I spend hours and hours searching through "rightmove" for the perfect house,situatated in the perfect area. We have been spoilled so much with what we have now,and i think i am trying to compare our home here in Canada with trying to find the same in the UK.I dont think its going to happen. I keep saying :its only a house" but its our dream home,and for what we are going to get for it here,compared to what we can get in the UK is nothing.We are looking pound for dollar to get some thing close........so there is no way.!!!!!!
Does anyone know of a nice little area with newly built large homes,with some space in between the next house,in a country village ...probably not ! we are searching for the un-heard of i think lol

I think that is a big adjustment people have to make when cooming back from US/Canada, and it takes a while to just accept it.

Even when you find something half decent-looking that is "only" twice what you would pay in US/Canada, you find out it is in the middle of nowhere, next to a huge electricity substation, made of "nonstandard construction" (asbestos or prefab, un-mortgageable), or next door to the Kray twins.

Unfortunately, if you're moving from the US or Canada, you'll have to adjust to living in a much smaller house, fairly close to your neighbors and more than likely with a one car garage - unless you have a boat load of money! I know that if I were to move back there (and I think about it a lot, but I'm not sure it will happen as I have family here) I could probably afford a terrace house and that's it. I have a really nice condo here, two car garage, two bathrooms, granite in the kitchen, etc, etc. Of course it has lost 25% of it's value since I bought it but that's a whole other story.
On the bright side, house prices are expected to start falling again in the UK, so that's in your favor (although not so good for people trying to sell).

How large a house are you looking for and what price do you want to pay? Do you need to be in any particular area for work or schools or can you pretty much be anywhere?

Honestly, with the exchange rate the way it is I think you'll have a hard time finding something comparable, so you maybe need to compromise, or think outside the box a bit.

This is what I would do if I were you. Firstly decide what area of the country you want or need to live. You can change almost anything about a house, but you can't change the location. Then you could consider looking for piece of land and having a house built. Obviously you'd have to live in rental accommodation for a while, but at least you'd have what you want at the end. Or you could look for a house that has some land or a large garden and then extend the original home. Many of the ex council houses come with good sized gardens, especially those in rural areas. Of course they're not new, but they are solid built and you can do all sorts with them.

If you want a rural setting try looking in magazines like The Farmers Weekly, that used to have a real estates section in the classifieds. You might see a rental advertised that they may possibly be willing to sell.

Also, don't just check the 'For Sale' when looking online for houses, check the rentals too. Many people that have had homes up for sale for a long time will give up and try to rent instead. If you see a rental that would work for you, it could be that the landlord would be willing to sell.

Don't give up

From my years of watching what dunrovin calls property porn, I've learned that compromise is the name of the game. You said you want the perfect house in the perfect location and that's problem #1 unless you're rich.

I think you have to decide whether it's more important to get the perfect location, or the perfect house. You'll have to compromise on one or the other. We haven't decided that for sure yet, although I suspect we'll end up compromising on house rather than location, just because being close to the people we love is so important to me.

I agree with the suggestion to look at self-building - maybe a kit house - and also to look for houses that need a lot of work. That way you can get a lot more for your money. Also, areas of the country that are a little more remote (like Norfolk) are much cheaper than those that are well-connected, but that might be one compromise too many for you.

We are in the other boat, with what we get for our small timber house here we are able to get a big solid detached house in the UK. For years it was the opposite. I'm not sure the perfect house really exists in the perfect location, not for us mere mortals anyway.

Where is here?

[FYI, You can put your location in your profile, so people can see where you are when you post, instead of having to trawl your older posts to figure out your location - if you want a certain amount of privacy you can just put "New Zealand" or "Thailand", or wherever]

Thankyou for that! I think your right about choosing the area first.We did a bit of home work last night in the Lancaster /Lancashire area's and found a nice village with a great school,also close to the M6.Then i started looking deeper and there was another little village not far away that was building some brand new country set houses.So when the time comes,we might find it LOL! just need to do a bit a digging

Oh that's great that you found a good possibility! Well done

I really wish I was drawn to new houses, because there are more of them and they're better priced, but I can't help it ... I seem to only be drawn to character homes and, because there are fewer of them, the prices are higher. That's why we might need to find something that needs work.

Cunbrian Lass

We moved back from Canada and had to downsize from 2000 sqft house to 1500 sqft. We found modern houses are too small/expensive for us and so we purchased a 1970's house on a quarter acre plot instead 1.5 acres. Which meant going from 28x14 feet living room to a 23x13ft. Our master bedroom was 25x19 feet and now we have a 22x13 feet bedroom. We had to get rid of some of our furniture. We brought the house for £180K in 2008 and spent £20K on building material plus our own labour in the last 2 years. If you are willing to buy an older house your get 50% more spare than a modern house , more garden and space between your neighbours. We live on the outskirts of Dover, Kent and a few minutes drive into the town, but not in a built up area(16 houses in our close).

hudd

from lancashire and know Lancaster. nice part of the world..

Yes i think thats what we will find too.......at the moment we live in a 4000sqft house and there is no way on earth we can find one that size in our price range.Even the one's we are looking at range from 700k up.We have 2.5 acres too......i really dont mind down sizing the land to half an acres,but as long as we have some space.I think we will find some thing when the time comes.........just need to sells our home first,before we can move

well the pro of a smaller house is that there is far less to clean !!!

But I guess if you have a big house, you can afford a cleaner or something maybe?