What was your 'compromise' with your property purchase?

Thrugelmir

Lack of choice in the location we wished to buy in. Was in the heady heights of 2007. We'd both sold our seperate properties to buy a joint one. During the week we were living at a friends house , weekends we travelled and found sofas where ever we could. Belongings and pets were in suitable storage etc.

A house came on the market one Saturday morning. My partner arranged to view it. By the time she did in the afternoon they had two offers above asking price. In effect the property was sold. The next one that came along (by then we knew the area well). My partner rang me after walking out the front door. Without seeing it. I said make an offer. We ended up paying the asking price to secure the property.

Over the past decade. We've reroofed, rerendered, new kitchen, new bathroom, new boiler, new radiators, replastered, insulated, had bespoke wardrobes fitted etc etc. Likewise we've cleared every square foot of the back garden of sheds, greenhouses, buried Anderson shelters, buried patios , buried fish ponds, and created our own garden.

At the end of the day. A home is what you make it. Personalise the property to your own taste, not to add value neccessarily, simply to enjoy living there.

If we waited for the perfect plot to become available we might still be waiting. Built in 1934. We are only the 4th owners. Previous ones lived in the house for 42 years.

phoebe1989seb

KatieDee wrote: »

:eek:

May I ask why you never viewed it? You are ridiculously brave. I've already viewed our house twice and really want to go back for a third! :rotfl:

We did a similar thing once....

Bought a house where I'd not seen the ground floor

In our case it was a large Victorian property that had been divided into four flats. We purchased it privately from the parents of an acquaintance. On the day we viewed, the ground floor flat was still tenanted and the tenant refused access. Eventually he and one of the other tenants had to be evicted and throughout the buying process things were awkward - not helped by the fact the owners lived in the US - although DH did get to see the whole house when it was surveyed and just before exchange.

More recently in 2017 we had an offer accepted on a house neither of us had viewed as logistics prevented us from travelling to see it and the type of property we were looking for were being snapped up quickly in that location. We must have seemed like the typical flaky buyers as we pulled out after two weeks when the house we're now living in became available. Fortunately for the vendors it went sold subject to contract again the very next day.

kerri_gt

No downstairs loo and limited scope to add one (then realised we rarely used the downstairs one in our previous house anyway)

Rest of the house was pretty much perfect, would've been nice to have a slightly larger living room but what we have has two sofas in it so it's hardly teeny.

Limited scope to extend but there is potential...not that we'll ever be able to afford any.

Garden is a northerly direction but we now have two patios and each gets the summer sun at different times of the day, and tbh it wasn't even a consideration.

Did pay more than my budget (within OH though) currently starting to overpay.

So basically, we have to do without a downstairs loo...first world problems :rotfl:

ratechaser

2 small bathrooms that had been carved out of one bigger one, and a total lack of en suites. Yeah, I know... but bathrooms are important when you are the only male in a growing household!

Plus I could never ever go back to a small bathroom, and especially one that had a small shower or (god forbid) a shower over the bath :eek:

I also don't have a vast garden with a river running through it, like our last place, and I miss that every day. There's a certain illicit thrill to be had from drinking a beer while steering a ride-on lawnmower... :cool:

Still, the house is 3 times the size of the last one, I can walk to Waitrose and John Lewis in 5 minutes, and it's in a fantastic catchment area that will probably save me 300k in school fees over time. So mustn't grumble

suki1964

It is amusing to see a few of us haven't seen the properties we have bought, considering its usually the most expensive purchase of our lives

SarahB89

Just about to start viewings for our first house purchase, fully expecting to make compromises but no idea what they'll be yet! The wishlist is a 3 bed semi detached with own drive/garage, utility, porch, character features like old fireplaces, and extensibility (in case the housing market becomes dire when we need a bigger place when the family expands).
The viewing short list currently contains only one with the trifecta of garage/utility/porch, and it has almost no outside space...

middleclassbutpoor

The compromise was location.


Location where we live now is probably more desirable than where we wanted but it adds 20 mins commute on each way to our day.

Love the house and the area though so worth the compromise. 30 min commute to work rather tha 10.. not end of the world

seven-day-weekend

We were delighted to get a bungalow in our chosen area as we thought we could not aafford one.

I wish it had a separate utility room (instead of an alcove in the kitchen where the washer-dryer and boiler live), and an extra small room for a study.

But other than that, it is perfect and we have wonderful neighbours.

Davesnave

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.

Hmmm, that makes the rest of us look a bit daft.


Where did we all go wrong? :undecided

tori.k

Our local EA found us a bit odd as our wishlist was only garden access and general location we already knew what we really wanted was outside of our budget so the house itself was a bit immaterial as we could rejig that over time to suit us.
We are going to go over the ceiling price for the area to change for our liking but we are going to be here 15/20 years at minimum or it will become the last house so want it comfortable for us.