What was your 'compromise' with your property purchase?

Southernman

I read somewhere that there is always a compromise when buying a house and you have to consider what is most important to you? For some it's no garage/driveway, for others it's doing without the south facing garden.

When we were viewing houses the one we opted for fit the bill...but had a train line beyond the end of the garden. Not a commuter line and is only about 2 trains a day but still! It was not a part of the plan!

What was your compromise?

comeandgo

Absolutely nothing in any of our houses. If the house was not right, I would not buy it. There is always another one.

Slinky

No bath in the bathroom, open tread stairs rising from a reception room, link detached. For us it really was location as the priority. For us, there wasn't another one.

Winter_Phoenix

A shared drive (which I dreaded, but which has given me no problems whatsoever over the years).
A lack of vast views over beautiful countryside or ocean (but the house looks out onto trees, which is pretty good).

Southernman

Slinky wrote: »

No bath in the bathroom, open tread stairs rising from a reception room, link detached. For us it really was location as the priority. For us, there wasn't another one.

Haha I was the same about location. I failed to mention our house was painted entirely dark grey and black downstairs, 80s kitchen, 80s bathroom, jungle of a garden (I could go on). We couldn't afford a house likened to a show home but do have a lovely 1930s detached with original features...and the dark grey is slowly being decorated over!!

M2808

I have a train line close ish to the back of my house. Doesn't bother me in the slightest, but used to live right next to a train line and actually really liked it.

I have a shower over bath which I don't like but have plans to change, bathroom is probably a bit small to do separate but I've seen some good ideas and it looks like it all measures up. I always wanted a do up the house anyway.

Consider myself quite lucky really because I got a 3 bed semi when I thought I'd only be able to get a 2 bed terraced.

duggan1

Sub-optimal roof arrangement for solar panels, which I was very keen on getting. Not really a big deal in the scheme of things though.

bertiewhite

The fact it was terraced - but it's an end terrace and has 3 times the width of garden that the adjoining terraces have which made up for it.

MatyMoo

Bought a three bedroom house when I wanted two, I really wanted off street parking but ended up with a guaranteed parking bay right outside.

hazyjo

Third bedroom is tiny. Can barely fit a single bed in. But there were so many pluses I wasn't expecting like a huge bathroom and two parking spaces!

ThePants999

Loads. We wanted a 4-bed house, in a reasonably quiet area, in catchment for specific schools, when the vast majority of houses meeting those criteria were way out of budget. We got it, in exchange for living with:
- it's actually a 3-bed with the garage converted to a 4th bedroom, so it's really small for a 4-bed and has no garage
- tiny, north-facing garden
- ex-council
- terrible public transport links
- in a village with basically no amenities.

Three years on, we're really happy with it. Yeah, in a perfect world we wouldn't have had to make those compromises, but they allowed us to get the key things we wanted. And like hazyjo, we also got unexpected pluses - detached, and large driveway. While detached wasn't on our priority list, we're so glad to have it now.