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.

You might have done @DidWePayTooMuch but practically what difference does it make? You've said you can afford the repayments and you intend to stay there.

Are you considering invoicing the vendors for what you feel you overpaid?!

The actual headline price of a house is almost irrelevant unless you are a cash buyer. its more about the mortgage rate as that's what you actually pay.
You could easily have got the house 50-100k cheaper if you'd waited a year, but 2023 mortgage rates would have had you pay the same or more each month anyway, plus you had the benefit of feeling safe for that extra year you lived there.

Don’t let it eat you up op. You won’t be the only one in this position, it’s just the luck of the draw. You’re lucky to have a house and it sounds like a nice place to be. Hopefully you and dh can find peace with your decision and enjoy it.

Shortly after we purchased I had similar thoughts, not by £100k but maybe 20-25 a decade on I don’t give it a second thought. Our household income has gone up so it’s very affordable and prices have gone up and those that move in around here now can’t believe how little we paid. I’m just hugely grateful that we have a house that suits us well when I see so many struggle to get on the housing ladder.

You can’t get your money back, you could only sell for a loss so make the best of it and let inflation and a few promotions remove the strain.

…and your neighbor is probably saying it to be smug and may well be being economical with the price.

OP

Many people feel like you on the big item buys, ie a property, rental, a car

With a property, especially one where a street/road has properties of varing designs, it is hard to put a price on some places.

Its supply and deman and often pay a bit more if there is competition for it

If your places prices dropped, most of the other places around you would have dropped

If you ask friends/family for advice, you will always get some saying you paid too much or sold it for less than true value

NB: The "house" is now a home - ENJOY, please!!! Most of us have been there!

Being blunt, I can't understand why you didn't spend a lot of time comparing the sold prices for houses before you put in your offer.

You say it was a new build, so I'd assume that means you are the first owners?
But that doesn't stack up if your neighbour bought his a year before you - unless yours was built a year later.

The issue is that if they want to sell in the near future, they risk being in negative equity. Their house would possibly sell for no more than the neighbours which was £250K less. (obviously figures are available on Right Move for potential buyers to see.)

I don't understand what you're posting for. We can't say if you paid too much but let's say you did.....and?!
It's no good going over the same ground. You need to come up with a plan if you're struggling financially. The good news is statistically homes tend to go up in value long term. Do you have children? Do you plan too? Maybe you could be stoic about it and say 'well at least we did this before we had a family. Lesson learnt'.
Don't go blaming yourself or arguing between yourselves. You're on the same side. You made a mistake together and you'll get through it together.

I'm at the early stages of buying a home myself, so I feel you.
I'm throwing my entire life savings at this thing, and it is making me feel quite vulnerable. I think that's normal.
For what it's worth, you're stuck with it now. And presumably you're planning on living there for a good long time? Prices will recover.

The same thing happened to my parents back in the early 90s. They bought a house at the top of the market, and the market then crashed and the house was worth a fraction of what they paid. But they rode it out, and when they moved, 20 years later, they made a tidy profit.

There's no point in angsting about something you can't change. It will (is) just make you miserable. At some point you can sell it and instead buy another house you like better and is better value for money, even if the area is not as "good". If you stay for a few years, it's likely you'll sell for a good bit more. Of course other house prices will also have gone up but you'll own more of it having paid off some of the mortgage. Over time buying and selling houses has been profitable.

In the meantime, make peace with it. Things are bad now with the cost of living, but could get better in a few years.

House prices ebb and flow, alot.

It really only matters when it's time to sell. I have made profits and losses on property. Only time will tell.

If you are planning on staying there, I would almost guarantee that 10 years from now, it will be worth a lot more than you think, and a lot more than you paid for it.

I understand all that @LillythePinky but as I said, op tells us this isn't relevant. Which is why I said what I said.

Had op been talking about moving again I agree it would have been an issue and would have said so.

We bought our previous house at the top of the market and I worried we paid too much but by the time we sold it 9 years later we made a good profit on it. Our house now is absolutely at the top of our affordability but has doubled in what it's worth over the past 7 years so definitely worth it.

It's hard when you're in a slump with the colc and houses not selling but unless you want to sell soon you'll likely come out the other side and make money. If you're happy there then it's worth it to you so I would try thinking about it that way and not dwelling on the negative.

It's sounds as if you're fixating on this to an unhealthy extent.

Maybe you bought at the (then) top. It's done now. Unless you're planning to sell right now it's not really something to worry about- prices will go up again and you'll be fine.

Beating yourself up about not having correctly predicted price fluctuations is a waste of time. You may as well beat yourself up about not having predicted the lottery numbers. Even professionals get this stuff wrong. What matters now is how you address where you are now, and it sounds like the right way forward for you is to try to enjoy your house and stop thinking about prices, because every time you look at it at the moment you're just seeing money and that's not helping you.

