Buyers remorse and costs

[Newhousecrying]

Hi everyone, I’m a long time lurker, and taken a while to get the courage to post this so please be kind

DH and I completed on our first home 3 months ago. We offered in February after looking for 6months and being outbid everytime. We paid over asking for this one (and over the valuation). Because in the 6 months we were looking things were just getting more and more expensive. And everyone we knew who was buying a house was also paying over the asking. Now it feels like things have gone the other way and I feel like a complete idiot.

since we’ve completed we’ve just had so many problems. The repairs required are more than we knew (had L3 survey- loads of things were not picked up). cost of works is much higher than expected.

Looking at the costs, we’re going to exceed the ‘ceiling price’ of the street by at least 10k. And that’s without getting a new kitchen. Which looked ok when we saw it but actually when looking more carefully, it’s really nasty :(

DH is working so hard to keep things moving. I’ve cried almost every day for months. Friends have suggested I see my GP for relaxants because I’m so anxious about it. I just wish we’d been sensible and slowed down and not bought it.

It looks terrible now because we’ve started the work (removed all the wallpaper and floor etc). We’d lose 70k if we tried to sell now. We’re scrimping like mad to save money day to day.

I don’t know what we can do. I’m so afraid of us spending too much to make it nice to live in and then ‘losing’ all that money when we need to sell.

posting now because I just watched ‘worst house in the street’ and they’re talking about costs and ceiling prices and I just burst into tears.

Maybe this is an extreme example, but we felt unhappy in 1995 when we realised we had paid maybe £5K over value for a house that cost us £40K. First time buyers, seduced by Laura Ashley wallpaper, lovely couple, charming toddler, etc, etc, etc, Needed about £2K on work in next 3 years. Still there, now worth £400K.

So sorry to hear you’re going through this. It’s really sh*t isn’t it?

I’m feeling better about the whole thing. Not because the house has gotten better but just because I had to to get on with my life. My state of mind was getting so bad and it just wasn’t worth it and I had to ‘get over it’ and accept it. much easier said than done

since then a few things have happened that have helped, eg our friends had a 20% rent rise last month, another friend is trying to rent is struggling to find somewhere And houses near us are renting for £1000 more a month than our mortgage and interest combined.

we had to lots of fixes to stop it leaking and make it livable. I’d say it’s currently ‘stable’ (fingers crossed) and we’ve made a year on year plan for the repairs. We’ve gotten used to the noisy neighbours.

i still hate the house but it’s just a place we live not our whole lives. Again easier said than done.

i really hope yours is ok. The system is horrible. We paid for a L3 survey and it was worthless.

This.

70% of what? And how much would it cost to put in? Maintenance is how much a year? If you need a battery system to make full use of it, how much will that cost for enough batteries? Does the roof even face a suitable way? Would you need expensive panles to deal with shadowing?
We have costed it repeatedly for our house, which being old takes a good bit of energy to heat, but has a big roof. Still makes no financial sense, even in the current energy market it would take at least a decade to pay back- and prices are likely to fall in the mid-term future. It may work for the OP, but they will need to cost it properly. You can't guarntee 'saving 70%' of anything.

That’s how we feel @Newhousecrying. We very stupidly believed that the survey would pick up on major faults (because that’s why you get a survey, right?) but if the surveyor can miss a serious gas leak (engineer could not believe that people had been coming in and out of the house and not noticing) and a dangerous boiler, we’re wondering what else has he missed? It’s our own fault though, we should have insisted that it was checked by a gas engineer before we exchanged, despite being reassured by the survey. We naively thought that people wouldn’t be allowed to lie about checks being up to date. Engineer is adamant that the boiler hasn’t been serviced for many years. People wouldn’t lie, knowing a young family are moving in, right? 😑 Now we are the ones having to pay up (thousands) to make it safe, and not explosive, before we move in (although I will look into insurance as we did have to take it out when we exchanged). I’m so cross at myself for almost moving our kids into a dangerous house without doing every single check first. Massive and hard lesson learned.

Now the furniture is out of the house, we can now see that there is a huge area of damp that was previously hidden behind a wardrobe. Again, not picked up on the survey. I can see us wiping out a huge chunk of our renovation and redecoration fund just to make it liveable for us before we even begin with our plans to make it a nice home someday.

But I’m glad you are feeling a bit better about things, OP. You’re right, we just have to plough ahead and make the best of it, as difficult as that can be. I’m trying to focus on the long game and what we will hopefully end up with (although God knows when we will be able to afford it).