If bungalow is the answer what is the question?

The question is the one that the lady of the manor and I are spending many many hours discussing at the moment and that is “what house shall we buy?’.

We love our little house we really do, but we compromised by living on a busy road in order to buy this our first house. It’s our dream Victorian terrace with wooden floorboards and fireplaces, the one we have lusted after during all those years of renting in Bristol. We’ve poured our heart and soul into working on it over the last 3 years along with an awful lot of sweat and a few tears. It’s also the first real place that we called home as a husband and wife, the place where we became first dog owners and then parents.

The memories (and at least 3000 photos) will stay with us but now it’s time to move. We’re ready (and more importantly can afford) to move to somewhere bigger, with a nice garden for Bracken and the kids, on a quiet street, with a driveway rather than a bumpy track. Simple desires but ones that are becoming more burning with each day since we made the decision.

However there is a small problem, we love our Victorian house with it’s high ceilings, wonky walls and fireplaces but looking at the properties available it’s at least £350k to buy a detached 4 bedroom house with character and more than 10 years old. Somewhat higher than the £150k ours is worth and definitely a lot higher than we can afford without a lottery win.

So what now?

A 1930′s semi perhaps? Not many of those in this area. A larger terrace house? Affordable but distinctly lacking in driveways or sound proof walls. Which leads us to the topic of this post; the bungalow. Much mocked and ignored  and something I would have turned my nose up to in the past. But I’m starting to come round to the idea, many have very big gardens which is a big tick, they are detached and have driveways, plus if you buy one where the loft hasn’t been converted there is the opportunity to add some value. It should also mean being able to live in a house for 15-20 years if you desired rather than wanting to move again in 5 years or so.

I know I’m not alone in this quandary, the many conversations I’ve had on twitter tell me that. A whole group of people of a similar age to me who don’t want to live in an estate house, crammed in amongst all the other identically looking houses. It depresses me seeing some of the gardens that these so called family houses have, I know not everyone wants to have grass etc but a small patch of patio or concrete for a 4 bed house is surely not good enough?

So the search begins, our first time selling a house and a hope to buy a real family home where I can quietly become even more middle aged. Wish us luck.

P.S Any tips on selling a house much appreciated, not entirely sure how you keep a house with 2 babies and a dog in it tidy though.

P.P.S I realise that house prices where we’re looking aren’t as high as in some areas but it doesn’t make them any more affordable.