What is important in choosing a house?

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.

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.

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,

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?

Being central to all amenities...

Location!

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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...)

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

I've always looked for a South facing garden if possible, open light rooms with a biggish kitchen. Being in London never need to worry about transport links or shops being too far away. I usually know an area well before I've considered moving there so its always come down to that 'feeling' you get when you walk in and everything seems to slot into place...
Now we are older I think we'll have to rethink our priorities as we don't have space downstairs for a bathroom/toilet so that will be a priority if we ever move again..

Number of bedrooms, state of repair, all though we don't mind 'putting our stamp on it' location and outside space.

My priority is, like others on here, plenty of light and a feeling of space.

I think, added to a house that you feel comfortable in, is an area where you feel comfortable. Some areas have a more friendly feel than others.

I know you said disregard the number of rooms, but that's been my priority when choosing a house. Even when we had only a three bedroomed house and three children we still found ourselves giving a home to waifs and strays so each house since then has had to have plenty of rooms.
This house is perfect as there are six bedrooms and several other rooms that can be used flexibly. Parking in a seaside town is often difficult so we're very glad of our garage and carport too. An en-suite is a must for the master bedroom and I do like to have a woodburner and a utility room.

When DH retires next year we are thinking of downsizing to a flat in our nearby town. DH has never live in a town. He was raised on a farm. At present we live on the edge of a large village. We are thinking of looking at flats so that he can get a feel for something smaller. Our wishes for this new home are that it has some sort of garden. It also must have a light and fairly spacious living room. We have quite big furniture which we can't afford to replace. I would like a fairly big kitchen, but I could manage with a smaller one at a pinch.

The one beginning with K? Yes, a lovely place too.

And I forgot, a South, South-West facing garden is an absolute must.

ana but neighbours change! We used to have such nice neighbours and now we have (almost) neighbours from hell. Like the smart alec who tried to tell me the other day when she was parked in front of our garage, that the parking arrangements are "first come, first served"

This thread has made me think - when we first arrived here, we were so dazzled by the fact that we were actually living in London, that everything was a novelty and all our "normal" criteria went out the window. One thing husband did insist on is that the house was south facing.

Surely most things can be discerned before you actually go to look at a house: number of rooms, utility, sun direction etc etc. The main thing for me is if it feels 'right'.

When we bought this house it had been repossessed, was boarded up and the electricity had been disconnected. Despite that, we all felt its rightness. As we looked round in January, we didn't realise how much light there would be flooding into what is a largely open plan house and that was an added bonus when the first sunny days came.

Grannyknot, I know! The house next door is rented out as the owners are living abroad at the moment and although most of the tenants have been fine to have as neighbours, a couple have not!

I suppose a lot of things about a house/area won't show themselves or become clear until after you've moved in.

Gosh, what a lot of thought you all put into choosing houses. We tend to work on the basis of: Is it old and does it need renovation?