AIBU to be gutted my house has lost me money?

[Hotpinkparade]

I guess I’m really wondering if anyone else has been in this situation and what I can do… I bought a two bed flat in a nice area of London in 2017. Redecorated, replaced the kitchen and bathroom, and have lived here happily since.

We’re starting to outgrow it and decided to get the flat valued and see what’s out there. Two valuations, both for the same as we bought it - maybe 5% growth if we’re lucky. I’m just gutted. With inflation over that time, we’ve essentially lost £200,000. The estate agent said house prices in our area haven’t gone up over that time because it’s not ‘up and coming’, it came up a long time ago and has stayed desirable. What do we do? Just suck it up and sell, or wait and see if anything changes?

You haven't lost money - you've paid some of your own mortgage instead of a landlords and build up some equity as you've done so.

As above, you've saved the money you would have paid on rent since 2017, and presumably if you bought in 2017 at least some of that time you'll have had a decent mortgage interest rate so you've probably saved money overall.

this is literally how the housing market works... treat property as a commodity and it'll always go down as well as up.

Get another valuation, this sounds nuts.

You haven’t lost - you just haven’t gained what you think you should have ?

You haven't lost money, you just haven't made any. But you've got equity from the mortgage you've paid off to take into a new property. I would assume you overpaid when you bought, and flats don't increase in value as quickly

You haven’t lost any money, first of all.

But if it hasn’t increased between 2017 & now then I wouldn’t expect it to increase much in the next 5 years either so if you want to move I wouldn’t delay that in the hopes it will go for a higher price in the near future. There’s been huge house price rises between 2017 & now, so if you haven’t benefitted from then I wouldn’t expect it to be any different in 2030.

Wow this is strange imo, 2016 was a boom year but overall much of London has still gone up.
I bought a flat in 2017 in Z3 E, sold it at the start of the year for 550 after buying it for 300. However that isn’t all profit because it took a lot of effort and money to get it to that standard. The days of huge increases for doing nothing were gone years ago.

But yes posters are right, you haven’t “lost £200k” just because it hasn’t increased in value. You would always have needed to pay to live somewhere, at least this way you get it back.

Like any investment it hasn't had the growth you expected. You have not lost money

I should have mentioned - I was a cash buyer owing to an inheritance. So haven’t paid off a mortgage.

Value of flats in London have stagnated since Covid. We made a bit of a profit on our river front flat when we sold, but since then, everyone else in our development has sold at a loss. The growth is not really there for flats anymore unfortunately.

Flats, especially those without outside space, have stagnated in value since covid.

As others have said, you haven't "lost" - you've "saved" what you would otherwise have paid in rent. Yes, it's true you haven't gained, but you also haven't lost.

Ha ha @SummerIce snap!

I guess it feels like a loss due to the mad rates of inflation over that time. The money I paid in 2017 would be worth £200k more in 2025 thanks to inflation.

So wait, has the price gone down? No, it just hasn't gone up as much as you thought id do?

Yes YABU

It wasn't an investment, it was your home. You have paid to live freely in it without the worry of being at the mercy of a landlord, to decorate it as you choose. Instead of losing money in rent, you recoup it when you sell. We have lived through an era of homes increasing in value but it can't continue indefinitely. Think of house purchase as a home, not a moneymaker. You don't need to feel bad.

In that case, unless you were expecting the value to go up more than the cost of 8 years' rent, you haven't lost anything.

Yeah I think it’s area - my friends in SE/E London have made profit in this time (often for very little material improvement) but our area doesn’t seem to have gone up in value at all.

My first home sold for less than the purchase price. I bought just before a recession, the value tanked, and it never gained the initial value before i needed to move. It was super stressful, and i was thankful not be in negative equity. I did still move but my budget was less than previously - I just had to work with what was available to me.

Reassuring to know I’m not alone at least! I feel like a mug, and if I’d just invested the money in 2017 rather than buying I’d be in a much better position now.

But where would you have lived between 2017 and now if you'd just invested the money?

If your flat is worth £200,000 and you paid cash that's a big deposit to put down on another property.

I do think people are wising up to flats now as well though, especially where we are they tend to take a long time to sell

Agree with this. Reframe it: You've had a stable, mortgage and rent free home for 8 years in a nice part of London, at a relatively young age by the sounds of it (given you're looking to upsize). The vast majority of people could only dream of that in a lifetime.