New house and feel I've made a terrible mistake

[loiterer]

Hello..my first post so please be gentle! I've not been able to sleep or focus at work since we moved and really really could do with some objective advice from you wise people.

DP and I (no DCs yet) moved into our first 'own' house three, nearly four weeks ago, we both work in London and moved from SW London to Bedfordshire, to be able to afford our own house. This was something we both thought we wanted, saved like mad, lots of support (including a bit of financial, not asked for and will be paid back) from his parents. When we found the house in March, did the sums and worked out we could afford it, DP especially wanted to go for it. I had some misgivings but thought these were mostly because I'm the worrier/tight arse of the two of us.

Soo..the house is great, in being brand new, loads more space than we're used to, etc. So I feel terribly guilty and ungrateful for wishing we'd not made the move. Partly this is for financial reasons- I've not been able to get a season ticket loan which means together we are spending the same amount of money pcm on travel as our mortgage, making things much tighter than we anticipated. I did appreciate the travelling would be more before we moved of course, but went along with the train of thought that you make sacrifices to buy a house, and these would pay of. That instead of meeting friends/going places at the weekend, we'd be enjoying the house. Right now the sacrifice seems too big, too soon, and I feel too young for the responsibility of it. So not to drip feed, from what we have disucssed, DP feels similar. Last night I had a look on rightmove to see what we could possibly afford back in London. I'm terrified of the mistake I feel we've made, feeling awfully guilty and a bit of a mess. Will this pass? Am I being an ungrateful cow?

Hi & welcome!

Sorry to hear that you and your DP are having some misgivings about your move. If it's any consolation I imagine that it's pretty common as owning a property is a pretty serious undertaking. On top of that you've moved to a new area away for your friends.
You mention that you don't have children yet. I assume from that you hope to? If so, I think that once children come along you will be grateful for the extra space and I'm certain then you will meet loads of people in your local area. I've made more friends in the last three years since having children then in all the years before.
In the meantime though is finding a job closer to home viable? This would reduce your commuting time and travel costs.
Could you invite friends to stay with you for the weekend?
I'm sure others will have loads more suggestions.
Good luck with it all.

Thanks for your advice.

Yes we do, but further down the line. We both have to work in London because of our jobs really, and would like to put down some more solid work experience before having a baby. I'm 24.

We had friends last weekend, who seemed impressed with the house but said they don't know how we'll manage the commute every day. I guess that kind of 'advice', mixed with my misgivings has magnified things in my head.

It'd be strange if you didn't feel like that. Moving out of area, away from all your friends, is a massive step and can be very lonely. As Suequozzie says, having children (or a dog) means making friends is much easier. Give it a year (make a date in next year's diary if you like) and, if you still don't like it, look to moving. But give it your best shot for that year. Best of luck.

Very very common to feel like this, with or without children.

I have moved many many times over the last few years and find it difficult in the beginning, but after a few months begin to settle and the house then begins to feel like home.

I moved most recently 8 days ago. To be honest as much as I love the area, I hate the house with a passion (luckily this one is work accomodation not a property owned by us). We are looking to buy our forever house though so maybe that is why I continue to feel 'in transit'. We are viewing 11 houses on Wednesday, so hopefully one of them is for us.

I think it's just the panic of having made such a big commitment to the house and move. It's totally natural to feel like you have done the wrong thing when big decisions are involved. If you hadn't done it, you would be thinking that you should have.

Try not to think too much about what your friends said. Other people do say things. I have two girls, people are always asking me if I would have rather had a son.

I think it is natural and I think you need to give it time. You have made a big change in the way you live and you need to get used to that.
Join a local gym, go to the local pub, make friends locally. That is the first thing that will make you feel more 'settled'.
At the moment it sounds like you have moved house but your life (work, friends) are still in London. That is lovely, but will not help you settle, you need something local to 'bond' you to your new area.

I agree with the poster who said you need to give it a year. Don't put the house on the market now, it has only been a few weeks. Give it a year, immerse yourself into local life, make friends, put down roots. Then see how you feel a year from today.

don't do anything now, you need to give it time. If you move back to London now and that turns out to be a mistake (e.g. when kids come along), you will have lost three lots of stamp duty/moving costs!

We moved out of London for similar reasons and were very unhappy and regretful for a couple of years but then we had a sprog and met lovely people through NCT and baby groups and through neighbours being friendlier just because you have a kid so we now feel happy with our decision and rooted in our home.

During the time before we had kids and therefore friends, I continued to meet my London friends at the weekend and just get the last train home so I didn't feel like I was out of the loop at all....just felt that I wasn't in any loop in our new town and didn't know how to begin making friends. I did make some friends through sport and work but my real friends are the ones I've made since becoming a mum.

Good luck - it will all work out in the end.

Maybe comfort yourself that you could always rent it out temporarily and rent yourself in London if it's really too much at the moment - move back out there when you can afford commute/need space for kids...at least you'd kkep a foot on the housing ladder...

Don't worry- you have made the physical move for the next stage in your life. As you are not in that stage yet it's bound to feel a mistake.

You have done the right thing and I wouldn't worry until you have children and still hate it.

