What's your must have/nice to have/won't touch list

CarrieVS

Dealbreakers:

• Directly on or backing onto a main road or railway line. I want a cat, and I won't keep a cat indoors (I appreciate that many people feel equally strongly the other way. But I was brought up with the understanding that cats need to be allowed their independence.) If I didn't live in a safe enough area, of course I wouldn't let a cat out: I wouldn't get a cat at all.
• Shared entry. I'm not ruling out maisonette flats but I'm not buying anywhere where simply leaving my house is a potential social interaction (plus own back door needed for catflap - see above.)
• Going through the kitchen to get to the bathroom. I've rented places like this and I always feel faintly squalid trailing through the kitchen in my towel.
• No outside space. I can compromise on how much and what sort, but I insist on something both front and back.
• Significant repairs or renovation needed. I'm going fairly close to the wire in terms of savings, in order to borrow as little as I can, so I'll struggle to afford anything major for a while.
• Must have at least a corner shop within easy walk.
• Must be mother-approved in terms of roughness of the area. I think my personal standards aren't quite as high (though I do want to be able to pop to the shop on a winter's evening without worrying) but I'd never hear the end of it if she thought I wasn't safe.

Really want but could compromise on one of these if I like the property enough:

• Off-street parking for one car. I don't mind no garage but I'll only consider on-street if it's clearly going to be easy to park.
• No back alley. If at all possible the garden should back onto another back garden or an open space like a park. Partly for feline safety again. Also because back alleys are always a little bit grotty and almost anything else you can back onto is likely to be noisy or annoying or unpleasant to look at.
• A bath and a shower.
• Two bedrooms (three if right price and I like the property enough.) Second bedroom should be big enough for at least a 3/4 bed, preferably a full double, and the usual other furniture. If at all possible also a desk. I mean to let the second bedroom for a while to help replenish my savings, and I want it to be a certain standard.
• Freehold. If I'm buying a house I want to actually really own it myself. But leasehold wouldn't be a total dealbreaker if the terms were good - the reciprocal lease arrangement they apparently have on a lot of upper/lower flats in this neck of the woods sounds like it should be ok, assuming I could get a mortgage on it.
• EPC C or better.
• Modern build.
• Decor I can live with. I don't want to lay out the cash to redecorate the entire place right away.

Major pluses:

• Supermarket and post office in walking distance.
• Good public transport links. Not an absolute must as I have a car but metro's often going to be more convenient and cost-effective if available.
• Walking distance of city centre (and work.)But I've basically given up on this one as virtually all the housing stock in these areas misses several of my "really want" criteria. But I shall miss the area I currently rent in, and especially my walk to work along two rivers where I see kingfishers and cormorants.
• En-suite in the master bedroom. As I'll be letting the other room, nice not to have to share a bathroom with a relative stranger.
• Lawn in the back garden.

YoungBlueEyes

This is the list I created when I was house-hunting -

Must have - gch, front is south facing, upstairs bathroom (with a bath in it), garden of soil and actual grass and solid boundaries, no open staircase nonsense, no open anything actually - I like my rooms to have walls and doors, walk to town or at least a food shop, front garden - even if only very small, back garden not overlooked, a decent view. Edit: must be freehold.

Nice to have - a kitchen diner, not a galley kitchen, front door leads to a hallway and stairs (not a front door into lounge jobber), outside storage (old coalhouse and wc ) my own garden - no shared access.

Won't touch - council estates, new build estates, any estate actually, south facing garden (too facking hot in summer!), downstairs bathroom, major reno jobs, double yellows right outside, teeny tiny wee rooms cos some 4rseh0le's been watching too much daytime tv and turned his alright 2bed into 3 pokey beds, anything in a bad crime area or on a flood plain, anything where the neighbours look rough.

The last one I added when I viewed a house in Shrewsbury a few months ago. The house was great (ex-MOD ) the area was good, the house was good enough to move in to (bit to do but nothing major), I was mentally calculating my offer. Then as I left and the fellah was giving me directions to get back into town, the neighbours came out and sat on a bench under their front window. Naked to the waist, tattooed from their eyebrows to the bellybuttons (yes literally), drinking cans of cider and smoking god-knows what. At 930AM. Instant kybosh. I was sorry about that one for a long while, til I found a better house

Draw up your list, be honest about what you want, and stick to it.

