To wish we hadn’t bought this house

This isn’t about the house or your neighbour.

Sadly OP you won’t accept or listen to everyone on here about what the real problem is.

If you divorced both your perceived problems and your actual one would disappear.

You're DH is a shit. He might have paid for the house but you're the one who has made it into a home. The time you spend taking care of your DCs and your home has a definite monetary value. If you died, your DH would have to outsource your role to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds per year!

From a financial perspective, it's lucky you're married because 50% of everything he has is yours, in the eyes of the law.

From an emotional perspective, it's awful that you're married to such a nasty, mean spirited bastard.

In my experience, if someone is mean with money then they're always mean in many other ways, too. I bet your DH makes you suffer a hundred tiny acts of meaness every week, and your DC too?

You 100% do not have to live like this. Don't live half a life.

Your husband and neighbour are both assholes who aren’t respectful of you. Your neighbour is getting joy out of taunting you. Your husband enjoys lording it over you.

house prices consistently rise, some more than others, so paying more shouldn't make you feel scammed. Another way to look at it, if you pay say 500k, you sell at 500k you need somewhere to live, which will cost roughly 500k, the point i am trying to make is, the value of the property you live in is mostly an imaginary comfort blanket... Maybe like mentioned above, don't talk to the neighbour!|0|

It sounds like you’re being bullied by both your husband and your neighbour.

What sort of person discusses the price of their house in this context anyway? My neighbour bought their house (same floor plan than ours) for considerably less than we paid 10 years later. They’ve since put an extension on their house and it’s worth a lot more than ours. Funnily enough we’ve never discussed this and they’ve never acted like arseholes over it. The only reason I know is by looking at Zoopla online.

Never mind the house, it's the husband that's the problem.

Do you know what complacent means?

Forget your neighbour. He is a rather spiteful individual who appears to lack an understanding of house price rises. Its obviously annoying to buy on the upward curve, but if you need to buy at a certain time, there's not much you can do about it. Unless you were FTB you probably made more on your previous house sale than your neighbours. As others have said, your bigger problem here is your marriage. Your husband does not respect you as an equal and sounds resentful if you not earning. Your best bet is to work towards financial independence by increasing your work so you can look after yourself and make your own decisions either with or without him in your life.

Your husband needs a wake up call about what he fondly imagines is “his” money. As others have pointed out, assets are owned jointly in a marriage.

As for him saying you don't contribute, present him with a monthly bill for all the services you provide, including childcare, cooking, cleaning, laundry, plus loads more, and tell him that this is your contribution that facilitates him working, and it would be counted as such in the divorce court.

Also, tell him that household maintenance and decorating isn't included in your housekeeping contribution, so he'd better start contributing to a decorating fund.

And don't be coerced into working more hours AND still doing all the housework and childcare. Does he do any of this at all?
If you increase your hours, I hope you do it to amass a leaving fund, but in any case, he will need to contribute to a cleaner, childcare and do more around the house.

He sounds bloody horrible and bullying, and I do hope that you will feel empowered enough by this thread to put a stop to it, or else LTB.

You could practice a bit by telling your obnoxious neighbour to fuck off, you've heard it all before.

Also, OP, if it helps: our place was sold new in Dec 2018 to the first owners for £355k. We bought it from them in Jan 2022 for £475k and considered ourselves fortunate to have got hold of it. Your neighbour is a massive stirrer

There are two different issues with the OP original message.

The first one is her husband being an arsehole. The second one is her listening to neighbours and what they paid in the past instead of knowing how the housing market keeps increasing, specially since Covid.

Just a few points for you to ponder on.

Your husband has not had to pay for childcare, a PA to deal with life issues, a cleaner or a chef for the 12 years of your marriage because you fulfilled of all those roles saving the communal family wealth fund many many thousands of pounds. This has enabled him to focus on his career at the expense of YOUR career, while he came home to a clean home, clean clothes, happy kids and a hot supper. That has been your financial contribution to the marriage and you need to remind him of it.