First children are excellent for making friends- and you may find your social circle drastically changes when you have children.

Also first buys/ mortgages are fucking scary 3 months in to mine!

I love my new house but panic over small things constantly - ie small crack etc etc as basically this is the biggest thing (bar having children I've ever done and im officially a grown up )

It's a hell of a lot easier to change jobs than move house

You have had some great advice so I will not repeat it.
But you have reminded me of when I bought my first place. As a first time buyer (and on my own) I got the keys and a few sticks of furniture arrived. I sat in the front room and cried, wondering what on earth I had done! I thought it was a terrible responsibility and a big mistake. And the expense... houses just seem to eat money! After a couple of months it was much better and more than 10 years on, I know it was the best thing to do. Buying that flat set me up and we now have a fab family home as a result..... now I just need to find my "forever house"...... Give it time to find out how you really feel about it.

Oh and if you want to meet people before you have kids, find some local places to do some volunteer work. I have only done this post-babies but it is a fab way to meet local people and find your local community/social life.

Only a couple of mins to comment, but only yesterday as I drove into our estate in leafy Hampshire and recalled, with a smile, how when we first arrived in it 2 years ago (tho' I am a lot further down 'life's path' than you, being nearly bloody 50!) I recalled how I consciously felt 'Blimey, this seems so Other, so Foreign, So Alien... but having trodden this path many times before, I knew how soon it'd be before I though 'Yeah, home!'.

Once, and if, you have DC, it'll will all certainly fall into place and those LOndon friends will look on with envy.

You might have to make a conscious, even self-conscious effort to get 'into' your new area- discussing hydrangeas with the old bloke across the road, the 3 item menu at the local pub,- but go walking! Treat it as a conscious voyage of discovery. Bearing in mind it's Bedfordshire, not rural Somerset .

Look at it as the PND of a house move (not meaning to trivialise PND!). Everything is so different from what you knew. Convince yourselves to embrace it. Work at it for The Year. Then re-evaluate. I think you won't regret it a bit in the longer term, but expect to feel loss, displacement and odd-ness at this early stage!

Best of luck with it!

Just read you're 24. Aren't you UNDERAGED? Does you mother know?

If I was 24 instead of nearly double that I would rent the house out, find somewhere to rent in London and go out and enjoy myself.

That's a great post Tansie. We're about to move 200 miles to a new area where we know no-one. But having done it once before when pregnant with DS (5 years ago) I know that the 'foreignness/separate/apart' feeling will disappear after a few months, its departure hastened the more i do to make friends and embed myself in the local community. I'm lucky that I have a DS starting reception, so have a ready-made 'shoe-in' to a social scene of sorts, but I still know I'll have nights of sobbing on the sofa for all that is unfamiliar and different from what I am used to.

Google 'buyers remorse' or 'buyers guilt' - it is common with expensive purchases such as houses, cars, etc.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer%27s_remorse

You could have bought a house in London and be feeling the exact same feelings. You need to ask yourself if the feelings are because you bought the house in Bedfordshire or just because you bought a house.

Best of luck.

Thanks so much for your responses, you've made me feel really buoyed : ) Because it seems we're the first of our friends to make The Move, I don't have anyone in RL really to mention this to - but we've tried so hard to get this far I do want to make it work! I take comfort from you experiences and will try to get stuck in.

I think we've all felt a little like this, dont worry, it's the norm.

I've also learnt some financial lessons along the way but I'm nearly double your age!

As my dad would say, sit down with a pen and paper (not a spreadsheet!! )and list absolutely every single outgoing, go over it and add ten percent contingency.

Chin up. It'll be ok.

As you are only 24 I would suggest you rent the house out and rent a place in London. Return to the house when you're 30 and you'll be glad you bought it.

Good thinking AKissisnotaContract

If you feel so low/unsure then this could be a very good idea!

At 24 I would rent it out & live in London. Unles you actually want kids in the next year.

No...not in the next year. Maybe next 5.

Renting it out was my first thought, but is it difficult to be a landlord? And our mortgage wasn't taken out as buy to let, but i've looked through the paperwork and can't see anything preventing us from doing it.

To answer someone's question tawse57 's question further up, i'd say its the area. I don't feel I fit in- but that will take time, I accept. If we could have bought where we were living before, we would have though. I had quite firm ideas about what I wanted from the house and should have given more though to the town. It was more like, train station- tick, less than an hour to KingsX, tick.

You are going through a period of upheaval at the moment - moving house is very stressful. You are also having to do a long commute which is new to you and will take a bit of getting used to - Once you sort out your routines for that, it will hopefully be easier.

I don't know who you approached for a season ticket loan, but can you try again, ask them to reconsider; look at other forms of loan (by which I mean reputable ones not a loan shark!!)

Where (ish?) are you? I used to live on the train lune into kings cross both in Hertfordshire and then Bedfordshire. I did find that I didn't really get to know where I lived until we had children. The commute was fine though - you do get used to it pretty quickly.

We're in central bedfordshire, nearish potton, sandy. It's the Peterborough line in.

I applied through work, I hadn't thought about getting a general loan to pay for it actually..