You have a choice between two houses; they are in comparable neighborhoods, both have 3 beds, 2 baths. Let’s assume they are both structurally sound.
House A pros: ideal location, brand new interior (including all new appliances), nice yard; a very good looking, modern house.
House A cons: 12% more expensive, lacking a key feature you want (basement), a bit smaller than you’d like.
You’d want to add a deck to the back of the house.
House B pros: less expensive, very large kitchen (appliances updated about 10 years ago), basement, awesome 3-level deck, has a lot of character.
House B cons: okay but not ideal location, kind of odd-shaped lot, could use a lot of cosmetic updating (interior is mostly original, house built in 1950), overall it looks like an old lady lived there for a long time (because an old lady did live there for a long time).
Basement isn’t an issue because I’ve never had one and houses around here don’t have them. In other words, it would be nice, but not high on my priorities.
I’d have to see what “odd-shaped lot” meant, exactly. And why not ideal location, is it in the ghetto or just remote?
It’s tough, but probably A. The deck makes it tougher to discount B, though. Depending on the extent of updating needed (fresh paint vs. complete remodel) would sway me.
I believe it all depends on how much a basement is important to you and how much a handyperson you are (or how much you are willing to pay a handyman/contractor).
The cost to update the house with the basement may go over the 12% savings over the other house.
If this is the house you will have forever and ever go with the house you like best. Basements make an excellent retreat/man cave.
If you might re-sell the house in the future buy the house with the better location.
My experience in home buying ( California only ) has been that an older home is much solid than a newer home. I realize that one of the assumptions you had was that both choices were structurally but there have been houses we bought that had issues I only discovered when I removed the sheet rock or the siding.
Yeah - another vote for location. That is the one thing you can never change.
But this is a really tough choice. Most of the time when buying a house you have to give up SOMETHING. If there is a lot of storage elsewhere, you can do without the basement - but you have to be creative in organizing storage, and aggressive ing gittingg rid of and not accumulating stuff.
The other “trade off” is, in the first house are you paying a premium for someone else’s changes/updates? And in either, don’t underestimate the cost and hassle of any improvements you want to make. Is this a house that you are just planning on living in for a while, or would youl be happy if this were the last place you ever lived? If the latter, some of these concerns are more crucial.
Finally, how do you feel about your house. A number of people basically just want something that is good enough. Whereas other people are deeply emotionally attached to their home. If this is just a place where you are parking yourselves and your stuff for a while, then try to assess resale value.
Our position: we just bought a house - really close to our ideal floorplan/size, on close to an ideal lot, in close to an ideal neighborhood. Had to wait and view a bunch of ugly ducklings and pass on some close contenders before we got here. But our trade-off was that every room is a total gut. It took us weeks of working like dogs just to clean out the filth before we painted our first room yesterday (the office - a lovely muted lilac!) But we have the rest of our lives to make it just the way we want it to be.
There are TWO things we think EVERY DAY: 1: we LOVE the neighborhood, and 2: we LOVE the layout. It feels like home. With those 2 things, we can see through the work and expense towards the future. But if we didn’t have both of those, well, that’s not a place I would want to be.
It’s an iron-shaped corner lot (it’s a very sharp corner), with another house right behind it, down a short, steep slope. There’s a 3-car parking pad at the “tip,” there’s a decent amount of side yard between there and the house, and the back portion of the lot is entirely the 3-level deck.
“Not ideal location” = a bit dodgier commute for me if I continued to take public transportation, however I do have a car and could just drive in if need be.
While location is one thing you can’t change, lot shape and dimensions, and the absence of a basement are also things you can’t change.
So much depends on the relative value to you of the differences. I’m not big on houses with ostentatious exteriors, and basements are a way of having a big chunk of added space that doesn’t make the house look more prepossessing from the outside.
OTOH, I like having a yard with at least some degree of privacy, and a lot shaped like a narrow triangle with streets on both of the long sides would be a deal-breaker for me. So if it were me, House B wouldn’t even be in consideration.
But if House A feels undersized to you now, chances are it will only feel more so when you’ve been living in it a little while. And building additions runs into money that’ll make the 12% difference look small.
I’d say house A. It’s easy to say you would fix up house B but unless you’re handy and enjoy doing house maintenance and aren’t busy with other stuff it probably realistically won’t get done.
Lack of a basement I suppose means less storage space but to me it’s easier to get rid of unnecessary stuff than take care of it.
We’re going to take a second look at House B today, and will probably have our realtor draw up an offer. Character won out, assuming the house passes structural muster.
Is this in DC? I’d go with House B. as long as it isn’t major, you can fix things at your leisure. It’s a lot easier to remove wallpaper than add a basement. How much larger is house B?
They’re both in the West Hyattsville area. House A is right by the Metro, House B is closer to 295.
I’m looking forward to doing some work. I need something better to do than just sit around drinking beer.
Square-footage-wise (as listed), they’re nearly identical, but House B’s layout is better, the bedrooms are larger, and the basement is only partially finished so the actual square footage is probably maybe 20%-25% more.