Anyone move house & regret it?

[Mirage]

We moved house back in June & moved from a small town,to a tiny village,next to the village I grew up in.

For as long as I can remember,while we lived in town,I dreamt of moving back to the country.Although I loved my house,I didn't love the area it was in,so when the village house came up for sale,we pulled out all the stops & were over the moon to sell ours & be able to buy it.

However,after a few weeks,I realised that I didn't like the house at all,I really have tried to love it,but I don't.It has no redeeming features,everything needs doing to it,new kitchen,bathroom total redecoration ect.The walls are so thin that I can lie in the bath & hear dd1 sucking her drink from her sippy cup.We can hear our neighbours every move & they can hear us too (although they are nice & don't mention it).They have a 'guard' dog which stays out all the while & barks a lot & pees me off.I'm fed up with having to do a 12 mile round trip to buy a newspaper or loaf of bread.If I want to take the dd's to the library,park ect,it is another 12 mile trip.We can't even walk to other nearby villages because there aren't any footpaths & we'll get mown down by 4x4's.

I'm so disappointed & feel that I've been incredibly stupid to leave a lovely big house,with a tiny mortgage,for this place.I was just so sure that it was the right move for us,but it isn't.Now I'm doubting that I actually do know what I want.

DH say that he's not over keen on the house,but does like the 'prestige' of living in the village,but will move if I'm unhappy.But I was so wrong about this place that the thought of moving again & still not being happy scares me.

Has anyone else ever moved & found that they'd made a big mistake?What did you do?

(sorry for the rant,I can't tell any of my RL friends,they'd think I was mad to not like it here.)

I moved and was unhappy ....moved again 18months later ( 3 months ago) and still not happy.

Mostly for me its thin walls and neighbours noise ( inc dog) again - like you- i dare not tell people but have made dp promise we can save to move if i am still unhappy.

Personally i am thinking of sound proofing to make it feel more homely - like you ours needs work but still cost the earth . Because i dont love it i cant face the upheaval of new kitchen etc...

Time may change how you fell about it! Good luck!

If you do up the house will it make you some money?

I am thinking, maybe do the updating to give you something to get your teeth into and then see how you feel when the work is done?

If you still don't like it in a year or so then move back where you were happy

I think i would be happy more rural without neighbourly noise to stress me- dh worries about me....

I am going to try to think positive and stick it out- we WILL do it up but i was going for full blown glass back to the house and did get architects out but now think i will do a more modest conversion and cut my losses.

Do you think you will give it a go?

I moved when 7 mo pg and wept about it every day for 6 months. There was just so much to do, and I felt like I had no resources to get it done. I still hanker after our previous home, which I often feel we hadn't done with living in.

BUT, although I'm still not 100% happy about the location and the amount of time and £ it will take to make the place right, its all starting to feel a LOT more like home now.

So, I think I would give it a bit more time, try to invest in it emotionally a bit, and see how you feel in a while.

When we moved (from a tiny town - a village in size - c.3000 pop to a big town 60,000) I was miserable for about a year. It wasn't to do with the actual house though, but to do with the village/town thing, and also losing all my friendships and support structures. But after about a year I started to settle in, and I love it here now.

So I would say don't do anything hasty and give yourself a bit more time.

I thought I'd be more happy in a rural (quiet) area-just our luck to move to the quietest village,but next to the noisiest dog & in the house with the thinnest walls(sad).It was quieter in town.

What sort of house do you live in 4blue1pink? We lived in a terrace before & I can't believe how much noisier this house is.We never used to hear our neighbours.I looked into soundproofing,but because of the construction of this house,it won't work.Are your neighbours really bad? I get all tense & snappy with the girls when next door have their tv blasting out or their dog is barking.I feel so guilty taking it out on them.

Westcountrylass,we will probably make a small amount if we do it up.Houses here under 250k are impossible to find,so it should sell quickly.It is taking a long while to get anything done due to dh having to work almost every weekend since we moved.With the dd's being so small,I can't do anything when I'm on my own with them.Now work has eased off,but FIL is terminally ill,so dh is travelling to see him every spare moment he gets.(sad)We seem to make one step forward & two back at the minute.

I'm just worried that I'll jump out of the frying pan & into the fire.Before we bought this place I came around at all times of day & night to see if it was noisy & it wasn't.We bought the house from our neighbours,so of course,didn't realise how loud they liked their tv until it was too late.And as they are hard of hearing,we can't really ask them to turn it down.

Trust your instincts Mirage.

DH & I bought an old cottage when we'd not been together long which needed loads of work. It was in a small village which was ditto quite far from nearest town.

