Did we pay too much?

[DidWePayTooMuch]

NC to post this but mumsnet can confirm I’m a long time member.

please be kind I’m feeling very vulnerable and mentally stressed right now, there is no way I’m doing this for a “stealth boost” as I imagine some posters will say as I’ve seen in similar threads.

so my issue is I feel we paid too much for the house we own right now. We bought it end of 2022 just before the prices fell I believe. I can’t talk to DH about this as he also I think feels this way and all his savings etc. went into this house. He has never worried about money in his entire life but it feels since we got this house he stresses about everything. We have cancelled all our subscriptions and are very frugal with everything now. He was never this stressed in all the years I have known him. I feel stupid and annoyed I talked DH into buying this home and I feel all the neighbours are laughing at us. It’s a new build and a neighbour very bluntly told us he bought his house a year before us and paid £250, 000 LESS than what we paid, I do believe our home is slightly better than his but not by much but it is slightly bigger and has a bigger garden.

I have a sinking feeling that I can’t explain almost everyday I think how stupid we have been. Just for context there have been 3 houses out on sale after we bought and all 3 are still on the market and have reduced prices. I don’t know what I’m looking for in posting this but just wanted it off my chest as I cannot talk to my family or friends as they will just think I’m trying to show off etc. as some are really struggling right now.

I really think we paid £100,000 more than we should have.

Well location is really important.

There is no point in buying a cheaper house in less desirable location.

I overpaid quite a bit for my house which was also a new build about 28 years ago but it doesn't matter now.

I paid 45,000 pounds more which is a lot of money then because I wanted a new build.

The kitchen isn't too bad but the bedrooms are very small but I've just got used to them and the area is nice which is the most important thing.

Please just enjoy your house. There's nothing you can do about it now, so you might will make the most of it.

If you keep dwelling over it you are likely to make yourself ill because your immunity will be low.

Firstly, it's not just you that's made the decision- sounds like you discussed it your DH and he understood about the price.

It's done now. In the short term the house may drop in value but if you are there to ride the latest house price flatline you should be ok in the long term.

The only thing I'd say is make sure your equity levels stay about 10percent or above.

Try and move past it and enjoy the purpose of your home. Make it your castle. There really isn't anything you can do.

Honestly, it doesn't matter. When we bought our last house people were laughing at us, it was a total reno and we definitely overpaid.

But we did it up and sold it for 3x what we bought it for, so in the end we made plenty of money on it, and most importantly, we loved it the entire time we were there.

You bought it for a reason. Now enjoy it.

I felt the same OP - OH did not - we spent more than I wanted to. A few years down the line -and it's all good.

We had two neighbours tell us we spent too much. I don't really understand why they did that - perhaps making themselves feel better. (the neighbours are the other half of the semi - they bought a good 10 years before us - house prices had gone up!)

Btw OP if you type in your psotcode and 'sold pricees Rightmove' it'll show up also.

Nice house in nice area where you feel safe is huge! If the schools are also decent, you’re on to a winner.

We bought in a cheaper area years ago and I had regrets for years as the schools on paper weren’t great but we weren’t in a position to buy elsewhere due to prices at the time.

Those regrets turned out to be completely unfounded and my now adult children thrived. Years later the town is a different place and house prices have gone up so much so play the long game, see it as a long term investment.

Not unusual to have to tighten your belt when you first move!

If you look back at your previous house you will probably see you got a good price for that at the time due to a buoyant house market. So it's all the same in the end. Just accept this is your home. Its difficult if ye have to tighten the belt too tight to pay for it but otherwise make a conscious decision to just stop thinking about it and relax. Maybe paint one room a favourite colour or plant some nice flowers and let go all the thoughts.
Your struggle reminds me a little of mons who name a baby and then have anxious thoughts of it being the wrong name. Just rein in your thoughts..its fine!

Purchasers remorse is truly horrible. Hope you will learn to love it and make lots of friends then it will feel like home x

I think this about the house we are in, we moved late 2022 as well.
We offered at the time that the market was absolutely crazy, everything was going to best and final offers and we really wanted the house. Id estimate that we'd lose £100k on it now!

But i rationalise as follows:

We got more for the house we sold than we would do now.

We are paying much less on our mortgage than we would be if we bought now. We wouldn't have moved to this house even if £100k less with current mortgage rates (we got a great 10 year fix)

Longer term house prices have always gone up. There are more people and not enough houses are being built so prices will go up longer term (unfortunately for FTBs). People buying just after the 2007 crash probably felt the same but prices must have doubled since then!

Thats a good point, you probably sold your previous house for a good price due to timing.

@DidWePayTooMuch how long are you planning on staying? We're in talks about a house that we are sure we are overpaying for, but it would be our forever home.

