AIBU to be gutted my house has lost me money?

Agree, that doesn't sound right. The overall picture is of properties not increasing in real terms, but there are surely going to be loads of areas that buck the trend given the massive social change since then.

We also bought around that time and it's increased about 25% in real terms, having done not much bar paint and not been very clever about anything. Still not a very expensive house, granted, so 25% in real terms is a lot less than it would be elsewhere.

So now you are jealous someone made money but not you, because you expected to also make £300000. You need to let go. Why does it make you sick someone was fortunate because they bought at the right time (and you didnt).

Your inheritance has basically provided you with a home. It hasn't risen in value but not fallen. It's a home. Move if you want to another home. Free homes don't come to many.

I’m sorry your husband’s medication is so expensive.
£700 is so much money. I hope he’s going ok.

Have you tried arguing that it isn’t a ‘want’ it’s a necessity in order to adequately ventilate the flat and maintain it, state that mould could develop which could harm inhabitants and damage the property, also windows that don’t close fully are a security risk and could possibly endanger lives

I think it is likely location dependent because I bought a 3 bedroom btl house with some inheritance in 2016 in the West Midlands. DH did some work on it and I had a new kitchen and bathroom. It's more than doubled in value and I've been repaying additional mortgage off every month because mortgage rates have been low and now I've only got a little over £62k left to pay on it to clear the mortgage.

I think you’ve got this the wrong way round!!
especially since you bought in cash . If you had held onto the cash in 2017 instead of buying, your cash would now be worth much LESS due to inflation.

plus as many other have said - you’ve had all these years of not paying rent or mortgage, which surely means you’ve been able to either save or live well on your income

Hmmm quite hard to find a two bed flat with private outside space in Hampstead or Belsize Park for that. I think it might be worth a third valuation....

OP

We have secondary glazing on some of our windows, which is a pane of glass fastened inside the window. Might be worth looking at because it wouldn't impact on the appearance.

Sorry OP, I actually thought anyone buying a flat would have done their research and knew they didn't hold their value like a house. Also flats are leasehold so that's another disadvantage. As the leasehold runs down it's sometimes harder to get a mortgage without buying a longer lease. Obviously I don't know how many years you have left on your lease. It sounds as if you might have overpaid. Can you hold on to it until prices rise a bit more?

only allowed a specific brand of expensive windows

Out of interest, did the other part owners pay something towards cost of the window replacement?

How could you not decorate how you want, but put in a new kitchen and bathroom? Or do you mean the outside of the property?

But surely if they invested it in the stock market they would have had to pay rent for all those years so I doubt they would have made much money

I think your expectations are off why would it have made £200k, that's a huge increase in value in just 7 years.

Its not always for London.

I bought a flat for £360k amd sold it for £580k 3.5 years later. We hadn't done anything except repaint.

However OP, most people get hit by this at some stage. The person who sold to you probably also bought their next property "high" and is now stuck feeling they haven't "made a gain". If you had bought when things were "low" it would probably have been low because mortgage rates & other investment returns were also low.

people seem to want to miss the flat step of the property ladder and go straight for a house.

My estate agent said this, she has first time buyers looking for houses of over £1 mil (2 city salaries and help from parents). She said stamp duty is so high people want to get somewhere they can stay for 15 years and raise kids etc, rather than climb the ladder paying stamp duty and other costs every 5 years.

We own a flat in a desirable part of West London and as per your valuations our flat also hasn't gone up in value to the extend of flats in less desirable areas, as this area is already desirable IYNWIM.
We bought in 2012 and over 13 years and with complete renovation it has gone up by about £200000 with not much change in about 5 years.

Just chalk it up to experience and move on.

If you want to make money you need to pick the right property in the right place. A 2 bed flat with no garden in Hampstead was never going to be either!

If you’d invested in a 2 bed terrace in somewhere like Walthamstow, or Clapton etc, extended the kitchen and say added a bedroom, that’s the sort of thing that can make money. That said it can be a miserable experience, you can lose money if you have to abandon the renovation half way through and you also wouldn’t have been living in such a “naice” area for the last 8 years. So you take your pick really.

The house that made me the most money we picked the area well. When we first moved there it had a working men’s club at the end of the road, 10 years later it was a mini Waitrose and a Gail’s!. Equally the closest school was ofsted RI, now it’s outstanding and sought after.

BUT we also completely renovated a very run down terrace from top to bottom, 2 bed loft conversion, side-return, complete re-wire, new boiler, new bathrooms, all redecorated etc (much of which I did myself) and I spent weeks over time making a beautiful garden. We were lucky that this was pre-Brexit but it still cost a lot of money and I had a year of living in a building site having daily conversations with builders etc. That’s why we made money!

As a private renter this is a hard read

you’ve had security, autonomy over your future. The ability to paint, have pets and enjoy absolute freedom in your home.
and
peace of mind

do not underestimate how much that is worth

from someone whose paid out approaching £300,000k to landlords

@Papricat that's not the case. @AndImBrit has checked.

If you’d invested £625k in a FTSE tracker on 1 April 2017, and cashed it in yesterday you would have cashed in £668k, about a 7% increase

I think it's also flats in general that have not kept pace. We sold our flat in 2018 in another nice area of London for £425k which was double what we had paid for it in 2007; however I have just seen it's gone on the market recently for £430k despite the current owners getting a new boiler and replacing the kitchen. It's also decorated much nicer than we had it. I think the market for flats never recovered from the pandemic when they became much less desirable, and also dues to costs of moving and people buying their first home much later in life than for previous generations, people seem to want to miss the flat step of the property ladder and go straight for a house.

But you would have had to pay rent for the last 8 years?