Obviously, house details, price etc. but what other stuff – e.g. broadband speed, utility suppliers, schools, dentists, GPs, distance to work nearest cinema etc.
What else?
(And yes, you are helping with my homework 🙂 )
Tia

Am I within an easy drive of Stoner’s place.

Distance to decent off road cycling?

#1 is off road parking wouldn’t even go and look if it didn’t have it, garage, garden, in a cul de sac and nowhere near a public foot path or cut through to a different estate. everything inside you can change so that doesn’t matter. ideally not near a school so you don’t have to fight past badly parked range rovers in the mornings.
i live in the south east and everyone here is totally obsessed with how near a tube or train station they live. everyone will know how long in minutes it takes to walk to one – even if they never use it. this is the biggest indication of the housing cost locally, ime. i’m 6 minutes from a train station which is 40 minutes to liverpool street. dentist 30 seconds, doctors 8 minutes, waitrose 1.5 minutes, bank 3 minutes, physio 20 seconds, petrol station and mot garage 20 seconds, lbs 4 minutes, butchers 4 minutes and 10 seconds. all this is mightily convenient but if i lived further away from the train station i could afford a house which wasn’t mid terraced perhaps, but it is in a cul de sac with no cut throughs, and i have offroad parking and a garage so i’ll probably stay where i am.

As evidence here would show, I am hopeless at buying a house with brain, but I just bought the one in the village that I wanted to live in, despite it being a shit tip, in order to me to be able to get a half decent sized gaff in said village.

*counts fingers* ..£23k later, still a way off from being done, but what has kept me going is looking out at the view, where it it and always knowing it had real potential, which slowly, it’s achieving.

So no regrets, just buying with heart.

(Sod phone signal, broadband speed etc. It’s your home, not a place to just use the internet!)

We have kids so local schools are obviously important, as are places to play safely, presence of other kids, local clubs etc.

Local community is also very important (something we love about our current location: everyone knows each other, socialise together and look out for each other).

Decent pubs that I’d want to drink in.

Low crime.

Transport links are important to me too – the ability to jump on a train, bus or bike to get into town instead of always relying on the car. Basic shops within walking distance are good.

(and yeah I wouldn’t buy a place that couldn’t at the very least get ADSL broadband at a decent speed)

How much ballache the entire process would be. And then dismiss the idea.

Depending if it’s rural, do the roads get gritted?

I’ve found out ours don’t, I’ve got a scabbled 105 brake lever to prove it.

There’s only one thing to consider for us at the moment and that is whether there is an available property on the council’s social housing list that is big enough to house us and close enough to work and to the kid’s school that we won’t need to get another car..

There hasn’t been for the last two years so we will continue to live in overcrowded conditions in a top floor town centre flat with two small kids that have no outside area to play 😐

Daydreaming?

Bike storage. Just couldn’t even view a house without, or potential for, secure bike storage and workshop.

After that, location based on access to riding, work, airport and now, schools. Probably in that order but might need to reassess the last one!

Then must look nice, I like old houses. Cherry on top for me is garden that catches evening sun.

Location, location, location

In order of importance

Height above sea level and room to stick up a good few antennae in the garden.

Broadband speed in excess of 20meg

4G mobile reception

My requirements are different to Mrs Danny’s…

Useful stuff guys – keep it coming.

In the process of finding a new house. It’s getting complicated!

Good schooling catchment
Large house and plenty rooms
Driveway to park and turn van/trailer and park a car
Mains gas and sewerage
A little space between neighbours
Garage, or space to build one
Not requiring lots of work

So not asking much!

From recent experience and thinking about future trends:

1. Does your mobile work in the house? I’ve lived in two places now where it doesn’t and it’s a real hassle when other people can’t reach you + it means you need a landline deal which includes calls
2. Broadband speed. Ideally can you get fibre with Virgin so you don’t end up with a provider reliant on the disaster that is Openreach…
3. Flood risk. Even places which have not been before seem to be now: recent e.gs, York, Greenwich, Staines/Chertsey/Egham and obviously the Lakes. I would take a look at the Council maps and go and check the local area pretty carefully as well

– Off-road parking
– Garage (for junk and/or bikes)
– Phone signal
– Access to trails / quiet roads
– Noise
– Broadband
– Age of boiler / central heating install (electric heating = walk away)
– Double glazed etc
– Nearby shops / pubs etc
– No church or mosque within earshot
– Water pressure

Probably other stuff.

A drive that went up the side of the house was on my ‘nice to have list’.

