What was your 'compromise' with your property purchase?

Davesnave

Exodi wrote: »

everyone I know with a huge garden tells me the hassle it is having to upkeep it.

It's quite similar to having the maintenance hassle of an old, listed house, though perhaps not quite so expensive.

People like the concept of having a large space to show off and neighbours at arms' length, but unless the maintenance is an enjoyable leisure time interest, it's a millstone.

The irony is, if they knew more about plants and landscaping, they could probably halve their work.

maisie_cat

Bedroom sizes, traditional 2 singles one double, but they just get filled with "stuff" that nobody really needs. Plenty of outside space and outbuildings for children to hang out and to store "stuff"

AdrianC

Exodi wrote: »

everyone I know with a huge garden tells me the hassle it is having to upkeep it.

We've got an acre an a half...

...and we totally ignore more than half of it. A large chunk is a North-facing 45deg slope. Some of it's under trees, some of it was under over-grown Xmas trees when we moved in. Western Power removed those for us, because they were getting tangled in 11kV power lines... So now that lot's just scrub for the interim...

The rest is a few smaller sections of grass with the odd flowerbed and veggie bed. The lawn in front gets cut regularly, as does the bit out back around the veggies, but the biggest bit of grass is deliberately cut very rarely - maybe two or three times a year. The first year we were here, we found a single wild orchid there ("only" a common spotted, but there are early purples locally). Last year, we lost count. Under the trees in front of the house, we have snake-head fritilleries. At the moment, there's bluebells everywhere.

Benign neglect can work well. If only there was an easy solution to ground elder. (Other than pakora...)

phoebe1989seb

Last time we moved - 14 months ago - we were looking for a three bed house with land, intending to keep some animals (probably donkeys ) and no near neighbours.

The two bed cottage we ended up buying has less land than we'd hoped for and two neighbours nearby.

But.... it's on the quietest lane out of any properties we looked at and the neighbouring properties cannot be seen from ours - also, one is not even permanently inhabited.

Despite only having two bedrooms, it's a great size overall (1400 sq ft) so considering we downsized from somewhere much larger, it doesn't feel small

Regarding the land, once we moved in and began tackling the work - it was a repossession so in a bit of a state - we realised that the land we do have is more than enough for now.

Recently it has been included on the statutory register of historic parks and gardens so I'm determined to make our barren, weed-infested (yep, loads of ground elder here, too!) land worthy of such inclusion, leaving little time for anything else, lol!

KatieDee

OP - thank you for starting this thread. I'm in the middle of a purchase, getting a bit anxious about the property not being perfect, and this thread had done a wonderful job of bringing me down to earth!

Plenty of compromises on our house...I wanted a three bedroom detached, with a large garden, huge bathroom, open kitchen with an island, potential swimming pool in the garden....

Ended up with a "link-detached" house with a relatively small, North West facing garden, long thin kitchen and a ridiculously steep driveway. Fortunately, it was much closer to our price range than my original expectations and I just loved the house. It's in a beautiful area, quite a lot of living space, great links into the closest city, well finished and ready to move into.

It's all about compromises. My ideal property (minus the pool of course) would have been around £100,000 more than what we ended up paying. For that money, I can deal with a few compromises!

oystercatcher

Much smaller house but in a lovely quiet close, with 'nice' neighbours. and plenty of parking on and off street.

I sometimes walk along the streets where I could have afforded a slightly larger house and breathe a sigh of relief that I don't live there

duggan1

Exodi wrote: »

everyone I know with a huge garden tells me the hassle it is having to upkeep it.

I hate gardening, so bought near a park. Still have some grass at front and the back though which I use to grow dandelions...

Amoux

Just bought our first home. Our compromise was that it is a 2 bed terraced house (potential for 3rd bedroom) and the parking situation is pretty bad. North-East facing garden was also a compromise as well as maybe the overall size of the property is smaller than we currently are renting. The house is lovely though and needs little work done to it.

But we couldn't compromise on either location or price (we had already maxed out the £450,000 from our LISA) so something had to give. If we moved further out, we could have ticked all our boxes and more. But in the end Location in a sought after area is far more important to us than the actual house.

suki1964

We were looking for a 4 bedroom house which could be shared with independent living for my parents and ourselves

We found this house, 5 double bedrooms, two sitting rooms, 3 bathrooms, double garage and driveway parking for 4 cars

The downside - the kitchen/diner. For such large house, it was a struggle to fit the four of us in the kitchen and still be able to move about cooking

We did a kitchen refit and knocked out the utility room which helped a bit, but finally after 12 years, the kitchen extension has been built

The other compromise was the size of the land, its sitting on a lot, which was mostly grass ( ride on mower required) but its gradually diminishing with another garage, out buildings, vegetable patch etc


The biggest plus is we have beautiful uninterrupted views for as far as the eye can see of countryside, which is never going to be built on

MEM62

What was your 'compromise' with your property purchase?


Moving in with two teenage kids! :rotfl: