What was your 'compromise' with your property purchase?

GaleSF63

Winter_Phoenix wrote: »

A lack of vast views over beautiful countryside or ocean (but the house looks out onto trees, which is pretty good).

The choice of stairs and a view (Firth of Clyde) or ground floor and trees and bushes. Would have loved a view but chose ground floor because of cat and dog.

20 years on with mobility problems at least my choice meant I haven't had to move house.

charlie792

a few,
Like ThePants it's a converted garage to make the 4th bedroom - fine for us because we wanted extra reception rooms but always think how to market in the future.
It's a semi detached. Ideally we wanted detached but out of price range.
Upstairs bathroom is very small and poorly laid out
Kitchen extension designed oddly, kitchen layout is poor with a lot of wasted space (I had a 10ft blow up pool in my kitchen at one point which proves how stupidly wasted space it is (don't ask!!!))
It's not in the best location, right on the edge of the countryside but also right on the edge of a huge housing estate you have to drive through to get to housem. not the end of the world but the area as a whole doesn't have a great reputation.
I back onto a primary school. No issues with the School per se and its lower down than I am, so you can only see from upstairs windows but the back of the school is horrible, they reclad the front but left the rear in its shabby 70s green so not the nicest of views, but how long do you spend gazing out your rear window.

All compromises but by far best property and least comprimises than if I bought somewhere else in budget. If I had an extra £300k then I wouldn't have had to make those compromises but I don't have that kind of cash

Pros though, its massively affordable. It's easy access to motorway. It's has driveway for 2 cars. on the whole I don't many issues with the neighbours/wider neighbourhood/huge private rear garden/huge property/quirky layout suited our needs well

rach_k

It's a mid-terrace with no drive or garage and a tiny bathroom.

The kind of house I like (Victorian, not wrecked by people who grew up on 'Changing Rooms') doesn't exist where I live with a drive or garage and most are terraced. The bathroom will be fixed when we convert the loft.

I know many would see an east facing garden as a negative but I burn very easily so it's a positive for me!

Murphybear

We were looking for a bungalow, detached with 3 bedrooms and reasonable commuting distance to where I worked. We looked at many and found “the one” but the sellers withdrew it.

We found another one which was detached with large garden surrounding it, and a small conservatory in a small village. We made an offer to the estate agent there and then which was accepted. The only downside was the slightly dated decoration and kitchen but because we got it for a good price we had money for a new kitchen and when we took up the carpet in the lounge found the original stunning wood floor which was a bonus.

We only sold it when we moved 200 miles. I still miss that bungalow.

Davesnave

The entire bungalow was our compromise, although it was large enough and conventionally built to a reasonable standard; just ugly, weirdly altered and rather battered.

The up-side was a very cheap price and some excellent, south-facing land with outbuildings. Everything you've read about location is true. Any house can be fixed, but you can't put it somewhere better.


Ten years on and we've sorted the bungalow, but there's still enough potential to keep us busy for years. Thanks to changes in planning law, we could convert the barn, but I'm more interested in landscaping, planting trees etc, so that may fall to someone else.

The compromise with the land? Still trying to work out how to build a sloping lake....:rotfl:

Yellow_mango

Probably price. We have a house we love, in the right location, and I’m happy with the work that needs doing.

But we paid more than I wanted to really, which leaves us a little stretched and without the budget to do the work we want to do as quickly as we’d like.

StaffieTerrier

Steps up to the front door and a steep back garden but it's one of the only houses in the area with a drive plus I have stunning views across fields.

AdrianC

comeandgo wrote: »

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

There is... but is THAT perfect, too?

When we were buying here, we had a loooong list of properties across tens of miles. We'd run out of the A-list, and were rapidly getting through the B-list when we found here. It'd been on the B-list for ages (and the market for over two years) because the details were so poor...

The biggest compromises were internal layout - it's very long and thin - and a total lack of view. But the view means it's more sheltered than if it had that view, and we get the mountains bursting out of the trees as we go down the lane every day.

scottishblondie

When our current home came up for sale we were bowled over by it. It has the big south facing garden I always wanted, a driveway and garage, open plan living space, a big kitchen, the right number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and it's in the right location.

The compromise is that it's not a house - it's a lower conversion in an extended 1920s villa. It has everything we want, except that it is technically a flat. To be honest we could never afford a house in this area with the same space inside or out. We've been living here for 6 months now and we're very happy. In the end it wasn't really much of a compromise!

Exodi

My partner would tell you the compromise on our current property is the garden size but personally I disagree.

Our garden is around ~25m² with around 1/3rd patio'd and 2/3rds of that with grass on it. We have one (very little) dog.

I'm not very quite sure why my partner always demanded a 'huge garden' when we viewed houses, I ask her and she'd usually say things like 'so the dog can run around' and 'for the kids when we have them' - everyone I know with a huge garden tells me the hassle it is having to upkeep it.