Bungalow on an awkward plot - to buy or not?

Lin663

If you have to ask the question, you already know the answer! Don’t do it!

Totally agree 👍

I think that if you have to ask then don’t buy. You are obviously got doubts.

No.

UPDATE:

We went to look at the street of the house again today. Knocked on a few neighbour's doors, had a friendly chat. Found out about their dogs and kids. At the back there is one retired lady with 4 toy poodles and one young couple with a 3 year old girl. It turned out the neighbours are lovely, there is a great community spirit, and the very next door old lady is an absolute gem of a neighbour, she invited us in, offered tea and we had a long chat, a laugh and even cuddles.

Old ladies are great for spilling the beans. Turns out the vendor is unanimously disliked in the neighbourhood and they all can't wait to see him go. When the house was on the market previously, it was him who was stalling the sale because his wife left years ago and he did not want to sell and leave the property. But now he just has to sell to go into a care home due to his illness.

The road is quiet and the vendor unloads his groceries by parking on the road by the entrance to the house (there are no yellow lines). The lady next door also kindly showed us her similar size garden, and it looked much better being arranged differently.

We felt at ease after our prodding and thinking of putting a cheeky offer.

Put in a really silly offer, really low. It maybe they want desperately to sell. To pay old folks home fees. All depends on price. Try a silly price. Good luck.

I agree a little with the view 'if doubts, don't buy' but perhaps you are similar to me: I think of every detail with a major purchase and the fact that you are flagging up the minuses is just (in my view) good practice.

You have constraints as to location and finance so in many respects this house fits your bill.

I would go as others have said and find (difficult, I know) a builder with a good reputation who could walk around with you and see if there is indeed scope to alter layout/extend etc. A local man would know what the local authority is likely to permit, etc.

You could make a list of the pros and cons that you have already flagged up and see which is the largest/most troublesome.

There is a programme currently on television where two architects are given the task of completely re-organising houses and what they can achieve with just a little 'thinking outside the box' is staggering.

I was wondering if you could extend into the space on the righthand side facing and on into the garage, perhaps making that a new kitchen/diner? This new area would still back on to your garden. You would lose the garage but there may be space for the car parallel to the front of the house.

Although this would be a walk away, you could then knock through (I am sure that a builder could advise) the current sitting room into the current kitchen, giving you a sitting room with perhaps doors into a new dining room (currently the kitchen). You would still have three bedrooms, one of which could be your husband's office.

Or go mad and make the smallest bedroom a bathroom and the bathroom space knocked through to the largest bedroom to make a new kitchen diner.

You could perhaps have a small extension in the land right-hand side facing of the bungalow or, make the garage a new larger en suite bedroom.

I wouldn't just view the layout as fixed, there are probably several ways of changing it that have not been thought of.

I would also visit the local planning office and ask what might be permitted. They would not charge you for this service and are sometimes very helpful.

As to your garden, if your health is declining, why not make a courtyard garden? No lawn to mow! Raised beds/pots can make a very colourful display without too much weeding or other backbreaking tasks.

Finally, if the bungalow has been on the market for some considerable time, why not make a lower offer, explaining that you have a buyer for your property and can act quickly (if you can).

I feel there is scope here and you may be fixating on the minuses rather than the pluses.

I wish you good luck with your decision but please do let us know whatever it is whenever it is!

We thought too much about a purchase and someone else bought. We were so disappointed. Would you be disappointed if you didn't get it?

Your description and photo do nothing for me. You sound quite negative and the only pro seems to be the price. As for selling it on at a later date, with it's track record I think you'll have a long wait until the sold sign goes up, (If it does) and I suspect at some point after signing on the dotted line you'll wish you hadn't.
To me, your heart really isn't in this property and putting your mark on it won't be totally how you'd want it to be.
I personally wouldn't give it another thought and I'd be looking for something else.
Whatever you decide, good luck!

MadeInYorkshire

*Rusbun - some of my courtyard garden for you .... I can't seem to find the ones from when I opened the garden up, may be on a different computer!

I think the 2nd and 3rd are from the winter, so it was colourful all year round ... the summer ones had more flowers.

How beautiful! Exactly the style I like.

I think you have answered your own question.

Candelle

I agree a little with the view 'if doubts, don't buy' but perhaps you are similar to me: I think of every detail with a major purchase and the fact that you are flagging up the minuses is just (in my view) good practice.

You have constraints as to location and finance so in many respects this house fits your bill.

I would go as others have said and find (difficult, I know) a builder with a good reputation who could walk around with you and see if there is indeed scope to alter layout/extend etc. A local man would know what the local authority is likely to permit, etc.

You could make a list of the pros and cons that you have already flagged up and see which is the largest/most troublesome.

There is a programme currently on television where two architects are given the task of completely re-organising houses and what they can achieve with just a little 'thinking outside the box' is staggering.

I was wondering if you could extend into the space on the righthand side facing and on into the garage, perhaps making that a new kitchen/diner? This new area would still back on to your garden. You would lose the garage but there may be space for the car parallel to the front of the house.

Although this would be a walk away, you could then knock through (I am sure that a builder could advise) the current sitting room into the current kitchen, giving you a sitting room with perhaps doors into a new dining room (currently the kitchen). You would still have three bedrooms, one of which could be your husband's office.

Or go mad and make the smallest bedroom a bathroom and the bathroom space knocked through to the largest bedroom to make a new kitchen diner.

