Feel so Awful about my house

[ChristmasBerriesBez]

Hello Mumsnetters, I'm hoping someone is out there....awake and on here early.
I'm reaching out really - I feel so awful about this thing. We bought a house which i had fallen in love with and my logic was clouded so we offered way, way too much.

Now it's come that I feel sick every time I think of the house. I feel sick as I know that it will never sell at anything close to what we paid. Although we got it under asking, it's asking was ridiculously inflated and I'm talking we paid I think maybe £60,000 more than it's worth.
A lot of what we paid was out savings. so literally money no longer in the bank.

There have been comments about what we paid from people who live nearby and I could just melt into the ground.

It has very little resale potential - it's layout is majorly unusual and those who have looked at it's floor plan hate it and say they wouldn't consider it.
It had been listed for over a year, it had just had an offer fall through, and I know they were desperate to sell. North facing garden too!

I got it for 6 percent less than asking price, but now i've done my research (too late!) I can see that it's worth about 10-15 percent less.
Other houses in the area measure up much better.

I've gone from loving it to having bad dreams about it, I feel sick in my stomach all the time and I don't know how to live there without thinking every day '£60K wasted that I'll never see again'
We really need that money. It was top end of budget.

I don't want to decorate or work on it because it only makes me panic that it's more money wasted on it that I'll never see again.
I feel breathless when I think that this is it now...we're stuck in this house with no option to sell in future as it will only lose value as time goes on.
Dont know why I'm posting this really, I think to vent, or to reach out, or to ask how others might handle this. Thanks MNs
xoxoxo

@ChristmasBerriesBez

Thanks everyone. Re the surveyors valuation - I had a buildings survey and they didn’t give a valuation as part of it. I just know I was too keen. I honestly don’t know how to get over the panic of losing all that money. Keep thinking of what it could’ve gone on instead and it’s so painful.

What I liked about the house - it has a large open plan kitchen and living space, wide hallways that feel like rooms in themselves, a nice feel about it. It’s hard to put my finger on really but everyone else seems to think it’s awkward. One of the bedrooms is absolutely tiny and I’m too hesitant to even check if a single bed can go in there. It seems so obvious to me now, I don’t know where my head was at when I viewed and offered.

No mortgage valuation?

We paid about £50k over the asking / local average in a sealed bid for the house we loved. We knew the area was going to come up over time and we were going to live there for at least 10 years. We still were within our affordable mortgage amount by a decent chunk.

In 7 years, house prices gone up and with the changes we have made to the house, we have made our money back and some more.

We are in exactly the same position!

We were desperate when buying our house. Previously we were living in a tiny one bed flat with a toddler and lockdown hit. My parter is a key worker working 16 hours a day from home and it was all a bit crazy. To top it off we had a psychologically unwell neighbour who began threatening me and we were petrified to leave the flat!

No one wanted to sell to us because we had 2 properties to sell and a complex chain. We had been putting offers in & getting rejected for over a year.

In the end we offered £40k over asking, and the house clearly needed atleast £30k spending on it.

I felt sick when I first realised we would never get back what we put in. (We plan to stay here 5 years). And watching all our friends and neighbours make a really good profit due to living in an area with really good inflation.

However I kinda realised it’s not just about that. It’s our first family home and we’ve just got to make it as enjoyable as possible to live here. The little bits of work we have done to it have improved our experience here massively. Some people win on property inflation and some loose a lil bit. The main thing is for us to enjoy living here. The panic passed OP! X

I think you need to focus on everything you love about the house, the large hallways, the large open plan kitchen etc.
that’s the things you need in a family house, you need the living space, large kitchen and living rooms.
It’s not the end of the world if a bed doesn’t fit in the smaller room… you can get custom made beds.
You need to decorate it, you need to show to yourself just how beautiful the house is, and basically stick to fingers up at the people who keep giving their opinion about it!!!

You have to turn it back around in your head or you will go mad!
Who cares what other people think, it sounds fabulous and gave you THE right vibes! It’s no rare that happens, but you got the feelings it was your house for a reason
Open your eyes again.
I had Buyers remorse once, it felt horrible. It became the perfect house for us after a clean, a paint, some great art and accessories! Make it work for you xxx

Do you need that small room to be a bedroom? If it is over the stairs you can sometimes get a cabin bed built in. If you don't need it as a bedroom use it as a home office (increasingly valuable) or hobby room. It sounds as if you love the open hallway so for you it is a positive. What about the house doesn't work for you? Assuming you don't plan on moving soon the other points are irrelevant.

