Four Things We’ll Be Looking For When House Hunting

Now we’re officially moved out of my shared ownership flat we’re doing all we can to save like crazy and get our pot of money up as high as possible so we can get our dream home in 2020. In reality, I know in my mind that we won’t get absolutely everything we want initially, we may need to do some things like get replacement windows or new double glazed windows, and we may need to compromise what we want which I am fine about, but there are some things for us (or more me) that are non-negotiable which is what I thought I’d talk about more in this post.

A driveway

Like almost all couples and families we have more than one car, with me driving a car and Luke with a van for work. Neither of us likes the idea of having to park our vehicles on the road or in public spaces partly because of space but also from a security point of view with his van. Plus we know one day we’ll probably end up with a car each and a van which will take up even more room. For us, a driveway is something that we aren’t prepared to let go and luckily as we’re only looking at detached/ semi-detached properties should be a pretty easy one to get even if we need to refurb/ re-pave the space.

Garden space for the potential of extending in the future

We need to be realistic and the space we want we might not be able to get straight away but having a garden big enough with the option of extending or adding a conservatory is pretty essential. This means 5/10 years down the line we have options to add to the house and make it even bigger without having to move. If we opt for a conservatory we can get a Guardian roof cost online at CSM North East which is a high performing insulated roof to keep in the heat.

We’re looking for 3-4 bedrooms

The number of bedrooms totally depends on the rest of the layout of the house and the rooms downstairs. Basically, we want a master bedroom, a spare bedroom, office space for me and a man-cave for Luke so that we both have our own spaces but also a separate additional room for guests. Some houses we’ve seen have the space to put mine or Luke’s room downstairs so we’d only need 3 bedrooms but having this space is pretty much a given as this is the main reason that we sold my flat because we wanted more space and our own dedicated rooms. I’d love to have an office space where I can properly work and keep it separate from my social/ relaxing space, but also somewhere I can leave my softbox lights up without having to keep moving them.

Space for a downstairs toilet

It would be great if there was a downstairs toilet already in the house, but as long as there’s space somewhere to create one then we’ll be happy. I don’t like the idea of having to walk upstairs every single time we want to go to the toilet, especially when we have guests around. There’s likely to be space under the stairs to do this but it’s something we don’t want to compromise on.

What are your essentials when looking for a property?

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