You may have separate bank accounts but most of your expenses that are joint need to be covered by both contributing , pro rata to your earnings, to a joint account.

By allowing the house to fall into disrepair he is throwing money down the drain, a silly thing to do with your biggest financial asset.

In the event of his death by defenestration, poisoned mushroom pilaff or damaged car brakes the house will be yours, then you can sell up, and buy somewhere with better neighbours.

He sounds like a bully, and a financially incompetent one at that.

He's talking bullshit, and as other people have said, house prices increased massively during that time. No house in the UK depreciates in value over a standard mortgage period. In another 20 years it will be worth nearly double what it is now.

The best thing you can do with your neighbour is ignore him. Houses only really have a value when you want to sell them otherwise its your home.

We had similar goading from my Aunty, they bought their ex council house and it was valued around d £100,000 our house was valued £60k at the time but it wasn't relevant. She would go on and on about it, it was annoying at the time. Fast forward to today house is on market and been valued at £145k my aunty's next door neighbours house sold last year for £110k.

Your husband sounds awful.

Your neighbour is a t*. Ignore him and don’t speak to him anymore - my boomer neighbours frequently said how little they paid for their house 67 years ago and how I paid an extortionate amount. You get them on all streets - new build or not.

cut yourself some slack OP- you acted on the best information you had at the time. I bought 2.5 years ago too- it was an absolute nightmare - house prices were increasing at stupid amounts, everything going to BAFO and having to compete with folk paying way over the value. You needed to move and you got a house 👍🏻

if it helps with the feelings of regret - I don’t love the house I bought in that period either. If we had been buying now we wouldn’t have bought the houses we did - but that’s how it falls sometimes and we couldn’t stay in the stressful situation of house buying any longer. Maybe look at the positives your home brings to help you come to terms with it - it brings a home for you and your family, security from eviction, a place you can make your own, financial security.

i do think you need a discussion with your DH about the ‘I work so it’s my money’ mentality - it’s not his money it’s both of yours as you both contribute to the household in different ways.

1. paying more than someone did before you is usual- that is house price inflation.
2. it isn’t your DH’s money. It is your joint assets. He lost the right to have ‘his’ money the day he married you. Whether the money is in single or joint accounts is semantics.

Just tell him how smart he was to get such a bargain and you will definitely ask his opinion before buying a house in the future.

Smug and rude, just ignore him, or get your DH to talk to him since he bought the house.

House prices rise over 4 years.

First houses on new build estates have years of building all around them. dust, noise etc.

Your neighbour is a twat. Ignore him.

Your husband...well words fail me.

Your dh and neighbour are both twats. Plus I hate hearing about husbands controlling their wives’ money unless there’s a v good reason for it.

Fwiw we live in a new build - barely anything around at the time, we had buyers for ours and I felt dh pressured me to move here ‘there’s nothing else we can afford, etc’ - not so much on the money side as we have joint accounts etc, but I felt like there wasn’t an alternative at the time (I wasn’t working then either as had recently been made redundant).
I do wish I’d stuck to my guns though as the house hasn’t increased in value at all and if anything it has depreciated. If I won £250k tmw I’d move no question - sell this, have no mortgage - boom! Dh would come too.
Neighbours two doors down got their similar house for bargain basement price as the vendors were desperate to sell so has brought down the overall value of the block.

You are focussing on the wrong issue

The house is equally yours.

Your money is joint

He's a pig

I think maybe I'd bury him under the patio, sell the house, and take all the cash. And tell your neighbour to piss off.

You do know that house prices fluctuate?
What is the market value now?

My home is worth about ten times what I paid for it - but if I sell it I won't be ripping off whoever I sell it to - what a bizarre attitude.
When I purchased it, it was from someone who'd purchased it as an investment and lost about 25% of their purchase price over 8 years - but they may have made good with rental income.

My OH bought his new build house as the second owner for considerably cheaper than the original owners bought it for.
That was because it had been broken into, and the owners wanted rid of it quickly as they weren’t comfortable living there anymore.
Neighbour potentially may not know the full story.