DH hated it and wouldn;t get on & do the diy stuff that needed doing, I could see it how it could be once done so got really frustrated with him.

Along with other factors it nearly destroyed us and after about 18 months of hell, we sold up and bought a "boring" modern house in a bigger village nearer to amenities and we were much happier and got it how we wanted it and I have lots of nice memories of living there.

Recently we have had to relocate to another part of the country and I miss home like crazy but I am TRYING to like it here [grin through gritted teeth]

Mirage, we have discovered after 10 years that our flat is very badly sound insulated when new neighbours moved in above us. The result is that we are looking for a new home. I think that if you are at all sound sensitive then intrusive noise is a complete nightmare. But it really is worth mentioning it to your neighbours, because it is possible that they will be sympathetic and that something simple like maybe changing the position of their TV might help. Suffering in silence (or not as in your case) will drive you completely round the bend! Our neighbours now have agreed not to listen to music after 11pm, and it has helped me hugely (as has the fact that our flat is under offer!). As for moving, is this only your second place? Because I don't think that getting it wrong once necessarily means you will do so again. It sounds like you are under a lot of stress for other reasons, and this might just be the last straw for you - if you are tired and stressed then everything will seem much more awful, and with small children and your dh being away I am not surprised you are feeling down. Difficult to say whether moving would help or be just another stress, but as you haven't put down roots then to some extent there is nothing for you to lose by moving.

Thanks for all the advice.It doesn't feel so much like the end of the world that I don't like it here now.

I had the horrible hearth in the living room knocked out yesterday (after it had been started & left unfinished for 4 months),& bizarrely enough,feel happier about the place.It feels more 'mine' & less the previous owners.I put down some new floorboards,planted some potatoes in the garden,& felt quite positive by the end of the day.

DH was away last night & my neighbours came around to check I was ok (we live in quite an isolated spot) & said to bang on the wall if I was bothered by anything in the night.I mentioned that their dog had been rather noisy the day before & they said that it was ok for me to shout at it if it barked too much,they didn't want it to be a nuisance.So I feel happier about that situation too.

I told dh how I felt about the house on Friday & he agreed that if ,once we'd done it up,I still wasn't happy,we'd move.I don't know where we'd go though,to be honest.

Again,thanks,it was really helpful to read about other peoples experiences.No one in our family ever moves house,so it is a 'big thing' to us to move.I tend to forget that most of the population move quite often.

We moved from 2 bed terrace to 5 bed semi when ds2 on the way. Was nice area, and fabulous house, but on main road and other half of big old victorian semi was split into flats. I never settled, even though flats made NO noise. I just didn't like not knowing the people around me. After 2 years we moved to another big old victorian semi round the corner ( so same school) and paid stamp duty again and did the house up again. But now I love this house as much as our first house and am happy as larry. Give it a try - I really did - but if after 2 years you aren't happy, give up and move on. That's my experience anyway, not sure it's what you want to hear, sorry

I moved from a 2 bed house into a 3 bed house when I was pregnant with dd1. I moved away from an alcoholic neighbour who would knock for any reason at any time. She would make a lot of noise too. I was happy here until my neighbour's sons came out of prison and then our life was hell (as many here will tell you) They are back in prison now, and I feel more at ease, but am moving again soon, as I refuse to stay here waiting for them to be released. I just hope that it will be a case of 3rd time lucky for us.

Not a chance Spark...you're moving near me!

pmsl... kitchen floor is down and we have a shed now SM, shouldn't be much longer..

Hi, I can totally relate to what you say! I moved nearly 3 years ago from a busy town further South, to East Yorkshire. My reasons for moving were to release some money, as I had just lost my job, and connect with some relatives up here. However, the house has needed some renovation, and my relatives don't want to know, unfortunately! Even my cat didn't like this house, and unfortunately died a few months after moving 😥 I left behind some very good friends, and unfortunately havn't managed to make new ones here in this new area, even after 3 years. I think now it's very unlikely that I'll grow to like this new area, and I'd give anything to move back. But unfortunately my old town has gotten awfully expensive, so it's difficult to see how I could afford to move back. In addition to not knowing many people, the new place is cold & draughty, and the weather is generally cloudy & often raining. Although I have done some work on the house, and the value has gone up a bit, it's not nearly enough to be able to move back to my old town. I've become unmotivated & miserable, and not sure what to do to put the situation tight-other than dreaming about moving back, & turning the clock back.

@WestCountryLass One of the things I've found over the years is that doing a house up often doesn't add as much to the value as we'd hope. I'm not sure why this is, possibly because the location & size of the house is more important than its condition?