Your new house sounds wonderful, OP, and I'd put money on your falling back in love with it once you've settled in. It's not unusual to freak out and feel misgivings about a new house; it's such a huge sum to lay down and tie up no matter how ideal the place.

Everyone else seems to think it’s awkward. This doesn't matter if the layout works for you. (Anyway, it's too late for them to be expressing opinions on this! Let the curmudgeons bring you fabulous housewarming presents to make up for it.)

My own love-at-first-sight house is incredibly strange, built on four mezzanines that my XILs would complain about bitterly on their (fortunately rare) visits. I sometimes grumble when I have to run up three flights of stairs to find my sunglasses, but I love how well the place is zoned and has natural ventilation and a beautiful outlook. You'll come to appreciate your new home's fine qualities. And as PPs have said, there are ways to reconfigure a floorplan without drastic expense.

You bought it. So someone out there will
Be like you and love it too.

I felt this way about our first flat. We loved it but once we had kids it became impractical and I was obsessed that we’d never be able to move. It took a second estate agent who knew how to work for their money to sell it, but it was worth it.

Now we live in a house which is more practical but I still have that tiny worry in the back of my mind. But we aren’t going anywhere yet so it doesn’t matter.

Having personally lost a lot of money on a property and made a lot of money on a property, both completely unexpected, I'd say you really should try not to second guess what might happen, op.

Also, are you looking at previous sold prices? Are they recent? Our new home is valued way above the valuation on Zoopla, for example, but it has been years since a house in our location has sold and it doesn't take into account the recent investment that has gone into the area, therefore the estimated value is way lower.

If it’s the open plan you don’t like internal dividers are cheap to do, small bedrooms can be 3m x 2m quite often, not a problem for a child. The amount of cash that is wasted on houses is unbelievable. Many have expensive extensions that add nothing to the value and very limited lifespan.

You’ve bought the house now within 5 yrs values will have increased, so you will have made up any difference in value. My son has just moved, he sold his house very well and bought a new place, it’s very tatty, I reckon he paid £200k over the odds. It’s his project, finances are OK but it’s going to be a verrry long time getting it decent.

This sounds like what I have gone through each time I bought a house. A sudden crushing wave of regret and fear, even though I knew I wanted the house before I bought it. I think it is probably just a natural reaction to making an enormous purchase,/life decision.

I think people who leave nearby always gasp at how much houses go for, because they forget how there house has risen in value too.

I would focus on little touches to start to make it feel like your home.

Some people are thoughtless. If you like it then enjoy it. Ignore what others think. You might not like their style of house choice. Start living in your house as you like to and enjoy making it into a home that you love. Also, the mortgage company will have done some sort of valuation to check they are lending the correct amount of money, so you might have paid a pricey sun but the mortgage company agree that that sum is correct. I used to have bad dreams about my current house as i thought the monthly payments were crippling. Five years on I still love the house and we are getting by just fine. No bad dreams anymore either! Enjoy OP

Sorry to hear this OP. I went through similar - I hadn't given it a second thought until a few local busybodies made comments. Then, like you, my joy turned into panic and anxiety.

I would say that time is a great healer. House prices do tend to rise as well. So try to relax, make the house your own and ignore the busybodies.

@lurkingattheback

If you love the house and aren't planning to sell anytime soon then forget what you paid. Live and love the house. Slowly decorate and make it your own.

This! Live your life. Enjoy the house.

The thing is, if you're going to live in it for a while, then the cost doesn't really matter.
House prices change, we brought ours back in 2008 just before the massive crash, a couple of months after buying it we were straight into negative equity as the house was only worth a third of what we paid. We sold it five years later at £20k over what we paid. It's all swings and roundabouts really.

I agree you need to bring the house to life and start to love it, and enjoy it. The big kitchen fill with friends and happy memories. So one bedroom is tiny - making into a study.

You seem to be in a negative thought pattern. Just reinforcing what a mistake it has been, but for all you know you could make money in the next few years or whenever you choose to sell.

It sounds to me like you have anxiety and you are hyper focusing on the house, I would be addressing that first - it is not the house, because you don't know how it will pan out, but the feeling sick and dread sounds to me like anxiety and the house a convenient peg to hang it on.

