A small house with no work or a bigger house needing work?

[ice]

I know this is a difficult question to answer but which would you go for.

A smaller house with 35ft north facing garden not needing much work
OR
A bigger house with 80ft west garden and garage but needing a good bit of work.(new kitchen, shower etc)

The bigger one is slightly more expensive and we'd be at our limit so would have to wait a few years to get the house as we'd like it.
Both in the same location

I know there is no definitive answer but would love to hear your opinions

 

[danFTB]

Go for the bigger one or I'd say you could regret it, Maybe if you wanted to extend the smaller house in years to come you would be sorry because the garden not as big either.

 

[decembersal]

Big one definitely- your wages will go up over the next couple of years so the mort. won't seem as big. Stamp duty is crippling so you won't want to be forking out for that in 5ys when you are looking to trade up.
BTW what a fab size back garden.

 

[foxylady]

Definitely the bigger one as apart from everything else the west facing garden is much better than north as North facing quite cold as I'm sure you already know.

Offer under for the bigger one anyway and see what happens, best of luck.

 

[ice]

Thanks for the replies.

I am very excited about the bigger house although I am nervous about the amount of work it needs. We wont' be able to do anything for a few years although pulling back the carpets and sanding and varnishing the floors together with a lick of paint would see it in liveable condition for a few years(an hopefully not too expensive if we do it ourselves)

I am in no way excited about the smaller place. Its grand, good location and would be fine but maybe you should be more excited about buying a home ??

 

[Silvergirl]

Bigger definitely, but make sure to get a survey done to establish that all the work is just cosmetic that the roof, drains etc are sound as this will give you an idea of exactly how much the repairs will set you back before you buy.

Insulation levels may not be as good either so you may have slightly higher heating bills.

When we were looking around our engineer saved our bacon by steering us away from a few white elephants and we still breath a sign of relief when we drive by them.

Worth every cent.

Best of luck it's a really exciting time - you're probably lying awake at night fantasising about making that house a home!

 

[deedee80]

Hi Ice, I was in a similar situation to you this year. Smaller house all we had to do was move our stuff in, bigger house needing a LOT of cosmetic work. Went for the bigger house because although it needed work we plan on staying here for a good while, whereas we would have definitely outgrown the smaller house. Besides, even if you went for the smaller house, eventually you would end up changing things because everything might not be to your taste.