Dream House vs Dream Location - your experiences? !HELP!

lillypoo

Other side of the coin here. it really depends on what kind of locality youre looking at i suppose. i have lived in my dream rural quiet location for many many years, have always adored nature and peace. but the farmer has now sold all surrounding land and i am in the middle of a new build estate . you are in much more control of your house than you are of your location.  

silvercar

Your "scruffy kids" will either move away or they will stick around and turn into druggies and their crimes will increase from batting at wing mirrors to car theft. Do you want to take that risk?

knightstyle

We are in the process, early days, of selling and buying at the moment and our present house is in near perfect location but is a town house so we are selling due to us getting older and noise from renters next door.  The house we are buying is neither in the perfect location nor has the perfect layout for us but is a good compromise.
So you need to look at the whole package, not concentrate on one thing when buying a house.

MovingForwards

Definitely location and amenities over property.

I chose the best area I could, with things on my doorstep and good bus / train links (pre-Covid), purchased a nice property, private garden and views that make my friends quite envious. Although I do drive and have a car, I wasn't bothered about having a driveway as there's plenty of parking. I also had my mind set on a house or bungalow due to disabilities, but my flat ticked all the boxes for how it was set up and having a shower room. 

My last rental was in a residential area and I had to drive / catch the bus to do anything, including Dr appointments, it got tedious very quickly as did the layout of the block and the neighbours.

I wrote a list of must haves, be nice to have, not bothered about and set about my property search that way. Looking at sales brochures, Google maps and any other online resources helped me rule out areas (also paying a visit to them before being ready to buy) and properties.

Perhaps looking at a slightly wider area / location will give you the suitable property you're looking for.

seradane

KxMx said:

We moved from a fully carpeted home in a lovely village with fab garden because of inadequate transport. 

Definitely had to compromise on what kind of place we moved to in the town (no carpet apart from living room & bedrooms, less privacy, back garden 3/4 patio and 1/4 beds) but the location was so much better it has been worth it.

I find that interesting that the amount of carpeting seems to be a major factor with your house choice. You know you can easily put carpet in, if that's your thing? 

(And personally I feel that the less carpet there is, the better!)

OP - agree with the others about transport links being important. My in-laws live in a village which isn't particularly remote but their bus service was gradually reduced over the years to the point where there's one a day and so it's basically impossible to use. Some of the older residents in the village who don't drive now have to rely on others to give them lifts when they need it. Consider that the current services may be reduced at some point, so as you aren't able to drive that may be a problem.

KxMx

We also considered potential bus service reductions, our area has one direct and two nearby. One of the nearbys is sponsored by a supermarket and on a long busy route so we figured even if the other two went that would stay. 

As for the carpet issue due to my age at time of move that was parents responsibility to pay for and not mine. They never got round to it. Could have afforded it by saving up but didn't. I don't think it bothers them TBH, they stopped mentioning it after a few years whereas I feel moving from fully carpeted to bedrooms/living room only was a compromise. 

When I have somewhere of my own that is definitely high on my to do list!

gwynlas

Four buses an hour are good  a lot of areas i know have far less. £6 for a taxi to the Drs is not bad considering the cost of owning a car and you can always  get supermarket deliveries. It is generally not the local kids outside Spar that are the greatestt problem as you can go whilst they are in school but the parents who have wrecks of cars, dumped furniture or appliances in unkempt gardens.  If it seems an okay neighbourhood to walk around then the  location does not sound bad

Rambosmum

Location. 

We very, very nearly chose house for our last home purchase. Honestly, it was our dream - huge 5 bed detached ex vicarage, 1 acre of land, huge drive and carpark, so, so much potential. An amazing house. But the location was awful, bad schools, minimal public transport, the area was rough and on the edge of an enormous, notorious council estate. In the end we had to pull out, and I am so glad we did. The area is just so important. 

phoebe1989seb

We sold our *dream* house in my (but not necessarily DH's 🙄) dream location where we'd lived happily for ten years, in order to downsize and be mortgage free. We then spent the following ten years regretting our choice(s) as the properties we bought were all stunning but in less than ideal locations.

The first was half the size of our 3500 sq ft family home, but was picture postcard pretty.......right on top of an extremely deprived area of the UK. 

After three years we sold that buying another very attractive (thatched) house in a much more salubrious location but on a very busy rural A road. Another mistake.

Next we bought our ideal house (arts and crafts style) in what is considered a *posh* semi-rural area about two miles outside a truly horrible city. The road we bought in is referred to as "millionaire's row" by some locals, but whilst we absolutely loved the house and immediate vicinity, we hated the wider area and were unable to settle  ☹️

Finally, in early 2018 we bought what was definitely the worst house on a lovely rural lane (moving from England to Wales) - a small, repossessed 400 year old  cottage with bags of potential. We decided it was so cheap that should we decide it wasn't right when the work was complete, we would easily make a profit were we to sell up (again, lol!).

The three year point is approaching (the longest we've owned anywhere since 2007 is 3 years 7 months!) and the renovation work is almost done. 

Neither of us want to sell....instead we plan on building an extension next year to give us the extra space we need!

Location every time for me 

purplebutterfly

I just want to say a genuine thank you to everyone for taking the time to reply.  I've taken all your input into consideration as well as going with my gut feeling.  After a second viewing on the house today, we've decided that the transport issue is really important so we're ruling out the whole area.
I know we've made the right decision because I actually feel relieved now I can stop the mental gymnastics of trying to make the location work.