Checklist when buying your next home?

hazyjo

My list:


No shared drives
No main/busy roads
No parking issues
No commercial/loading bays/car park/pub/petrol station
Must have 'the feeling'
Must be under 0.8 miles to station
Not keen on bungalows
No leasehold
No downstairs bathroom (would maybe compromise if loo upstairs)
Must have a bath (would put one in if possible/not too small)
No railway track at end of garden
No big estates nearby


Erm, that's about it lol! Happy to do work, happy with most styles (prefer old), would want a semi but would compromise, same with parking

NaughtiusMaximus

Here's mine. Our next house will be our forever home and we're in the situation where we can afford to take our time so we are being rather picky:

Essential
Either detached, semi, or end terrace
At least 3 bedrooms
Decent size house overall (pretty much rules out anything in our price range built within the last 20 years or so)
A drive
Downstairs loo or suitable location to install one
Large kitchen or separate utility room
Not too close to a shop or bus shelter (ie popular hangouts for gangs of teenagers)
Rear garden accessible from either side passage or rear
Rear garden not excessively overlooked
Freehold
No shared access
Not open plan

Desirable
Detached
Attached garage
Rear garden facing S, SW or W
A bathroom big enough for a separate bath and shower cubicle (doesn’t necessarily need to have both at the moment, just the space to fit them)
2nd and 3rd bedrooms being of a broadly similar size (ie a house consisting of 1 double room plus 2 large single rooms is preferable to 2 double rooms and a box room)
Within walking distance of a railway station

These are just off the top of my head, there's probably a few more I haven't though of.

NaughtiusMaximus

hazyjo wrote: »

No railway track at end of garden

Having once lived in a house which backed on to a railway line I can say it's not as bad as you'd think, the noise is far less intrusive than living next to a major road for example.

EmmyLou30

My list for me and husband:

-1980's to 1990's build
-Detached
-4 bedrooms
-Off road parking for 2 cars (side by side, not behind eachother)
-Cloakroom loo not off the kitchen or utility
-Good sized kitchen to fit a table in as well
-Utility room with a door, not an archway so it's a proper seperate space
-Not open plan, a seperate dining room
-Happier if it has the original kitchen/bathrooms so we can do it to our taste and do it properly rather than inheriting a bodge job like the last house
-Good sized garden (for the age of house - so 12m+ in each direction) and we didn't care which way it faced as a garden that size will always have sunny areas as the house can't possible shade it all out if you think about it logically!
-Staircase in a hall and not the lounge
-Garage (single or double, just some storage space basically for the Costco run and the resulting toilet roll mountain)
-Nice street
-No hideous conservatory tacked on the back (would you believe that was the hardest thing to find! Lots of family sized houses seem to have a poor mans extension on the back)

Phew, I'd forgotten how picky we were!! But did find a house quite easily in the end that ticked every single one of those. Viewed one house and tried to buy it (got withdrawn from sale after a 4 month period of waiting for them to find a house before they gave up as they wanted a specific style of house in one of two streets in town so had no hope), then found another within 3 weeks and bought that one.

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have found something that ticked all the boxes and I didn't have to view loads of houses to get there. I have friends who've viewed over 130 houses in their search over an 8 year period!!


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LEJC

The problem is that if you start to compile too big a list of wants or desires then the search becomes more difficult because you may focus too much on the things you consider from the list are important.

Important to me would be a garage,a large garden,generous room sizes,separate dining room,large kitchen,few neighbours,but within easy distance of the shops.

In order to get this its probably twice my budget and becomes more of the dream home rather than the reality of what I can afford.

If it were me in your situation,especially considering this is not a third or fourth step up the property ladder,perhaps look more at the area in which you want to live location wise and start to match the houses to your budget....just compiling a list of "wants" could very easily turn it into a search for something that only exists on paper and in your minds eye and if it does exist its beyond budget for this move up the property ladder.