You could perhaps have a small extension in the land right-hand side facing of the bungalow or, make the garage a new larger en suite bedroom.

I wouldn't just view the layout as fixed, there are probably several ways of changing it that have not been thought of.

I would also visit the local planning office and ask what might be permitted. They would not charge you for this service and are sometimes very helpful.

As to your garden, if your health is declining, why not make a courtyard garden? No lawn to mow! Raised beds/pots can make a very colourful display without too much weeding or other backbreaking tasks.

Finally, if the bungalow has been on the market for some considerable time, why not make a lower offer, explaining that you have a buyer for your property and can act quickly (if you can).

I feel there is scope here and you may be fixating on the minuses rather than the pluses.

I wish you good luck with your decision but please do let us know whatever it is whenever it is!

Candelle, we think similarly, and if we had more money, we could re-build the house how we want it, but then we would just buy a more expensive house that already has what we want. With this layout we only need to improve kitchen/diner, bedrooms and bathrooms are fine and actually not a bad size.

What is the name of a programme currently on television where two architects are given the task of completely re-organising houses? Would be interesting to watch it.

Hi
I think You already know the answer 🙂

It sounds like you know it’s not what you really want so I’d say pass this time.

nadateturbe

We thought too much about a purchase and someone else bought. We were so disappointed. Would you be disappointed if you didn't get it?

True. It happened to us last week and we were gutted. But the other buyer offered the asking price, so we could not have afforded it anyway.

Think the renovation programme is "Your home made Perfect'. LOVE IT! is it on BBC2?

Rusbun, there is another tv programme you may be interested in - Love it or List It (Kirstie Alsop & Phil Spencer), whereby house owners find out what changes could be made to their property or whether it’s best to move, although obviously in your case it might be helpful to see examples of what is possible in the way of alterations to a property you’re CONSIDERING buying. It sounds as if you may feel a little less doubtful about the property now that you have spoken to the neighbours. As others have suggested, make a list of pros and cons of the property. I can appreciate your dilemma - it’s in an area that you want to buy, but there are negatives to the property. There’ll be positives too. Good luck!

honeyrose

Rusbun, there is another tv programme you may be interested in - Love it or List It (Kirstie Alsop & Phil Spencer), whereby house owners find out what changes could be made to their property or whether it’s best to move, although obviously in your case it might be helpful to see examples of what is possible in the way of alterations to a property you’re CONSIDERING buying. It sounds as if you may feel a little less doubtful about the property now that you have spoken to the neighbours. As others have suggested, make a list of pros and cons of the property. I can appreciate your dilemma - it’s in an area that you want to buy, but there are negatives to the property. There’ll be positives too. Good luck!

Thank you livelylady and honeyrose, we watch many different property programs, including these. We love properties!

Looking at the plan, it appears that there is a door from the garage more or less opposite the kitchen. So if you drive your car into the garage, it would not be a trek carrying your shopping.
Also, you could do what we did when we purchased our bungalow - we firstly took out the fire, chimney and boiler which were back to back in the lounge and kitchen, thus giving us tremendous more space in both rooms. We then took the wall in the bedroom next to the kitchen down and created a large kitchen diner leaving the lounge for chilling out.

I think the floor plan is misleading regarding the location of the garage. Plans often do that. If you look at the aerial view, you will see that the garage and parking is on the right of the house, where the red car is parked in front of the garage doors. And by the way the space between the house and the garden was used for parking a caravan, so it is mostly concrete and gravel and is being used as a dumping ground.

The programme I referred to is named:

'Your Home Made Perfect' and is on BBC2.

There is an episode at 7.00 p.m. today (Tuesday 12 September) should you be interested.

The programme is also available on the iPlayer, too. I think there are several series - I only found this programme a few weeks ago and although there is the usual bit of drivel, how the architects think and just what can be achieved is astounding. There was a particularly good episode regarding a flat in Edinburgh. I could not believe the changes that were made.

I digress! Of course, some sums involved are huge but quite a lot could be achieved with simpler finishes etc.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

I see a lot of people buying affordable houses and demolishing them then building their ideal home on the plot.
If that was possible then you would get the exact layout you desire.
I wouldn't buy it if I was only looking to redecorate and move in.

So pleased to hear that knocking on doors revealed the reason for the house previously not selling. I'm very glad you had such a positive experience with the neighbours.
Wishing you well in what may now become your new home.

PS please come back one day to let us know if you do purchase the bungalow.

I may have missed a reply, but if you decide to buy this bungalow, I think it would be very helpful (essential!) to get the garage somehow joined to the bungalow, by a conservatory or as you suggested, an office. This would help not only moving shopping from the car and garage to your bungalow, but also improve security, and give you more options should you need to use a wheelchair in the future.

A friend moved into a bungalow, with a separate garage and she uses a wheelchair. Unfortunately, she can’t go out if it’s rainy or windy because she can’t manage the outside path, or getting into the car in the rain, she needs a hoist to get the wheelchair into her car, and it can’t get wet!

Since seeing her predicament, I’ve decided that if we move (we don’t have a garage or a space for a garage presently) an integral garage is a must.

Hope all goes well, whatever you decide 🌷🌷🌷

'When in doubt, do nowt' springs to mind RusBun. The major concern for me would be finding a buyer if and when I wanted to sell.