Good area/small house vs cr@p area/bigger house??

would you move to an area that you really like but get a smaller house than you want/need or get the size house you want but be a few suburbs away from your desired area - in an area your really not too keen on??

I'd move to the area I liked. Most people want a house bigger than they need and you can always extend your house or build an extra story later but you can't do much to improve your suburb.

Depends a lot on your reasons for not being keen on the other area. Some reasons for not liking an area are really not negotiable, but others are. I like to weight up all the pros and cons of each choice. So I tend to break the 2 choices right down to lots of factors before making that decision.

If you make a list with 2 columns, plus, minus and interest points, for each choice, then you can see quite quickly which is the better option.

hmm, yes we have downsized over the past few years and now know that we need a bit more space so its not like we are after a big flash house - we are still looking at basic homes that would require work etc, but the difference of getting that extra bedroom or study that we feel we do need could mean we end up choosing an area we are not keen on.
I like your point though, perhaps just getting into the area we want is more important for now? Could be a lot harder to do that in another 5 years or so.

Are you renting or buying? If it's renting I would move to the area I didn't really like for the bigger house. If your buying you can always extend later if you can afford it financially so I would take the smaller house. Also with buying your stuck were you are so it's better to be happy with the decision.

I'd go for the area. We live in a slightly-too-small house (with no hope for expansion) but a GREAT area with fabbo schools and nice people and a lower crime rate than the nice-size semi in the area we want to avoid.

I would go for the size of the house personally.
we bought in an area that wasnt that great 7 years ago, it is now becoming more desirable and the price of our house has almost doubled - we bought for $235K and a very similar sized house - worse condition though sold across the road for $412K a month ago.

We would have only been able to buy a 2 or 3 bedroom house, but becasue we compromised on the area, we got a 4 bedroom house that backs onto a park.
All of the 'undesirables' of the area have moved away as the cost of living there has risen.

In saying that we have a 4br house, we still have a very small house just under 14 sq's... and i find the lack of storage etc etc very frustrating and would still opt for a slightly larger house than we are currently in if i had the choice.

We have a unrenovated house in a great area but can't afford to renovate. To be honest I'd now rather have a nicer (not necessarily bigger) house and walk/travel a bit further.... Old houses are so hard to make look clean! Granted we are in a highly desirable area and will make a lot of money on this house when we sell it, but I just want a house that is clean in a quiet street and to know that I will live there for a very long time. This is more of an investment than a home, but I'm a bit over sitting here waiting to make money - highly overrated.

Not knowing the reasons behind each of your choices, I'd go for area over house size every time. When husband and I originally bought our house we chose larger (and cheaper) over a good area. We were miserable - in the middle of a housing estate that we felt had no soul, we needed two cars and were miles away from our families.

Two years later we moved to a smaller place in a great spot, fabbo public transport, in the middle of both families and much closer to the city. Now that we are having baby we have much more choice of schools. We are much happier.

This is just my experience so you need to weigh up what is important to you.

Really depends on the reasons for not liking the area - e.g. full or crime, or just a further drive from work?

I personally always go for the area!! We own two places: one 2-bedroom apartment in Hawthorn, with a small yard (with hammock, veggie garden, BBQ), it's small BUT I adore my kitchen / bathroom and loooove Hawthorn, walking to great parks and cafes and shops, nice and close to the city.

We also own (mortgage) a place in Blackburn, and while it is much bigger, 4 bedroom with a huge yard, the house is not as nice, and I would miss my cafes and shops and parks too much! So that bigger house has tennants! Some people think we're crazy, but that's the way I like it, in our little apartment! Not much to clean either ;)

Thanks for the replies everyone :)
Given some good points to ponder.
The area we like better is actually further out than the less desirable area, which is not good for work but seems to have more community atmosphere and things like cafes, where as the area where we can get a bigger house and is closer to city has a big lack of places to sit and sip lattes ;) :lol:
DH thinks we should focus on the area we want, even though it means a few sacrifices to move that far out hopefully it will offer us the other things we want. And if we cant find something big enough then we will have to consider renting for a while. We currently rent in the city and are wanting to buy - which means ($$) we need to move away from the city.

It's not an easy choice that's for sure and I'm kind of in the same boat. We're in a great area now but the house is too small. So I'm faced with giving up the shops/cafes at the end of my street in order to move to a different suburb to get a house that's actually nice to live in rather than being cramped.

At the moment, I spend a significant amount of time at home so the fact that it's small, with no storage space and no study is a real downer particularly as I'd like to study next year.

So for me, having a bigger house is winning over nicer suburb.

It depends what the reasons were for one area being less desirable. We used to live in a small house and it became depressing after a while. No space to put anything so the house always looked junky and cluttered. No room for the kids to play, especially in wet weather or when they were sick. We now live in a huge house and I would never go back.

Having said that, like I say, it would depend on why one area wasn't as good.

addit: after reading your reasons, I have to say I'd choose the suburb with the bigger house.

Go for a good area with a home that you could extend onto in the future. We lived in a horrible suburb with our first house and it was just so awful