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?

Don't be ridiculous, of courses you can, you literally said you redecorated and put in new kitchens and bathrooms and such in your opening post to 'live there happily'. You have some mild limitations compared to an outright owner but its nothing like renting.

I rent a house where our bathroom isn't even fit for purpose, the floor has rotted through and collapsed and there is NOTHING we can do about it, its been raised flagged and flagged again. Even the owner of the management company was shocked how unsafe it is but landlord won't sign off on any work. He gets round it by repetitively sending new builders to quote (so he is 'acting') but never instructing the work.

We cannot move to another rental as rent has increase so much for new contracts it would be unaffordable. Although we are lucky enough to be buying so won't be here much long however 2 houses have fallen through costing us 2 years of being stuck here.

You are in a wildly privileged position over millions of us that are renting from basically slumlords. You got to pick out and put in your own new working kitchen and bathroom and can maintain them yourself. I also don't believe for one second you would be evicted from the house you bought for a well applied lick of your favorite colour paint etc...

There is no way you can twist this into 'oh, poor me, I'm so oppressed'.

Yeah I have to agree with you.

OP - I think you need to be a bit more grateful and not focus on ‘losing £200k’.

You are extremely fortunate to be in the position you are in.

Not sure about OP's calculations but, accordingly to the bank of England, in order for a 650k house in 2017 to maintain its value despite of inflation, it would need to be evaluated to be worth in 2025 around 850k, so around 200k more.

Bring a leasehold, it is unlikely that her 50 per cent mortgage was that much though.
However, she might be factoring in the cost of 8 years of partial rent plus variable service charges. That could work be 100k.

To be frank leaseholds, rent to buy, partial mortgages are just yet another trick to extract money from people who cannot afford the mental mortgages in London.
And the profits all go to ultimately to corporations.
One needs to read the conditions very attentively and be prepared to be cheated, it is not an equivalent to buying a house, more a way to perhaps recover after lots of efforts part of the money paid towards the so called mortgage. It might or not be cheaper than renting.

Housing does not follow inflation.
Depends on house or flat area etc.
Op had family trust buy other half so not same as a share to buy or help to buy
Op is and was in very nice position with no mortgage and should stop moaning

I sympathise OP as I too have had to sell at a loss many years ago and it was a hard slog for me repaying that money as I went into rented.
Your question was should I sell now, and based on what you have said, my answer would be yes.
The fact is the property does not suit what you now realise you require from a property.
Move on and do consider moving to an area where you are more likely to see an increase in value. I think the real mistake would be to buy in this currently stagnant area again.

Maybe? Maybe not?

But you would have lost money spent on rent

The OP is right though, she has lost in real terms taking into account inflation. However as others have said it is your home, not an investment & you still have the initial investment. I’d move now & nor wait.

If it had been invested in the S and P 500 it would have double in value. That includes the covid plummet.

Upkeep of a property is important though, but if you’re viewing it as an asset, rather than your home, you’d normally temper what you spend by calculating the value you will add before making costly and unrecoverable improvements.
Most people investing more than that in their home, do it because they are creating the best environment for their desired lifestyle.

As we are also now mortgage-free, and have had our “money’s worth“ from our investments made in it over the past few decades, we now spend regularly and cautiously in order to maintain our home at a standard that would mean that, if we were to sell up, our house wouldn’t be at risk of the dreaded EA “in need of modernisation“ observation, which IME, means “you can knock £20+ thousand off the asking price”.
You pays your money and you takes your choice!

Flats have bottomed out where we live. Ours is worth the same as 6 years ago - youngsters want houses now, older people don't want stairs and nobody wants management fees that can rocket. To us, it's our home so we're not thst bothered but for anyone who bought as an investment. ......

you made an investment, in property

Sounds like you massively overpaid when you bought it op.

Good point, you pay interest on the losses from a mortgage purchase, unless you have a hefty deposit?

"youngsters want houses now,"
How are they getting them, houses are so expensive?

Near us, the new houses have v low deposits and some are shared ownership. Young families are another rung up the ladder.