@WillYouPutYourCoatOn tbh I don’t know. DH Definitely feels this is our forever home and we did but it as our intended forever home

If its your forever home do not worry about it. You've moved in, can afford the payments and it's a nice area - who cares what your neighbours think. What a house is "worth" isn't an objective figures, it's what a person will pay on the day.

If you hadn't have bought this house- what would you have done? Would your sale have fallen through? Would you have bought in a less nice area? Would you have paid the same for another house?

You can't comparing yourself with someone buying now, because you were buying then. If you'd rented to time the market, you'd have been 18 months of rent down by now- even if the house did drop. And you'd have to move twice!

If it was really 100k over budget then surely the mortgage would have been declined when they valued it. They even value new builds.

I try to think everything happens for a reason. You were meant to buy that house. Hope you can enjoy it.

I think everyone has this tbh when our neighbour put hers on the market a couple of months ago I thought this as it is 40grand cheaper than ours then I looked at mine v hers and mines bigger on a bigger plot more modernisation has been done and I just like the layout of mine more so to me it’s worth it

Honestly comparing it to a house that sold a year previously is silly. House prices dropped during the pandemic and then through 2022 they skyrocketed. They are dropping a bit now as people are being cautious due to the impending spring budget and an expected general election. They will pick up again.

But there really is no price you can put in feeling safe.

So long as you can afford the basics then you will be ok.

I would try and relax and enjoy the house.

OP, I've spent a lot of time panicking about the same thing. We bought current place in spring 2021 - peak post lockdown rush - and after a long search the actual transaction felt very quick, and I didn't really trust our sellers, but we needed to move. Then we had to remortgage in a hurry and at an expense when Liz the Lettuce trashed the economy. Since then, I've been so anxious about how much we paid if we ever had to sell - even though we're not planning to - and feeling like maybe we were mugs who rushed into it. And it's tainted my relationship with a house I should love.

Then, as it happened, DH and I were chatting rubbish last night and talking about a local house we'd seen advertised at a surprisingly high price. And this got us on to Rightmove to see that actually, the two people who bought on our street at the same time paid what we did. And another, slightly smaller house with a smaller garden, has just been put on for roughly what we paid. So as we had a good deposit, we're very likely ok and always have been.

House buying is absolutely made to create these kind of stresses, and agents and lawyers profit off it. It's so hard to feel that you got it right. No house is perfect. It sounds like yours is working for you. You can't control the market. If you can afford it, and you like it, that's the main thing right now.

If you're not planning on moving soon then don't worry about it. You might have got it a bit cheaper but as others have said, you can't put a price on feeling safe. And nobody can predict what will happen with property prices. Also you've got a dh who is kind and thoughtful so count your blessings.

I think the fact that your house is in a good area means its value will rise again in the future. I'm in a similar situation, may have overpaid for house and had to spend more than expected on refurbishment. Also, I think it's not our forever home. I'm frankly afraid to get it valued in case my worst fears are realised.

Exactly. Why are you worrying about it?

Give it 10 years and it won't really matter. If it's your forever home you stay, otherwise after 10 years the overpayment will be somewhat immaterial.

We can't time the property market, I lost a lot of money on a flat and have again bought a house at the top of the market. It is what it is and everyone is watching their money right now.

Your neighbour sounds like a right prick.

Hindsight is 20/20, we could all be billionaires if we knew market information ahead of time, don't beat yourselves up. Reassure your husband, you're in a sought after area on a nice estate, you'll be happy if you relax about it.

You couldn't have predicted the future when you bought, or at any other time. You did what you thought was best. And you can't change that.

I still think about paying £20 more than I should have for a secondhand pushbike around the same time. It's ridiculous.

These things will corrode your soul if you allow them. But you can choose how you react to those thoughts.

There are loads of reasons to enjoy your house: it suits you, it's quiet, you chose it together, it's got a nice garden, whatever. Those things don't change just because you paid more or less for the house.

My partner and I worried about this (and have discussed it before). We paid £550k for a 2-bed flat. Lots of things have not gone to plan (the parking situation was not as described for example), and there are things we will need to spend money on that we hadn’t anticipated. But on the other hand, we do like it, it suits us, and we can’t go back now so what would be the point in beating ourselves up really. The only thing that irks me slightly is it’s really not big enough to have two children in, so we will have to move once we’ve started a family.

A house is worth what someone's willing to pay. You thought it was a fair price and you paid it.

So @DidWePayTooMuch You say it was a new build - but then say you bought it from the previous owner and not from the Company who built it - so how old was the house when you bought it? Were they still building other houses in the area? It's normal that when houses are being sold as new builds the houses are released in tranches, with the first buyers paying less than later buyers on the same development