Possible house move... Wife seems excited. Myself... meh

Diagro

Diagro

Diagro

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I've been trying to get my wife to move house for years. She's been very much against it due to various reasons.

Recently a house came up near her family (Same road...). Its a 3 bed semi with planning permission to become a 4/5 bed house.
Very recent (2021) large extension to create a large kitchen etc. All very nice, looks to suite our needs and exactly what she wants in a living space.

However, there are some issues for me... The loss of master bedroom ensuite is one, and the second is that the bedrooms are still the same size we have now. Two larger ones and one mini one.
Yes, there is permission to extend over the garage and create a very large master bedroom with an ensuite.. which would leave the kids with a large bedroom each and then a small room for an office space.
But I'm not aware of how much this extension would cost. I expect no change out of 75-90k.

The house is £350k... Which is around 30k more than all the previous 3 bed's on that road which have sold in the last 12 months.

Our current house is a 3 bed detached. Valued at around £320k. However, the kitchen is TINY and the other rooms are not great in regards to usable living space.

Don't get me wrong, I do like the look of the house. However I've never been into noise from neighbours... I don't know how well these houses are built from the 1990's in regards to party wall insulations.

My question really is... am I mad for thinking its fine to go from a 3bed detached to a 3 bed semi? the new house has everything I'd want (apart from ensuite missing)...
I'll add, that the houses I've been looking at are £450k plus detached. So this house would be a massive saving.
 
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Yes you are mad.
We bought a big semi in the sticks and a old lady lived next door - Was OK for a good number of years till she died - New neighbours were nightmare -Kids and dog screaming and barking and general noise through the wall.
They were replaced by another couple with kids who were not so bad but you know someone is there.
We down sized to a small detached bungalow with a old lady living next door -She died and it was sold then worst family moved in.
Fortunately they did it up and moved on.
Got old age pensioners there now but we believe they are buying another house. -So if they go someone with kids might move in.
It's a renter and I know where owner lives.
Stay detached.
 
I don't think i could ever voluntarily go back to sharing walls with another house, just seems such a massive downgrade :( way to much out of your control.

I'd rather struggle with a house 1/3 the size but detached rather than a massive house which is a semi
 
fair enough
also factor into the fact that you'd need to be living in a building site for the best part of 6 months at least
and the last time i checked (18 months ago) builders around the birmingham area were charging £1800/sqm for extensions for shell and first fit only
 
I had to wait a year longer renting to save up to skip the "semi" choice for first house.

After living in a flat, and a end of terrace where I could hear dad swearing at his wife and kid and the wife puking from bulimia.. Nope!
Definitely glad I waited for one to come up.

Would never drop down from detached now.
 
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tamzzy said:
fair enough
also factor into the fact that you'd need to be living in a building site for the best part of 6 months at least
and the last time i checked (18 months ago) builders around the birmingham area were charging £1800/sqm for extensions for shell and first fit only
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If (Big if) I decided to extend, it would be a timer frame structure with the rest done within 4 weeks of it being up. We plan to not sell until we have moved in and done everything, I have the funds to sustain a 12 month stop gap between buying and selling.

We're going to view on Friday... so i'm going with a massive chip on my shoulder. Which will need a massive seagull to prise off... However, I'm trying to keep an open mind...
 
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Diagro said:
Which will need a massive seagull to prise off...
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just make sure that seagull don't take a dump on your head at the same time :P

Diagro said:
it would be a timer frame structure with the rest done within 4 weeks of it being up
Click to expand...
i would be careful going with non-standard construction as it may be a PITA and devalue the property when it comes to sell (just a thought)
i think getting mortgages for non-standard properties are harder and may put buyers off
 
View the house when the neighbours are likely to be in; check for tats, special brew and dogs of the XL type :D.

Ask the current owners why their moving - they'll probably say to buy a detached.
 
if you get the right neighbours a semi is fine imo.... but that is quite the gamble. We have been lucky so far and have had 3 lots of neighbours, all decent. (we didnt scare them off, 1 set died and 1 set were never gonna stay long)

but if you get a neighbour from hell................ that sucks. Before extending our house we looked at 4 bed detached, but the maths didnt work for us. our garden was (is) pretty large - massive for a town house really - and we built 2 extensions for far less than the detached houses we were looking at, and we still have a bigger garden than with any of the houses we looked at.

but...... there is a reason why semis are cheaper than detached!.
 
Too much of a gamble. Neighbours could be fine and quiet, then they move and the new neighbours are noisy. I could never go back to living with shared walls unless the joining walls were fully sound proofed.
 
panthro said:
Too much of a gamble. Neighbours could be fine and quiet, then they move and the new neighbours are noisy. I could never go back to living with shared walls unless the joining walls were fully sound proofed.
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This is actually super interesting!
I'll look into the costs of sound proofing the party wall if it happened.
I've done this to our companies office wall, Rubber sheeting, Mass loaded vinyle, thick boardings etc. Worked amazingly well. Only used 50mm for thickness. So in a house, can see it as a doable project.
 
tamzzy said:
just make sure that seagull don't take a dump on your head at the same time :P


i would be careful going with non-standard construction as it may be a PITA and devalue the property when it comes to sell (just a thought)
i think getting mortgages for non-standard properties are harder and may put buyers off
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It would just me the super structure, Timber frame and SIPS panels instead of breeze blocks. Brick outer skin as normal.

Company called MTE is building 20 homes on the other side of town using the same system.

Bonus of it, is it would be up and water tight within a week! (foundations take 2-4 weeks etc prior).

Amazing stuff really
 
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