To wish we hadn’t bought this house

[wishihadntgottgishouse]

I’ve had this thought for a long time now. 2.5 years ago we bought a detached property in a new build area. Tbh we were desperately looking for a home and at that time a house would come on and be sold within days. It was so hard finding a home. I really never liked it but as DH kept pointing out it’s his money and I don’t contribute (I’m a stay at home mum but have gone to work part time when kids in school recently).

the thing is the elderly neighbour next to us keeps telling me we got scammed as he’s got the exact same house (new builds all the same) and he paid considerably less than us. He bought his 6 months before us. He keeps telling us other neighbours who bought a better home paid less than us. So we’re the second family to live here and we paid £190k more than the first family who bought it 4 years ago before us. I don’t know how to get over this. I feel really embarrassed when neighbour brings it up. My husband has let the house get ruined as the paintwork had chipped of and shower leaking has caused marks in hallway ceiling. I’m embarrassed of having anyone come in. Everytime I try to speak to him he tells me to use my own money to fix the problems. I’ve only just gone to work and I don’t earn much.

OP… Regarding your neighbour, I would tell him/her quite clearly that the subject of the house value is no longer up for discussion, you have all the information you need and nothing further needs to be said thank you very much. If they start up again show them the hand and walk away.
With regards to your DH, it sounds like the pressure of the move has caused more than disharmony, he sounds angry, neither of you are happy. People say things they don’t mean in these situations, maybe counselling or mediation would help, that’s if you want to stay in this marriage. I hope things work out and I’m sorry you’re in this awful situation.
Try to let the feeling around the house price go, it’s underpinning every negative emotion.

@wishihadntgottgishouse why are you ignoring all the people telling you that the bigger problem is your husband and how he treats you?

Stop listening or talking with this person. They are not good for anyone, they feed off negativity and seem to enjoy worrying you. Your husband is awful too, really bad. You need to focus on that and ghost neighbour completely

Houses increase in value and some decrease. Economy, work done on house, area, inflation etc all effect the price of a house and how much profit someone wants to make. It also depends on your own finances as to whether you feel mugged off.

Anyway!

Your neighbour is not your concern - Stop letting him be a concern.

Your husband is a massive concern - Stop being his door mat. Legally his money is 50% yours. I do not understand why some women on here never realise this! Even half of his pension at the present time would be yours if you stay together/divorce. Why are you staying with someone like this? He sounds abusive! You are worthy of being loved and treated far better. What would you tell your own child?

The market fluctuates. Stop talking to the neighbors about your house. And you do need to maintain it in case you ever want to sell it for top dollar.

Yeah! Another piece of great one-sided advice, but before you do anything rash, stop worrying about the house and start to concentrate on whether your relationship is worth salvaging.
It's so easy to think "I'll just divorce DH and go get myself a lovely little cottage elsewhere", but life (and especially the property market) just isn't like that.
Firstly, work on your relationship. If it really is beyond repair, then be prepared to lose money on this house and then to pay over the odds for your next one, that's pretty much what happens in a divorce.
Stupidly overpriced housing and poor decision making are probably why you ended up in this property in the first place. Unfortunately, that's just the reality of the property market. Think before you jump, you could end up far worse off.

Early 2022 was the peak of the housing market and prices were crazy and people had to make very quick decisions to buy a house in a very competitive market. The market has cooled since then but not as much as it should or could have done particularly in light of the interest rate rises.

I completely blame estate agents overnight price increases since the announcement of the stamp duty holiday, their continual increase since then of advertised asking prices and people offering near those prices for this!! I believe there should be more regulation on the way estate agents price houses.

If you wanted/ needed to buy a house around that time the price increase would have been the case for any house you bought. You certainly were not scammed, it sounds like the price you paid was relative to the market at the time.

6 months before that was a very different market so it is no wonder your neighbour paid less, and 4 years before was incredibly different. He sounds very out of touch with the housing market. It amazes me how people are so out of touch with the economy/ housing market etc when there’s so much information out there at our fingertips!

Of course if you were selling another property to buy yours you would have sold it for more than you would have sold it for 6 months/ 1 year /4 years before that so it is all relative as well!!!!

We should have bought before Covid but didn’t, then since the boom of 2021/2022 we decided to try to wait for the downturn for as long as possible. The downturn started summer of 2022 and prices have reduced slowly but not as much as we would have liked. In order to actually get on with our lives because we really needed to move we have had to buy this year rather than wait another year for houses to reduce further. I would say we’ve paid 20% -25% more for our house than it would have been pre-Covid/ stamp duty holiday, but then we also got 20%-25% more for the house we sold too!

No doubt prices will continue to drop for another year or two (eventually they will pick up again) but the fact is if you need to move to get on with your life you have to pay the price the market dictates at the time in order to do that.

Your neighbour is a PITA .
How dare your husband say you haven’t / aren’t contributing!
I assume you gave up working to care for small children, run the house , do all the cleaning, laundry , shopping, cooking and so on plus manage everything else to do with the children.

To neighbour: "You seem fixated on this, why does it matter so much to you how much we paid for a house nearly 3 years ago?"
To husband: "If you're short-sighted enough not to value my contributiin to this marriage, I shouldn't be here. 'Bye"

Concentrate on building a better future for yourself, upgrade your job which may mean changing career and studying. You are both parents to the DC so he can pay 50/50 at least, even if all the money you earn has to pay for your share of child care it will be worth it, to get job security.
Put as much as you can into your own pension pot so when the time comes you will have something to fall back on.

Meantime, you could imagine (?) to clean the toilet with his toothbrush, it always made me feel better.

This problem isn't about your house. I'm sorry. Your husband sounds really horrible. 😔

You have a husband problem, I'd suggest getting rid of that first

New builds straight from the builder off plan are quite static in price, they just increase slightly on the market based on plot size, direction etc. but not massively for the same style house but then after the first home owner, they shoot up because that first owner did a lot of the leg work to get it from a shell to a home (flooring, fitted wardrobes, landscaping etc.). Our last new one we sold in 2022 went up £100k is 5 years, about 25% increase.
It truly depends what the first owner has done to it, so maybe the neighbour bought a shell still whereas yours had a lot more work done. If you have a mortgage then the bank will have done a valuation report and wouldn’t lend the money if it was massively over market value.

This is all irrelevant though, you DH is a knob and you deserve more than being spoken to like the housemaid! I’d be off with half the value of that house sharpish!

Sold house prices are published by the Land Registry. It’s easy to find previous prices going back for as long as the house has been registered. You can do it on Rightmove.