Noone can answer your question without much more detailed information. It's possible you paid too much, in the sense that you could have gotten the house cheaper, or gotten an equally good one elsewhere cheaper.

I disagree with those who say it doesn't matter. It may not matter from day to day as you can afford the repayments, but when you look at the importance of a house's value to an individual's weath by the time they retire, 100K + all the additional interest you've paid on it is not insignificant.

The thing is, house prices are silly numbers and not like the way we use numbers ordinarily, thinking about job salaries or the like. You could have not bought the house, taken another year to find another house and in that time prices could have gone up by 100K (I know they didn't, but you weren't to know that). There could be a property boom next year and we could all make that on our houses, or a crash and we could all be in negative equity. In the long term, property is a strong investment and you'll make that back and then some. You have to be in the game to do that though, which means accepting a certain amount of randomness and unpredictability, or the possibility of making a mistake.

So chalk it up as a learning experience. Next time you move make sure you listen to your financial brain and not just your nesting brain. And then enjoy your home and get on with life.

Enjoy your home and stop stressing!

The newest person to buy on a street is nearly always the one who paid most for their house. Until the next one buys and then neighbours exclaim about the high price they paid. It's just a kind of natural smugness amongst owners that theirs was a bargain compared to the current prices. You'll feel a bit of it yourself when someone pays more for a house in your development. And they will, even if it's a few years in the future.

Your neighbour sounds like a dose actually going on about the price to you though. Nasty.

Be done with the guilt. You wanted the house but your DH didn't want to insult them with a low offer. You made the decision together.

I overpaid on my house back in 2018. But, I love the house! It doesn’t matter. You feel safe in it and if you are living in it longterm then it doesn’t matter

I get this we moved last year, and definitely we paid more than we would now, but this is the least of our worries. The neighborhood is awful, like living in a goldfish bowl people are so nosey & everyone knows everything about what you've said to someone else, when you go out. Parking... don't even.

I can't wait to move again but am stuck for a while at least until we sort out the house ready to sell again. It's might also feel different then but village life isn't for me.

On the whole you can't really "lose" long term on your house price. If you like it there, just stay & remember you're not stuck there, you didn't sign in blood, & above all (this is what I'm tellingly myself) it's only money.. mental & physical health is more important than anything.

Something you might not have thought about is that your sold your old house at a high in the market as well, so likely benefited from that.

As lots of others have said the only thing that matters with a house is the price you buy and the price you sell. What happens in between isn’t worth thinking about.

Enjoy your house and the safety it brings. It is very common to feel flat about a house move a few years in, you can see all the downsides and forget them about your old place. If you haven’t yet put some time into personalised the place/ garden and making it somewhere you can love.

Who cares what your neighbours paid for their house, it's not relevant to you.

If you love it, then it doesn't matter what you paid for it... you obviously thought it was worth the price at the time:

Unless you are trying to make money by buying and selling houses it doesn't matter.

Comparison is the thief of joy as the old saying goes - stop comparing yourself to everyone else. If you like the house, it's in an area you like and you can afford it, stop worrying

Maybe you paid too much, maybe you paid the market value at that time, but obsessing over this past decision is pretty unhelpful for your mental state OP.

Maybe talk to DH about the future instead. Do you want to move house again or do you want to make the most of your life in this current house? Try to build into your life more activities that you enjoy, more time in nature, more exercise and relaxation, more time with friends, basically more offline and analogue activities.

We all make lots of decisions in our lives, some work out great, some not so great, and that's just how life is! Just keep moving forward and try to enjoy your life. Hopefully a house is not the most important thing in your life so don't let it take centre stage.

Is this really about the price of the house? Moving house is the third most stressful thing in life after death and divorce, could you just be feeling that stress and you've projected that feeling onto what you paid? The stress will fade. The days are getting lighter, Spring is coming and you have a nice big garden. You will be fine x

An old saying in the property business is ‘a house is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it’. Normally it is said to sellers who are either trying to overvalue their house and are disappointed with offers, or the agent struggled to value it accurately because so many things affect the actual price of a house and the offers coming in show the actual, correct value.

I think this is how you need to think about your own situation. You might have paid more than your neighbours, but that’s what the property was worth to you. There’s nothing wrong with that - you paid the correct value of the house at the time.
Enjoy your lovely house. It’s yours! Get the full value of it and enjoy living in a safe area.

It's your home, not just an investment. Other people have bought homes in the past at the height of the market, but then once you live there longterm and aren't forced to sell it will be ok. Try to enjoy it and be happy.