In our village everyone says you have overpaid if you forked out more than 20,000 for a cottage! It is a constant source of entertainment to our locals.

It's your house, not anybody else's. Start living your best life in it (the layout sounds brilliant- there probably jealous) It sounds like a property that could potentially be used as a film set. And do you need the tiny bedroom and a bedroom, or do you have the perfect home office?

A house is only worth what someone will pay for it. You paid what you thought it was worth. We'd all like £60K in the bank, haha. It's all good. Take a deep breath and start decorating.

Ignore the neighbours comments, they’ve likely been in their houses for years and paid much much less, I’ve been in mine 20 years, the house over the road has just sold and there is no way I would pay that much to live where we do because my circumstances have changed, DC have grown up, I no longer need the big family house in the good catchment, I would never voice my opinion to new neighbours though, I think in most cases at the moment, the newbies on the street will have paid the most, an eye watering amount to those that have lived there a long time. Ignore and enjoy your new house, give it time and you may be commenting(inwardly) on how much houses are going for.

You are totally looking at this the wrong way. A house is worth what someone wants to pay for it at that point in time . Trust me over the years we have been through recessions and negative equity and made money on houses as well . It Does NOT matter what’s it’s worth now. It does not matter what other people think . It only matters when you come to sell.

We had a similar thing with our last house. Everyone said we overpaid , it would be a money pit , etc etc . We just sold for way over asking price.

Just relax , love your house , and don’t worry about the price because no one can predict what will happen over the next few years .

Honestly just forget about the future and enjoy the house.

Presumably you bought it to live in so why do you care what other people think? If you're going to be happy living there then who cares what anyone else thinks? For what it's worth, i think the little you've said here it sounds lovely. Id love big hallways and open plan living.

A lot of this seems to be based on worry about what other people think. You say those who've seen the floor plan hate it-but who are these people? Presumably not ones without your needs and tastes. You chose the house for good reason, and you like its vibe, of course others aren't always going to agree, but future buyers who are looking for something similar will. Same goes for people in the neighbourhood giving you grief over the cost. That's really rude for a start, but also if they bought in the neighbourhood it may have been at a completely different time and a different style, take no notice! Time to start enjoying what's yours.

A box room is what many people would consider a major plus in this age of home working (I just turned my youngest's room into an office and bunged the kids in together ). Open plan with wide, spacious halls sounds fabulous. North fancing garden as a PP said means south facing, light, frontage, and shade in the summer (loads of gorgeous things to grow in a N facing garden too.) It sounds delightfully quirky and you should start giving it some TLC, once you put your stamp on it, it will be easier to appreciate it.

Did you not have a mortgage op? If you had a mortgage the lender totally make sure you don’t over pay, they value. It reads like you did have a mortgage, which means you can’t have overpaid.

We paid over on our 2001 purchase. When we moved in all the neighbours told us they’d been shocked at what we’d paid.
Stayed there until last year and the property was worth a lot more when we sold. Aside from that we were happy there!
This time we moved 4 days before stamp duty holiday so felt we’d paid 15,000 too much! Took me a few months to get over that.
It’s all a lottery but if you’ll stay there a while would do whatever you need to to make it a home. On our previous estate lots of people had a very small single and got a smaller bed to fit. Many people now want offices so future buyers may not be bothered about a bed.
Give yourself some time.

Nothing different to say than what's already been said!!

The open plan kitchen & big hallways sound lovely.

Do you need the smallest bedroom to be a bedroom? If not, what does it matter what size bed you can fit in it!

I lived with an Aunty for a while, in her 3rd bedroom. The room literally just fit a single bed from one side of the doorway to the window wall and a wardrobe & chest of drawers on the other wall with the gap between being the width of the door! It was a tiny, but lovely room!

My friends 3rd bedroom isn't much bigger, but also has the top of the stairs cutting into it. They chopped the legs off a single bed and made new legs for it, halfway down the bed and put the head bit on the stairway box. Their 18yo has had that room his whole life! It's fine.

If you don't need it as a bedroom, then it's a great study/dressing room/hobby room/library/junk room...

Why are people giving you their negative opinions about it? It sounds rude.

Just enjoy the house you liked enough to buy it!! Do the things you want to, to make it yours. Only consider the resale price before setting your budget for 'big' jobs (like an extension, or possibly a kitchen refit IF you don't plan to be there quite a few years!

Start showing it some love!!