Lurkingtoposting17

Must have:
- Upstairs bathroom
- Garden
- Two double bedrooms
- <10 min walk to station
- <1 hour journey to office

Nice to have:
- off road parking
- excellent decorative condition
- semi rather than terrace

Ruled out:
- houses off the road (where you can only access via a footpath)
- fixer uppers (I didn’t mind some work but I’m a single non diy savvy female... I didn’t have the inclination or finances to do lots of work)
- townhouses where ground floor is a garage
- maisonettes and flats

That being said I got a houses that fitted all my must have rather than nice to haves plus a few I didn’t even know I had and even then people still say things like “oh such a shame the garden isn’t south facing” proving that even when you think you have it all, you can’t have it all!

NaughtiusMaximus

Must have -at least 3 bedrooms, a drive, either a utility room or a large kitchen, a reasonable amount of space (which rules out 95% of new build 3 beds)

Nice to have - garage, separate utility room, large garden, double drive, 3 good size bed rooms (ie 1 large double plus 2 small doubles are preferable to 2 large doubles and a box room of the same total floor area) , detached, downstairs loo, bathroom with separate bath and shower cubicle, a hall, gas central heating (as opposed to electric)

Won't touch - anything sold through modern method of auction, shared access driveways, a badly overlooked garden, fully open plan**, bus stop immediately outside house, very close to shops or school, mid terrace, a downstairs bathroom as the only bathroom.

** by this I mean a single large room with no separation between kitchen and lounge. Ours is what I'd describe as semi open plan with a through lounge and large kitchen/diner next to each other but with a solid wall separating the lounge from the kitchen area of the kitchen/diner.

With our current house the only thing we weren't so keen on is the semi open plan layout but the design is such that it wouldn't be a huge job to add a plasterboard dividing wall at some point. Of the nice to have criteria the only ones it doesn't meet are being a semi rather than a detached, it doesn't have a hall (although it does have a larger than average porch with plenty of room for coat and shoe storage) and it only has half a garage (the other half has been converted into the utility room) which is fine for storage but too small for a car.

SeasideSally

We're putting together our list right now, but so far we've got:

Must have:
At least two bedrooms
Bathroom with bath in it (no shower rooms)
Large garden
Off road parking
Open fireplace in living room

Must be:
Build before 1930 (preferably before 1890)
Not on a main road

Would be nice to have:
Utility room
Period features (cornicing, sash windows, etc.)


Won't consider:
Shared drive
Shared access
Actually, shared anything

Waterlily24

Ours was large garden and no near neighbours lol. The house didn't matter as much as we intended renovate and extend if necessary.
Must haves after renovations at least two bathrooms, separate lounge, dining room and kitchen. Kitchen big enough to eat in. Utility room. Garages and own driveway.

novelty-socks

In in the market for a flat in London at the moment.

Must have:
* 2+ bedrooms
* 10 minute walk to local centre (shops / pubs etc)
* 80sqm+ total space (more specifically: a sense of space, we've seen loads of places that feel pokey)
* Good broadband (Hyperoptic would be ideal, but I'll settle for Virgin Media)
* Good public transport (I don't own a car)

Won't touch:
* Properties on main / busy roads. Air pollution is the great scandal of our time and I have a young son. Plus, I'm convinced this issue will hit property values on major routes.
* Open plan kitchen / lounge. I cook a lot, I need a proper kitchen.
* Basement / lower ground. Had a couple of bad experiences with damp while renting.
* New builds. They're all so tiny and flimsy. Besides, at my price point it's hard to find one that doesn't have open plan kitchen/lounge.

DCFC79

Id like:
Garage and driveway
Parking for 2 cars in total
A house that wont require too much work, could live painting or say a bathroom being put in.
A garden thats not too large.


Cant be doing with a shared driveway.

zagubov

Wanted: access to shops, had lived somewhere needing a car to reach any shops.
A toilet separate from a bathroom.
Not terraced, too noisy.
Handy for trains, buses.
Not open-plan which I regard as madness on stilts.

Would have liked off-road parking. Didn't get it. Garages in London are useless. The ones I see were all built to hold a motorbike sans sidecar.

Computer_Beginner

YoungBlueEyes wrote: »

the neighbours came out and sat on a bench under their front window. Naked to the waist, tattooed from their eyebrows to the bellybuttons (yes literally), drinking cans of cider and smoking god-knows what.
.

I've heard the men can be even worse..