Partly as it means more parking, mainly so my big campervan didn’t block the view out the windows or result in stroppy neighbours.

Seems to have worked, apart from one very polite complaint about the van making the neighbours kitchen a bit darker (its only a foot higher than the fence) when we first moved in, I’ve had no bother.

And its not just one van, my work van is often parked there, and got a new van to convert to a camper so last week I had two 6 metre high top vans and a 6m luton bodied van on the drive 😈

water pressure and church/mosque are very good ones.
the boiler you can fix, at a cost.
phone signal is also another one – i get full signal and 4g, and also the broadband speed is great because the exchange is only round the corner.

Decent shower with powered by combi boiler.
Fibre
Garage
Schools

My wife has a longer boring list with silly things like bedrooms and dining rooms on it.

Check flood maps. Look on Environment Agency site for flood maps and make sure there’s no past history or nearby risk. Even if the property has not been flooded, close proximity to floods whacks up insurance if not makes many just say no (as I found).

Use the various online neighbourhood profile sites. Some give detail profiles of the types of people living nearby. It’s stereotyping but it does give an idea if you’re likely to have a local turf war riot going on (again as I found!).

Likewise, drive around the area, see what the neighbourhood is like and anything you might be unconfortable living nearby. Look for burnt out cars!… yes, again as I discovered! All of course after I’d bought the property. I didn’t do any of these checks basically 🙁 – That said though it’s actually turned out no issue for me and decent folk generally around, and the big plus is it’s slap in the middle between two big MTB areas, and fair bit is rideable from the door 😀

Other thing on location is drive around at peak hours to judge the traffic.

After the neighbourhood and location… broadband! Fibre or cable is a must 😉

When I bought this place I wanted a garage and mountain biking from the door. I should have added fast broadband to the list but despite being a bit rural we have good 4g and fibre has just been enabled.

Currently going through the house buying process there was only a small list of needs, none of them mine all the OH:

She doesn’t drive so walking distance to her work and her mums house.
Parking for my car off road, which I don’t use as I walk to work.
Bike storage
Under £140k
Spare bedroom
Clean and tidy bathroom and kitchen.

Doesn’t sound like much but took us 4 weeks and several times missing out on what we wanted.

An acoustically good lounge was top of my list as I like listening to music.

Virgin cable, decent shops nearby, green spaces, river or lake nearby, flight paths and crime figures.

To add, what the neighbours are like. Whether rented, old dears, young families etc…

Walk down during work hours, and poor dogs barking their heads off locked in?

Check 11ish on a Friday or Saturday night, any chavs sat on the corner drinking cider?

Any random cars or campers that look like they’ve not moved for a long time?

Crap in your neighbours front garden?

Fences knackered and look like they have been like that some time?

Spot fag butts or dog shit in neighbours gardens?

Crap in your neighbours front garden?

I’d mebbe just knock and introduce myself.

Not in any order, but all important or at least significant positives:

Broadband
Gas
Parking
Nice garden not too big
Close to:
good supermarket and some restaurants/cafes
MTBing (out the door)
road cycling
train station/access to city
relatives (not too close though :-))

just about covered it for us. Feel v lucky to have managed all the above. Cycle commute to work would also have previously been a requirement.

Crap in your neighbours front garden?
Fences knackered and look like they have been like that some time?

Oh. I’m beginning to understand why the house next door to us has been on the market for over a year… 😳

i just didnt want to live on a newish estate, too many bad houses crammed in a small space, cars left all over the place, tiny gardens overlooked by 4 or 5 neighbours…I hated feeling like people are watching when im in the garden, even tho they’re not really!

Flood risk, sea, river etc. Is the site on clay, does the garden drain.
Neighbours (check out of normal hours etc)
Age of flat roof if it has one.
Is the road a rat run.
Check council development plans for the area (didn’t show up on the search but we bailed on a purchase the weekend before signing contracts when I discovered council plans for some unpleasantness about 1/3 mile from our prospective purchase).
Mines, asbestos,toxic waste, old factory history of area.

South facing garden.
Detached so the kids/dog can make noise without bothering others as much
Enough parking
Flood risk

Would love some land, but can’t see it happening in this life….

Our house went on the market yesterday, on the list of boxes to tick for the new one are:

Land, for the wife’s gee gee’s.
garage or workshop, for my toys.
A house, at least as big as the one we have now.

In that order…..

When you’re looking to move house, what do you consider?

Will the new owners check under the patio?