To Regret Not Buying That House!

[Choccy21]

Hi all,

Five years ago we moved area to be nearer to my family. About an hour away from where we previously lived. At the time it was me and DH and our daughter, who was 18 moths at the time.
We saw a few properties and put on offer on a house we liked. We had been under offer by that point for some time. Unfortunately the sellers of the house we wanted to buy from were relocating to another part of the country and couldn’t find anywhere.

We subsequently pulled out and put another offer on another property and moved in within 8 weeks.
The type of house was actually the same, built by the same developers. And for the same price.
Only the house we originally wanted to buy was near our daughters school which she now goes to. We didn’t think about this at the time- we had no idea that she would go to that school and to be honest I wasn’t really thinking too much about schools back then- more a property to move to.

Anyway, the property I wish we got, is in a lovely quiet cul de sac with a small park, and literally 700 m away from daughters school. No school traffic parks where this house is anyway, as it’s quite tucked away and it’s in rather a large modern estate.

The house we have, I now believe we paid a bit too much for. We paid £270 k and it wasn’t until after we moved in that I found out the the previous owners had only lived there two years and only paid £215k.
This isn’t London either, but the SE. So they made good money from us!
Also then house needed lots of work doing to it, we’ve done a fair bit but still lots to do. The previous owners weren’t particularly house proud it seems either!

So in hindsight, I could have brought a house in a nicer road, by my daughters primary school ( and now our sons nursery) and the properties in that road now sell very quickly and have gone up in price.

Has anyone else thought that they overpaid for their house and regret not buying another one?

It's probably fair to say comparisons can't be made with house prices from two years ago due to how much they've risen since the onset of covid. We had a local EA value our place in June 2020 and again in November 2021, in that space of time it had increased £25k in value. This is a 2 bed terrace and local 3 bed semis, which we hope to move to, are selling for about 60k more than in 2020 and homes are going for about 50 to 70k over asking. This isn't even the SE either, it's in Scotland.

How does it compare to other similar houses in your area which have sold recently?

Abitclueless- I’m aware property prices have gone up a lot since the pandemic, although I’m not sure how much they have in comparison to that house.
I don’t know what houses in my street go for, I’m not aware of any houses that have sold in my street in the last two years.

I think it’s rose tinted glasses. There’s a reason that one didn’t work out and you’ll never know what the reason was. Dc are only at school for a short time - 7 years at primary then off to secondary for 5 years and 6th form for 2. Our house is a drive to primary (We’re catchment but there’s an air field we can’t walk across). However, Dd walks 10 minutes to secondary (Dd 2&3 will join her in September and my days of school runs will be over)!

Yes me. Years ago I was gazumped on a house I loved. Put an offer on same house a few streets away. Sale fell through on the house I loved but I refused to put another offer in. Always regretted it and never settled and would walk past the house and kick myself.

Did you have the option to wait for the previous owners to find somewhere?

Get estate agents in and have your house valued. You may be pleasantly surprised.

I have wasted too much time looking at Rightmove sold prices and pondering over what could have been if I had bought 'that' house or 'that' house instead of the one I did buy.
It doesn't lead anywhere helpful really.
Just make the most of where you are now.

Yes. We viewed two houses and decided to put an offer in on one of them. Every day I wish we had bought the other one. Even more annoyingly, we only didn’t put an offer in on that house because we bought the wrong house in our previous move and as a result couldn’t really afford the better house. We are now stuck in a nightmare of renovations, building works, delays, price rises and stress, and every day I walk past the other, beautiful house thinking ‘we could be in there’.

So that’s two houses I bitterly regret not buying.

I don’t have any wise advice on how to move on from it I’m afraid, but you’re not alone xx

I have a bit of regret tbh. A bigger house came up in our area at the end of last year, it was exactly the type of house we wanted and it was within budget as needed work done. However my MIL had not long passed away and DH was too caught up with other things as he is executor to her estate so was reluctant at the time to move. I consoled myself by thinking that it just wasn't the right time, that it probably went for way over asking price at closing date, more than we could afford etc.

The house popped up this month on the RM sold prices section and it sold for about 5k less than what we would have offered had we proceeded (I know its not a guarantee we would have got it!). I'm not bitter or overly upset but definitely have an element of "what if ..".

Old thread but I'll comment anyway.

Boy do I know how you feel. Slightly different circumstances with me but still have that deep regret that creeps into my day sometimes. Pre Covid my OH saw a house he really wanted to go and look at which we could more than afford. For various reasons, I didn't feel up to moving. We were settled where we were, I was feeling stressed at work so the thought of going through all that made me really reluctant. In the end we didn't bother.

Fast forward 3/4 years, house prices have shot up, said house is now worth £400K+, my OH has said on numerous occasions that we missed out on that as we'd have cleared the mortgage by now (yeah but we'd be skint!). Current house is lovely but the area has changed so much in a short space of time; neighbours do my pissing head in, dogs barking all the time, holiday makers besiege the area in the Summer time, we need more space etc etc. I actually hate living where we live now so really regret not buying that house when we could have. I think it's me that's changed though, not the area, though it has gotten noisier recently. Post Covid, I'm really intolerant - I know that.

I've just learned to live with it but the fact I now hate living where I do, it does jar a bit some days. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and my reasons for not wanting to move where valid at the time but yeah - it sucks!!!!