I'd be quite prepared to mix and repoint myself, no it'd not be a perfect match, but from what I've read on this sort of thing repointing if the crack is moving is a bad move as it could cause it to open further (mortar stops it closing if it's a cyclical opening/closing due to thermal/groundwater cause) etc.
It needs repointing to stop water getting in. If the crack isn't on the move then that's fine. Rendering the whole front would be a shame given the textured bricks. All the pointing apart from this crack is sound and in good condition.
There are houses without cracks in the front, but I am limited to a select few areas by salary multiples and stupidly high house prices. Lucky enough that my job is flexible enough to permit me to live in this particular area (well connected to major roads and reasonably central in one plane to the area I work).
Property market is such that I can't afford a non-leasehold place (and often not even them) in almost all of the southeast, hence looking at older properties of this sort of age, with bigger floorspace than the modern shoeboxes. Compromises are being made on a lot of things, and I see no reason to dismiss this place out of hand because it has a crack in it, given the age, if the crack isn't actually anythign to worry about overly.
If it's purely small movement that occurred some time ago, and it's not ongoing, then it's more cosmetic than anything else, and I'm not bothered by that in the slightest. The place I'm looking for is tattier than most, needing internal redec, with a working GCH system, functional kitchen/bathroom that's not more than a couple of decades old. I can't afford, and don't want, a perfect property in perfect decorative order with an immaculate garden because a) that's boring, and b) as I said, I can't afford them.
Most of the other houses I've found are victorian terraces which have a whole gamut of other potential problems, aren't as suitable with their steep narrow staircases for parents that are now getting on in years for visiting (would be living >100 miles from them, so do intend they come stay, and would prefer they don't break necks each time!). Other semi's require vast amounts of updating to be in my price range (no GCH, antique but not in pleasing way kitchen/bathroom etc) and are also smaller in terms of sheer floor space in rooms.
If it weren't for the fact that this one is right in so many ways I would have discounted it by now, as it is, it is right in all ways but this one niggle.