Dont get too hung up about finding a forever home,something practical for a small growing family but dont forget you can move on in 5 or 10 years time...the dream house doesnt need to be achieved on this move.

I sometimes think it's not always a good idea to have a rigid list because you could end up overlooking something which is slightly out of that box.

Reading the responses I'm surprised that the same type of things keep coming up....either everyone has the same wishlist or they are overlooking more than half the types of property in the UK .....that must mean that there are an awful lot of people who are living in property that is not where their wishlist would suggest.

Just as a pointer....and opening a question up...lots seem to suggest they need some sort of exclusive parking rather than on street, with that in mind would your ideal property be a 30's40's 50's semi that is perhaps ex council with a driveway and garage or a victorian terrace in a better area but with onstreet parking.....?

2 different houses on the face of it one gives you your wish list but the other could be being overlooked completely because of no exclusive parking.

My advice would be don't discount anything in your price range until you have seen it....leave the wildcard open.
Pretty quickly to will start to find a common list of things you might want but the best way to compile that list is by viewing a place rather than going into it all with a preprepared tick list or a set of preconceived ideas.

I don't live in my perfect house according to my wishlist...but I do live in my home.
I'ts evolved over the years and is now not just four walls...but 4 walls that hold so many memories.....that's what makes it perfect

Timpu

-Within catchment area for decent schools, both primary and secondary
-enough room for family to grow into
-walking distance to train/tube/tram stations
-walking distance to local shops
-Off Street parking
-Not on main road or bus route (used to live next to a busy train line)
-Windows not below road level (yes picky but don't want people looking down into the living room)
-medium sized flat garden, room for kids to play safely + to hang out washing
-space downstairs for a study
-utility room (no fun watch F1 races when the washing machine hits full spin)
-space to expand the place if needed e.g. loft conversion

We never had 'that feeling' except for my first flat. For our current place, we took about 2 weeks to ask for a second viewing and then realised it was the most logical option.

Grampus8

MUST HAVES:


Freehold
No "on street" parking i.e. must have its own drive & not shared
Detached
Downstairs lavvy
Decent Area

hazyjo

NaughtiusMaximus wrote: »

Having once lived in a house which backed on to a railway line I can say it's not as bad as you'd think, the noise is far less intrusive than living next to a major road for example.

Had friends with it too - doesn't bother me - but I'd be too worried for my stoopid cats! One doesn't venture far, but the other's a bit of a nutter. I had a cat once who used to sleep in the road and use the kerb as a headrest. Never moved when a car came near.


Who knows how even dafter my future cats might be...

SuboJvR

We don't have kids, but have moved to an area within a catchment for good secondary schools, and good primary schools. It wasn't a consideration but knowing that's the case is a nice safety net, although in reality I can't afford to take time off work to have one!

So our list:

Must Haves
- Garage, for our own hobbies, this outdoor storage is imperative. We've spent 2 years with our bikes in a spare room that meant we couldn't access or use it.
- Minimum three beds, so I can have a study, and we have a guest bedroom.
- Minimum 2 parking spaces in addition to the garage, preferably off-road.
- Max 40 mile drive to husband's work
- Mainline rail to London nearby (not necessarily walking distance)

Nice to Have
- Ensuite
- Utility Room
- Living space downstairs we weren't too fussed on kitchen/diner or living room/dining room
- Close enough to my work that I can cycle
- Walking distance to mainline rail to London

With our new house we ticked off everything on the must haves list, and got a couple of nice to haves

[Deleted User]

Ours were..(in order of importance)

Minimum 3 bedrooms
Within a certain village we wanted to move to
It had to 'feel right'
Downstairs toilet
Our own driveway

If you put down too many minimum criteria you're going to find yourself very frustrated. Living in the SE, we weren't able to be too picky. I would have liked a garage and en-suite, but those required a much bigger price jump. I could move to a much cheaper location and get all our 'must haves' but ultimately location was a major factor in our decision. We could sell up, move to the North East, buy a home 3 times bigger with all our dream features - but it wouldn't be what we wanted.