Strong buyers’ regret 6 months after moving

[LimerickJune]

My partner and I bought a house together in June 2022. We had saved for so many years to get our foot on the property ladder but we ended up buying in quite a rush this summer, we’re both first time buyers and had no help, and we’re really desperate to get out of our living situation so I think we overlooked some of the major issues with this property.

It’s a three bed mid-terrace Victorian house and we can hear the neighbours constantly, and it definitely has insulation issues. It had been recently repainted, new kitchen and bathroom installed when we bought it - but we have realised after months of living here that those were very cheaply done.

The only toilet is downstairs and the pipe runs outside which got blocked recently. The bathroom gets so humid as it’s at the back of the house, the door stopped shutting for months because it absorbed so much water.

The staircase is so creaky, some of the floorboards under the carpet upstairs feel uneven, and the general layout of the house is incredibly awkward. The neighbourhood is also a bit more rubbish than we realised. It’s near the station (less than 10 min walk) but that’s the only good thing. We saw a house we preferred at the time of looking but for various complicated tax reasons thought we couldn’t afford it. We’ve since realised we could have, and that one didn’t even sell for much over asking so we definitely could have gotten it. It was a lot nicer than we one we bought but we didn’t think we could do it and now it’s hard to not making comparisons about things that were better in that house like the parking, it was semi detached, nearer better supermarkets. But like I say, we had our reasons (albeit flawed) for buying the one we did and offering as much
as we did.

The small issues with the house though are compounded by the fact that we overpaid. Looking at how much neighbours’ houses are selling for now, we are certain we overpaid, and by potentially as much as £60k. The house was already below our max budget so we didn’t overextend ourselves at all, and can afford the mortgage but we just can see that it definitely is not worth how much we paid - and we regret jumping into that decision because we felt pressured. It definitely seems like we’ll make a loss when we eventually sell. The only blessing is we locked in a low mortgage rate in June before they rose so much more - that is really lucky.

I’ve done what I can to make the house feel homely - repainted a couple walls and built in cupboards, made every effort to put up nice pictures, etc, and get our things in order. But my partner says being in the house makes him miserable, and every little thing that is a bit annoying like the creaky floor or the stiff doorknob, or hearing a neighbour talk, drives him completely crazy. We argue about it almost every day because it was a joint decision but we didn’t communicate very well through it so there’s a lot of resentment on both sides as I think we agree it’s really not that nice a house. We’re happy to have somewhere to live but the thought that we blew all our hard earned savings on a place that is pretty rubbish, is a hard pill to swallow.

The house is making us miserable, there’s been one thing after another since we moved in and I can’t see us being happy here when the first 6 months have been so poor. I wondered if we should consider saving and doing some major works to it - there’s definitely scope to extend a bit at the back, and we could do a loft conversion like some neighbours have done, and put in an upstairs bathroom. But first - that’s all so expensive and we’d need to save for ages to do that and would be a push, and second - we already feel we’ve thrown too much money into this house, I don’t know how much more we want to throw at it if we are ultimately going to want to move away from it as soon as we can.

Has anyone else ever gotten over such strong buyers regret? Did you just pack up and move or what did you do to help? It feels like what was meant to be a beautiful step in our relationship that we’d been working toward for sooo many years, is going to tear us apart.

You are living in first home, minus the proximity to any useful station. And we had a mgage we couldn't afford.
We sold at a loss after 5 years, and rented for 3 years before starting on the housing market again.

I moved two years ago and felt like this for a long time. The house is in a decent area, but I knew it needed work and as per every house, more than what I thought.

I still haven't decorated as it still needs some building work before I do that. At times, I bloody hate it due to it not looking how I want it to, but I also see what I've done in those two years and it spurs me on.

I think if you sold now you would lose money, for me fixing things or making small changes make a huge difference.

One thing it sounds like you may not have done is go to an online mortgage calculator and look how much you could borrow now for the same mortgage monthly payment you got locked in last June.

Then look at Rightmove and see what you could have bought if you were buying now.

With rates probably 2-3% higher than you are paying I would guess the result is likely to be something smaller or in a worse area.

Save up for noise insulation.

fix the blinking doorknob today!

creaky floorboards = old house, does it really matter…

the bathroom door hasn’t been properly sealed so it’s absorbing moisture. You could get a new door or if it’s an original wooden door, sand it and use a sealant treatment.

fix these issues, forget looking back with anger, it’s a waste of energy, and see how you feel after six months of a quieter house with a normal bathroom door.

OMG I could have written this. We also had a brain fart and got into a bidding war in 2021 over a house that’s totally wrong for us. It was peak lockdown and at the time I couldn’t see life going back to normal, so we compromised on location. We picked a house in a suburb far out of town. Back in the real world, we like going into town or London every weekend and now we have to drive to the station if we want to do that. The neighbours are families/old people and lots of dogs and screaming kids in gardens, there is no-one our age or even near our age. I really miss our old flat and all the neighbours we had that were pretty similar to us (young childfree professionals).

