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

tim9966

Must Have:
Garage big enough for a car, and driveway.
Garden


Nice to have:
2 or more toilets
Within a mile of a railway station. (Miss that with my new house, I can't walk there anymore, and parking is expensive, and often the car parks full)
Detached
Quiet area


Deal breakers:
Within 1/4 mile of a pub (Noisy people leaving)
Next to a school (Traffic and parking problems)
Terraced
On Street parking

Novice_investor101

When I looked for my first house (on my own) I wanted a semi/detached house, lawned back garden, no rights of way/shared drives etc, at least 2 bedrooms, upstairs bathroom with bath & shower or shower over bath, off road parking, no open plan downstairs nonsense, south facing garden & not too far away from a city/town centre & walking distance to work. Also a local corner shop. With not too much work needing doing.
Unless I moved away to a new build tiny box miles from anywhere I knew & on the edge of the "rough" areas I compromised a lot.

When I did get a bit more realistic:
My must haves -
No very major issues like damp with no obvious cause or subsidence. Enclosed green garden with no right of way over it. Bathroom with bath & shower over upstairs, if leasehold a very long lease & peppercorn ground rent, separate kitchen & lounge. Plenty of on street parking.
I was happy with a mid terrace I found that fitted that bill, big enough south facing garden & did need a fair bit of work but I could both afford it & manage it. It's on a busy road (during the daytime) but I've lived on busier so it's not an issue. Also purchased the freehold now. & It's a 5 minute walk to lots of local shops, 10 minutes to 3 supermarkets & 2 minutes to a bus stop. 40 minutes walk to work.

For my future house, I'd like to also have:
A garden that's less overlooked, semi/detached, a drive (but plenty of on street will be fine again), a utility room round back & a porch up front. A real fireplace. Small front garden. On a slightly quieter street (thinking more around retirement here!).

Wouldn't ever touch:
Downstairs bathroom. Bathroom with no bath or room for a bath. Garden that's not private. No "modern" leasehold with short leases & lots of charges. Any rough areas. Not connected to mains gas/electric. Anything open plan downstairs, like kitchen practically in the lounge. Any less than 2 bedrooms.

Sapphire

Musts:
*Period property, preferably maisonette with one other in building (do not need responsibility of a house).
*Decent-sized rooms, with at least two higher than average, including room for use as study for work (can be small).
*Front and back gardens, not too big.
*Period features.
*Own front door.
*Freehold or with good, old-fashioned lease, with no ground rent; preferably a long lease.
*Nice, homogenous area that is not too crowded, low in crime, and with river and parks around. Not in inner London.
*Good shopping of all kinds nearby, including a market, and other facilities such as gym, cinema and theatre.
*Good for links to central London (for museums and meeting up with friends).
*Decent storage, including small room in which clothing can be kept (don't like wardrobes in bedrooms). This rather than any 'en suite shower room', which I don't need.

No way:
•New builds an absolute no-no.
•Rough area with reputation for crime ditto.
•Main road, high street or other area with high traffic pollution.
•No outside space.
•Tiny, cramped rooms.
•Place that has had the character removed and been done up with generic IKEA-type fittings (masquerading as 'luxury' ones, as in 'luxury new-build apartment').
•Bathroom with no bath.

phoebe1989seb

Must haves -

Period property - preferably Victorian or earlier
Detached
Some land
Neighbouring properties (if any) to be out of sight
Country walks nearby
Kitchen large enough for an island
No main roads
Upstairs bathroom or facility for one
Off road parking
A project
Freehold

Nice to haves -

Original features including fireplaces
Walled garden
Outbuildings
Walking distance to deserted beach
Mature trees in garden

Wouldn't touch with a bargepole -

New builds
Newly 'modernised' properties
Leasehold
Main roads
No garden

Current house. (400 years, not listed) ticks all our 'must haves' except it has less land than we'd have liked and to get the kitchen large enough for an island we had to remove two walls and a chimney breast....that didn't have an original fireplace. There are three original ones elsewhere in the property.

