Buying a new house- practical or emotional head?

[lau86]

Just hoping to get some thoughts on this. We live in an area that we like, and we've seen a new house that on paper is perfect- the problem with houses round here is that they mostly have really small gardens but this one actually has a nice garden. We went to see it yesterday and it was pretty much what I was expecting, only it seems to need quite a bit of work. Mostly cosmetic as she has all this awful textured stuff on the walls, but it will also need a new boiler and possibly other expensive things.
It's been on the market for more than a year, it seems people are put off by the cosmetics of it. I'm not and if we have the money I'd be happy to do it.
The thing is, when we bought this house I stepped in and almost knew straight away it was for us. I didn't get the feeling with the new house. We viewed soooo many houses with our first but will never really have the luxury of that now with having the children. I don't know what to do, practical wise it is perfect but I'm worried about buying it with the assumption it will "feel" like home when we decorate it and it still doesn't.... What would you do in this situation?

 

[Bex84]

For me emotion is part of it as if it doesent feel like home then in a few years will you just want to sell. We looked at quite a few houses when we bought alot which were lovely but i love our house and feels like our home and i would be quite happy to be here permently. We did think of practacalities such as we wanted children so what schools were around so happy that we did that now we have lo and another on way, we came at night to look what area was like, but we did know we liked area first. I hate change so we wanted a home we could stay in

 

[pinkpolkadot]

Personally I wil l always go with my heart from now on, we went with practical with this house and have regretted it ever since!

 

[supertabby]

Only you can decide but hubby and I have had two houses - the first one I just knew was the one for us, standing on the driveway before we'd even stepped inside. It needed total renovation and we made it our own (before we had kids). We lived there 6 years and still loved it when we moved, we'd just grown out of it and couldn't extend.

The house we've moved into a few months ago ticked all the boxes but I didn't fall in love with it the same way as our first house. But I did like it and obviously we bought it. It was a "head" decision rather than "heart" but now we're in it I do love it.

ETA - we did spend 2 or 3 years looking for this house and saw countless places (plenty I liked but hubby was more fussy - I was getting ready to call in Kirsty and Phil!), I was pregnant with baby 2 when we saw it and we really needed the extra space. That could've had an impact lol.

 

[maryp0ppins]

Practical! We are looking for our first home to buy and I am going with practical because doing work yourself pays off in the long run.

 

[Nela]

Seriously, if it's just cosmetic, I wouldn't worry. That's what makes your house your home, decorating it to your taste, and growing into it. It would need a good evaluation, to make sure there is nothing structural going on and see what is happening with the boiler, etc. Those things, you can try to knock off from the asking price and then you can do the decorating as you go. We had to repaint entirely and sand down some crap surfaces. It's a pain in the neck, but my gosh, the sense of pride I get when I look at the before and after pictures, knowing I improved this house... Yeah, it's well worth it to me. Location is extremely important and since you like the area, that helps. A larger garden is always a bonus. That will make it a nice extra feature for reselling if you ever need to. Honestly, if you think this is it, I would go for it.

Btw, our house also wasn't selling because of the cosmetics. Luckily, my OH (I was not present at the house hunt) saw past it and knew the area was good and the space itself was good. Recent build, nothing major to repair... Technically move-in ready despite needing to be refreshed. It was great. For the first 2 years, I had people stopping in front of the house commenting on how much of an improvement we've made. (The front garden was really messy and people here really don't like that! Lol)

 

[Caite]

When I move, I will have a set list of criteria and the house must match that. So long as the house is structurally sound and within budget, cosmetic stuff won't be a problem for me.

 

[tina3747]

We're putting our house up for sale today!!

I'm in the same boat, were in an area that's nice, love out house but feel its time to move on after 15 years and a huge extension!
I would say take the length if time it's been up for sale as a positive, they may be willing to come down in price. Although don't wait too long, the markets rising now. We viewed an amazing bungalow with loads if potential last week. It's been up for sale 17 months. The day we booked the second viewing someone had put an offer in!

Also cosmetic stuff is easy, it can be done room by room. Don't let it put you off! I actually am more attracted to the ones with more work needed, kind of bypass the decent ones! Good luck!

 

[binxyboo]

I would say it needs to be a bit of both.
We moved inot our house about 2 years ago now.
Head wise, it ticked all the boxes of things 'required'. - But then, so did a few other houses we looked at.

HOWEVER, I knew this house was 'mine' as soon as I saw pictures of it on Rightmove. It was a house that was having trouble selling because it was a shell. It had been fire damaged and repaired, so we knew everything like joists, roof and electrics were new, but it was just a plain house, with magnolia walls and not even a carpet on the floors!
I felt it was 'home' as soon as we had our first viewing, and even Hubby (who was dead against it) fell in love with it.
We still have a lot of work to do, but I fall in love with my house a little bit more every day!

 

[RachA]

We pretty much went with practical when we bought our house. We'd seen so many houses and had a sale on our flat fall through because we didn't have anywhere to buy. We walked into one house and loved it and had an offer accepted on it - we were then guzzumped which i am so grateful for now. My OH was called by the estate agents with a new instruction - he was emailed the pictures of it and we offered on it before either of us had actually seen it. We knew the area it was in and the type of house it was. We also knew it needed huge amounts of work done to it. I've never regretted buying it as it's what we wanted.