We only had the one viewing and turns out the house is a money pit with loads of work that needs doing, but the ceiling price isn’t high enough to make it worth doing half of the work. We’ve done bits of improvement works in 2 years and are cutting our losses, selling up and buying a new build house/flat near the station so we can get our life back!

Much of that is easily fixable and it’s hugely unlikely you paid that much too much at the time. You can’t compare prices now to then. The market has dropped.

the thing about home ownership is it’s not like a rental. You need to fix things. Like the doorknob or the door. It’s normal house maintenance. Get a fan or put a dehumifier in the bathroom.

it sounds like you’re noth treating it like a rental. Looking at rhe things that are wrong and doing nothing but complain. If something is wrong you need to fix it. not live with it for months like your bathroom door doesn’t shut.

in old house floorboards creak. If it’s an issue there is ways to fix it with lubrication etc.

I think possibly much of the issue is you’re seeing normal things to be fixed, and much of it is easy and cheap and you’re both not doing anything. As said, living in your own home is very different to living in a rental or your parents house. If something is wrong you need to fix it when you’re a home owner.

I'm in a rental. Perhaps I can help you feel a bit better.

It's 10 years old; it's very fancy and big. My LL built it for herself and her OH to live in.

• There are vast cracks all around the outside of the house including in front of doors where the building has settled and that lets a load of cold in
• The 10 yo windows are ill fitted and let cold in
• The stairs creak
• The UPVC doors have dropped and we have to lift and slam them so hard to lock them that it makes the entire house shake
• She has 2 plugpoints on one wall in each room. Including my 20ft x 30ft bedroom. ONE WALL. We have two plug points in the kitchen, which is a similar size. Extension leads everywhere? You becha.
• Despite it being an EPC C, unbeknown to us, we seem to be living in some sort of wind tunnel. The winds are BRUTAL. We have to keep our bins in the garage most of the time because they'll get lifted down the drive.
• Someone fitted the wrong kind of cheap chimney that lets these brutal winds get down the chimney, so your average hardwood log lasts all of 20 minutes; we got through four TONNES of hardwood this winter.
• On top of that, our oil and electric bills are circa 300-350pm (it's a big house and we're home all day too, but it's mostly caused by the unexpected wind).
• Bits of the windows come off in our hands when we open them (poor design, they're basically doubled sided sticky taped on).
• The internet is still crap. We've had to spend £300 on extension kit despite having a 1GB BT line.
• Everything is smothered in limescale. All of the taps leak. The toilet doesn't flush stuff away properly.
• The sinks drain when they feel like it with no warning and no plumber can tell me why.
• It has a stone floor that a cleaner bleached the sealant off of, cleaning it is literally impossible for me. Same deal with two marble floors. Cannot get them to look remotely clean.
• Underfloor heating sounds like a charm, right? Not when it takes 5 hours to warm up, reaches a peak heat after 48 hours, becomes impossibly hot, and you have to turn the entire thing off for a day and start it all over again.
• Beautiful bathrooms. Grout between every single tile in both of them is cracked.
• Showerheads are so vast that two of us showering in the morning completely empties the water tank of any hot water at all. Not long showers either.

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture. We can't fix any of these things without throwing a ton of money at it, which we're not prepared to do in a rental.

So, you see, it's not always just old houses that are shit.

But, you DO have the power to change some of these things, slowly. First thing I would do is get a carpenter in to address the doors, lift the floorboards up and nail them down again.

I hope you start feeling better about it very soon.

Oh and the insulation is so laughable that I can hear the OH's pee hitting the water in the toilet, 30 feet from me, through a wall with both doors closed.

Hi there but why should it tear you apart if you’re both on the same page about the house? Just move life is too short.
I wish my husband was on the same page as me, we also bought our house a few months ago due to market pressure only difference is my husband likes it me and my son don’t but my husband doesn’t want to hear about moving again right now. I’m very depressed about it.

Hi @LimerickJune wondering how you are both feeling now have you settled in a bit better? I hope so 🤞

Hi there I’m hoping my husband will agree to move within the coming year. This house is nice I think for someOne else. I don’t feel it my forever home

It was ever thus. Home ownership is a lovely concept but the realities are different. All houses have problems and drawbacks as did the house you think you should have bought. They require remedial work, repairs and ongoing maintenance. They are not what you imagined.

Would've, should've, could've. Personally I think a property close to a station will hold more value than one near supermarkets. That doesn't really sound very appealing. But what do I know?

Of course prices go up and down - it's a market and many people are probably struggling to pay their mortgages right now. They may be driven to sell or having to re-consider their next move. Houses are long term investments, they are homes if you can make them so, not commodities. Short term they rarely make sense. Concentrate on making your home better. They are too expensive to be seen like a new pair of shoes you're not sure about. Keep stepping in the right direction and building your future.

I remember friends handing the keys back to their properties in the early 1990s when interest rates rose to 12 percent. Even that corrected - after a brief rise to 15 percent!