What is important in choosing a house?

Granjura, we wil look in the village along the A6 that is nearest to MH, so that we are near GCs. It will then become holiday home, after we've decamped to Scotland.

Our list of requirements grows and I've a feeling we'll end up with something nearly as big as this! x

Yes, neighbours have to be taken into account.

It's a good idea to visit a house you're interested in at different times of the day and at weekends - there may be no sign of the neighbours during the week but they may be DIY fiends or have wild and noisy parties at weekends! (Which may be a plus to some people, I suppose...)

Off road parking definitely. Once we even bought a carpark that we couldn't afford, just to have parking for the house, which was right next to it. We sectioned off the bit we needed and sold on the rest. I couldn't face that again, searching around for a space in increasingly busy streets. It was a case of, what came first, the shopping or the baby. Do you take the baby home in its buggy first and leave it alone while you come back for the rest of the shopping and hope it doesn't hurl itself at anything while you are retrieving the rest of the shopping, or take the shopping in knowing that someone could report you for cruelty to babies or someone may steal the car while you are gone?

I bought a playpen.

Big garden.
No neighbours too close. Sometimes I think ours here are too close.
I love doing houses up, so don't care what they look like inside.
Not more than half an hour from DBH's work.
Must have a real fire, I had to have a chimney built on here.
A quiet area. I really hate sleeping with earplugs in.
Ideally, in the countryside but only half an hour from a town or small city. Somewhere unlikely to be swallowed up by urban sprawl.

There are the tangible things like the right number of bedrooms, whether you want a utility room - a must have for me, being an ironing freak, and I don't like to see washing draped everywhere either.
Garden, not north facing.
Then there's the less tangible - it has to look nice from the outside, and feel pleasantly proportioned and welcoming inside.
And no obviously barmy neighbours

Light rooms and sunny aspect for me too- but at 'our time of life' also good access to facilities and public transport are important too. But it is my heart that will always decide at the end of the day- you 'know' when you've found the right place. Will you be staying in the same area?

I'd recommend Market Harborough down the road. Excellent buses to main towns, great shops, cafés, restaurants, boutiques and lare supermarkets- and frequent fast trains to London ST P + lovely villages and countryside.

Good list Mishap. How does the tingle factor appear to you? x

Its good to hear about the off street parking! We are hoping to downsize this summer and current house has two garages and parking for 3 cars! x

When we moved to London from South Africa and our savings divided by 16, affordability! And being close to transport links. That was it basically.

Location!

Being central to all amenities...

Here are the things I told my children to look for when they were house-hunting: -

- first and foremost, which way does it face? - you need to take a compass with you and think about where the sun will be at different times of the day and how that will affect the rooms you live in and the garden when you are out there.
- how much light will you get?
- how close are you to neighbours? - take a look at their gardens and clock whether they are tended and use that as a bit of a guide as to what sort of folks they are.
- how near are shops/ schools and other facilities that you might want to use?
- what is the community like in the area? - clubs, societies, toddler groups etc.?
- are some things that you need within walking distance?
- what are he transport links like?
- will you need to spend money on the house?
- do you get a tingle when you go in? - a feeling that this is the place for you?

DH goes for off road parking if it doesn't have that he wont even look. next up for both of us is not previously owned by a DIYer - we have bought some horrors in the past. Manageble garden. I have to say if I was looking now it would be a kitchen/diner as I have a living room/diner currently. Downstairs loo is always important to me. Got quite a list but if these tops ones aren't there then I don't look. Of course knowing my OCD you would expect I couldn't buy a dirty house,

For me too the clincher was off-road parking. There are several terraces of former miners' houses on this road and it's very rare to have one's own parking. Mine is an end terrace with just enough room to get a smallish car onto the back yard. The garden clearly had potential too.

Living in a busy city, the deal-clincher for us was off-road parking for 2 cars and our caravan. Not many houses have that these days.