you can go for the older style property when you have learned how much owning a house costs.

So my advice would be this. Go for a much more modern house. One that has cavity walls so that you can fill them with insulation to keep heating costs down. Victorian and Edwardian will be likely to have solid walls. The only way that you can get the best wall insulation on an old house straight away is to buy a mid terrace. The neighbours on either side help a bit in stopping lost heat through the walls.

Don't buy a house because it looks nice inside. When the present owners take out their pictures and furniture it may not look so nice. You can get an idea of the size of a room by looking at the ceiling.

For a first house where you are going to experience a huge learning curve you want that curve to be as shallow as possible. So I would like to suggest this. Find an area that you can live with. Then look for a house that was built in the last 20 years. One of this age is likely to have a driveway and it is likely to have a not enormous garden. You have to find out if you like gardening before you buy a house with a huge garden. If you like spending your weekends going out will you be happy to have to spend all of Saturday morning cutting a huge lawn or would you rather sit in the garden and enjoy it. A 20 year old house will not have reached the age where it needs major refurbishment. You might like to add a new kitchen and bathroom but you won't have to. There won't be any lead piping which there might still be in an older house. You shouldn't need to rewire. The roof should be in good condition. The walls will be insulated. It will probably have double glazing and a modern boiler. All of these things mean that living in it will cost less and your maintenance bills will be lower.

Then when you have had a go at living in a house you own you can look round for your ideal Edwardian or Victorian house and you will have a much better idea of what you are looking at.

This is sensible advice.

We had a new build flat first, was very warm (almost too warm), but the lack of character and feeling like I was living in a box annoyed me. We now live in an Art Deco listed flat, solid walls, 2 sides are outside walls, beautiful period feature and amazing size rooms and ceiling height, but it does get cold in the winter and requires the heating to be on much more. It also requires painting more regularly etc. At times this gets me down, other times I appreciate the good points. It's swings and roundabouts.

Emmazom

Thanks for the advice, in regards to the car we will be using it every day as we work 30 minutes drive away, we own our own business so will be at work together until I decide to have a child.

We're currently renting so are aware of the costs of running a house, the house in question is a mid terrace, with a huge garden, which is definitely something we want, although we could compromise on this. Running costs, although likely to be more are not an issue, we earn a relatively good wage, with savings available after the deposit and this house is £60k under our top budget.

My partner lived in an either older house than this one for several years, so we're aware that it will need more regular work/maintenance than a newer home and this is something we're willing to do. We're home birds, and will spend more time in the house/garden than we would out on days off.

The main issue is the type of house we want, doesn't have the front that we want, we can compromise living on a main road, it really is just parking we feel will be an issue, as mentioned there isn't even really anywhere nearby that we can park.

Whilst I can accept that I would make a sensible choice and buy a house that would have what we needed, it's just hard imagining that we will be living in a house we don't particularly like. Hopefully those feelings would pass once we're in there

Dan-Dan

It seems more popular than i thought , people who seem to already have made their mind up what house they want and pad it out with a few others just to make sure

Thats what we did both times we bought, i think if you have nailed the location and schools etc then the house is almost secondary

ElsieMonkey

Emmazom wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, in regards to the car we will be using it every day as we work 30 minutes drive away, we own our own business so will be at work together until I decide to have a child.

We're currently renting so are aware of the costs of running a house, the house in question is a mid terrace, with a huge garden, which is definitely something we want, although we could compromise on this. Running costs, although likely to be more are not an issue, we earn a relatively good wage, with savings available after the deposit and this house is £60k under our top budget.

My partner lived in an either older house than this one for several years, so we're aware that it will need more regular work/maintenance than a newer home and this is something we're willing to do. We're home birds, and will spend more time in the house/garden than we would out on days off.

The main issue is the type of house we want, doesn't have the front that we want, we can compromise living on a main road, it really is just parking we feel will be an issue, as mentioned there isn't even really anywhere nearby that we can park.

Whilst I can accept that I would make a sensible choice and buy a house that would have what we needed, it's just hard imagining that we will be living in a house we don't particularly like. Hopefully those feelings would pass once we're in there

People have offered a lot of opinion/advice etc. on here. However, it sounds like what anyone has said isn't of much use to you. Losing the perfect house/garden for the sake of having a parking space right outside my door sounds a bit picky to me if I'm honest - unless I didn't have the use of my legs to get me from the car to my front door. You say there really isn't anywhere to park nearby, i do find this hard to believe. I'm guessing it's just a normal street set-up? Houses either side, cars parked on the road either side? Not sure why you think one of those spaces, when they become available, can't be taken by your car. Forgive me, but it does sound like you are struggling to compromise on anything at all and are after everything - house/garden/location/parking/style. I wish you luck in finding it but by your own admission, you wonder if you are not being flexible enough.

cloo

We live in a house where there's no guaranteed parking on the street. It helps that we already lived on the street before, although we've moved to an end where the parking's slightly harder. The payoff is that we're very near the tube. Only about 50% of the place we saw had a drive; it was a 'nice-to-have' but not a dealbreaker.


The fact is, we probably saw 10-12 houses but only our house, and the other one we went some way with but that fell through, had a fourth bedroom that wasn't a total shoebox, which is what we really wanted, and enough reception room.


The lenders didn't give us that much wiggle room although we had a big deposit, and given the money lost on the purchase that went south, we couldn't afford to keep looking and looking for something that had a driveway and/or a larger garden.


But if there really isn't anywhere that near to park on it could be a problem. My sister turned down a house they otherwise liked because it was on a main road and they could only have parked on the other side, which she was reluctant to do with a small child, and I understand that. If you think you can afford to take the extra time then it's fair enough to look some more.

spadoosh

Think of the benefits off not having off road parking. Youll never have car blocked in on your drive when some muppet parks across it!

Pros and cons, its always sunny somewhere!