Bungalow on an awkward plot - to buy or not?

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.

No.

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

Lin663

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

Totally agree 👍

Personally no, if what you can’t change presents a problem then I wouldn’t touch it…

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

You have so many queries about the building, garden, access. So many I'd say you aren't totally keen on the whole property. Is it on at a very attractive price or location for family etc otherwise seem more negatives than positives.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202309/medium-513805-open-garden-9.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202309/medium-449146-open-garden-3jpg.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202309/medium-220808-open-garden5.jpg

*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.

Only advice I think of, my late uncle was an Estate Agent, is think about how easy it would be to sell, before you buy!

I would get a notebook out and write down all the pros and cons of why you should or shouldn’t buy it. Then you got your answer personally I would worry about landslides myself but it’s your choice and money

Work out how much you need to spend and put in a low offer reflecting this. Bungalows are sort after in good condition and currently this one isn’t. Everything has a price, maybe the price currently is too high anyway which is why it isn’t selling. You need to consider if you are prepared to do work and live in a mess for a while

Don't do it. Find somewhere that gives you a positive feeling, not all this worry.

dragonfly46

As someone said upthread if you are having doubts don't do it. When buying a house you need to be sure it is what you want in your heart.

pretty much what i was going to say. While you do have to think with your head about such a big purchase, if your heart is dubious then don't do it.....and it sounds like your heart is dubious.

Location is most important. I would prefer the worst building in the best street... The price is right, go for it. List what you like: detached, garage etc and tick boxes. Good luck

I too wouldn’t buy. The fact that you’re querying it means you have doubts and you want to be happy and not wondering if you’ve done the right thing. Move on, there’ll be another one out there for you.

We looked at a bungalow on a corner plot before buying our present home. It was perfect, exactly suited to our needs but for the fact that it had a fast food outlet and a general store on the other corner. I found out from one of the neighbours that it was being sold because the owners couldn't cope with the rubbish dumped in their front and back gardens although the couple who bought it have been there almost as long we have been in our house.

MadeInYorkshire

It sounds as though it is in a nice area - I think I would consider knocking the kitchen into the hallway, people nowadays tend to refer bigger kitchens, or melded living spaces. The rear garden I would make into a courtyard garden with no lawn, you have enough of that around the front, and I had a tiny courtyard garden in my last house with no growing ground at all, and if you cant grow out, you grow up with containers at different levels - people came to look at my very small space for the village open gardens, after being round everyone's huge gardens where they had manicured lawns and gardeners, lots of colourful evergreen structure and perennial flowers in between, it worked!

Is that a dead space between the side of the house and the garage? Could you extend into that and reconfigure the bedrooms and create an entrance there too so it is closer to the garage? Just needs someone creative I think to have a look and give you some ideas, as well as research as to why it hasn't sold previously!

It is a dead space between the side of the house and the garage, we were thinking of putting an office pod for the DH there perhaps. He is better outside the main house to keep it quiet.

You could turn the whole house plan left to right, and they should have built it like that in the first place. But we would like to minimise building work as much as possible, as all the services and pipes to the kitchen will have to be moved, and that is a big job.

Would love to see the pictures of your courtyard garden for inspirations. I created an interesting garden from scratch before, and it was the selling point for the house.

It sounds as though it is in a nice area - I think I would consider knocking the kitchen into the hallway, people nowadays tend to refer bigger kitchens, or melded living spaces. The rear garden I would make into a courtyard garden with no lawn, you have enough of that around the front, and I had a tiny courtyard garden in my last house with no growing ground at all, and if you cant grow out, you grow up with containers at different levels - people came to look at my very small space for the village open gardens, after being round everyone's huge gardens where they had manicured lawns and gardeners, lots of colourful evergreen structure and perennial flowers in between, it worked!

Is that a dead space between the side of the house and the garage? Could you extend into that and reconfigure the bedrooms and create an entrance there too so it is closer to the garage? Just needs someone creative I think to have a look and give you some ideas, as well as research as to why it hasn't sold previously!

(and) RusBun:

'It is not possible to predict for sure where and how you will die - in your bungalow or in a care home'

or in hospital? This reminds me of 'The best laid plans of mice and men'

My mother decided on a care home. Of the three she occupied in her last year (all horrendously expensive, 'luxury', rated 'Good' - yet all totally inadequate for her needs) the BUPA one really took the biscuit.

They 'kindly' (they said) reduced her fee a little while she was in hospital. They kept her room available for her - doing her, and us, a great big favour, apparently - but would have to 'discuss things further' after Christmas'. Utterly disgraceful!

Exactly what I found with an otherwise lovely house.

GSM, yes - one that had been for sale a long time was prone to flooding - so no thanks.

Buyers are aware of what needs to be done to a property and this one has apparently been priced to take account of that, yet it is still very much cheaper than other properties needing similar work and it has a history of not being easy to sell. There’s a reason for that and it won’t be down to some internal work being needed. I keep an eye on Rightmove with a view to moving nearer my son and I see a lot of properties sticking despite price reductions; one property has just been reduced by £100k. If you look very carefully you can often identify the problem online. Look at the planning history, Google Earth and the Land Registry title. You can find out a huge amount from your armchair. There may be no such thing as the perfect property, but it would have to be very nearly so before I considered it - and those which are not selling are not always simply overpriced. There’s always a reason.

Callistemon21

I've been looking on RightMove and other sites for some considerable time and many bungalows go very quickly.
Those that linger for months are either over-priced or have something wrong with the layout or location.

Not everyone has the same likes or needs and a lot of things can be changed, or can be accepted if there are other advantages.

In OP's situation, this sounds as if it could be good.

Rusbun, reading all the details you've given us about your life, constraints, personal preferences, I would say, go for this bungalow.
No house is perfect, even when money is no object. And this bungalow does tick a lot of your boxes. With some ingenious alterations it could work well.
It may eventually take a while to sell, but so what?

Oreo, seconded. Rusbun, we moved to a newbuild bungalow in May after a long search. It’s so hard to find a suitable bungalow that doesn’t need loads doing to it, and even though ours is in a busier location than we would have liked, I feel we have done the right thing. Nowhere is perfect.
I think taking a builder round with you might help you decide.
Good luck!