As well as the main garden we have a walled courtyard plus we have loads of mature trees. The outbuildings are small and dilapidated. The deserted beach is a 40 minute drive.

Being a repossession, the place was in a real state - no mains water so we had to have a borehole drilled - but we got it for such a great price that made up for the inconveniences of the first few months!

ProDave

For me mow, it needs to be detached (by some distance not 6") needs a garage (or space to build one) and plenty of sensible off road parking (i,.e not just in front of the house)

South facing reasonable size garden, (quarter of an acre will do) not overlooked by neighbours (i.,e no neighbours behind, backing onto farm land is perfect) with all principle rooms facing the garden.

3 or more bedrooms and at least 1 en-suite.

Quiet location, i,.e not on a main road, and far enough off one to not normally hear the traffic.

Modern and well insulated with VERY low heating costs.

The only way I could find all this is buy a plot and build my own. No developer house comes close to the mark, and most existing detached houses fail the insulation and heating bill category.

MERFE

So we've been looking for our first house and this was our list.

Must have: 3 bedrooms, bath, storage space, footpaths, parking.

Nice to have: ensuite, garage, separate dining room.

Big no no: open plan, anything on a steep hill, oil heating.

To get this we are moving a little further afield than we would like, the school run is going to be a nightmare but I really think it's the right area for us long term. The only reason to move in future will be if we want the things on the nice to have list because we didn't get any of them, the ones with garages in our price range were all too much of a compromise in other areas.

faerielight

My must haves when I was buying in spring are
A decent size bathroom with a bath and overhead shower,
A smallish garden, easy to maintain
Quiet side street, away from busy main roads.. cat safety.
2bedrooms in case I need to rent or have a live in carer.
Quiet neighbours, well insulated.
Preferably not a badly converted 1bedroom into a 2 where they stuck a box bedroom off the kitchen for their kidd or some equally bad conversations.


Bedrooms no
Less than 3m .
Plenty of light,
Central heating
No basements
No stairs.
Good storage cupboard


I got all of the above, end of terrace flat, 3 bedrooms as the 3rd was a garage conversation, and Was the same price as 2bedders in this area.
The only thing I compromised on was sharing a hallway, but it’s on
Y with 1person and we never seem to cross paths.

cloo

Must have - Smallest bedroom had to actually be big enough to be a bedroom! (got that)

Shop within 5-10 mins walk (more like 30 seconds)

Within 15 min walk of tube (got within 5 mins)


Nice to have:
Off street parking (didn't get that)
Large garden (didn't get that or see anywhere we could afford with one)
Doesn't need to much work (didn't get that!)


Avoid - extended to the max but still not quite big enough
Weird layouts/downstairs bathroom extenstion attached to kitchen (a lot of the latter where we live)
Totally open-plan downstairs

ginger_chocolate

out of curiosity - why do so many people dislike open plan?
It's one of my would-be-nice verging on a must-have!

Main must-haves are:
some form of off-road parking
less than 40 minute commute to work
a back garden
safe for pets
3 bedrooms

Nice to have:
open plan lay out
a pantry
a separate utility room


No way:
having the only bathroom downstairs, especially if it's next to the kitchen
long skinny kitchens with no room to socialise
poky little rooms (I'd rather have fewer bigger rooms, than more tiny ones)
a seriously high crime area (I don't mind rough round the edges, but I don't want to be stabbed on the way to the Spar!)

gingerdad

its interesting as currently looking to sell/buy- the area we want to move too fits lots of things on our list, but its amazing how the list has changed from when we started. like outside space initally i didn't think it would be an issue but now i'm looking away from the location we like as want more space than we can afford in the town.

our list keeps changing even the red line my wife started with have gone so now the only redlines are under 400k, off road parking, min 3 bedrooms and within 15 minutes of both our work places or there abouts.