Buying a house has been the biggest mistake of my life

[StreakyWoes]

Apologies for the long and priviledged moan.

I bought a home a year ago with my DP, a home we didn't like and discounted straight away when we viewed it. However we felt trapped with needing to move soon, were naive first time buyers and ended up buying this house (a 30s three bed terraced). This is entirely our fault but I need to figure out what do from here as we're both very unhappy.

It hasn't really been updated since the 60s and the room layout is very bizarre. There is a toilet downstairs and a shower room upstairs with only enough room for a shower and a sink. The kitchen has a sink, oven and room for only two counters. Nothing we can do about this, but to fully paint the picture there is a student HMO next door and the house and garden are very poorly maintained and it is noisy and messy.

We got a survey but didn't fully understand the reality of getting work done - eg we got a rewire but I didn't realise how much this would damage walls and floors. There were things the surveyors couldn't see such as bad black mould behind wallpaper and woodworm underneath laminate flooring. There are large internal cracks hidden behind wallpaper/cabinets. So there is a massive amount of work to be done.

We have already spent over 10k on the house doing the rewire, new boiler and 'fixing' the roof. The roofer unfortunately scammed us by doing a bodge job instead of what we asked for and was very aggressive about still getting full payment which has left me shaken up about getting tradespeople in. He lives down the road and was recommended by multiple neighbours, so I don't know what a reliable avenue is to get tradespeople in the future that won't leave us vulnerable to this happening again.

I am in the very, very fortunate position of recently getting a decent inheritance (plus my own savings). I hope to use this to do some travelling, which I've never experienced, but the work that needs to be done on the house feels like a burden I can't just leave my DP with and swan off travelling.

The problem is I have no clue where to start with it and am utterly overwhelmed and in over my head. I work three jobs (about to end one) and every spare moment is doing DIY on the house. My friendships have been completely neglected and my output at work is rubbish. I work from home so am in the house environment daily so I can't get away from it. There is so much to do it feels like a physical weight on me and both me and my partner feel trapped and have huge regrets.

Urgent things are wood floors need to be restored/new carpets, walls and mouldy ceiling replastered and decorated and a solution for bad damp/mould worked out (it is in the plaster, underneath paint), all windows and back door replaced. Skeelings are very badly cracked and we've been advised we need someone to reinforce roof beams and possibly rebuild these. I've realised the kitchen and bathroom will both need to be extended as no one else would buy a 3 bed house with these being so tiny. Then there's other stuff like loft insulation, garden, shed, garden walls, whole external re-rendering, fireplace sorted out where back boiler was removed, popcorn and polystyrene tile ceilings, channel dug behind house to stop water ingress, repointing. All the little things are very old and badly maintained and something breaks/deteriorates every day - this morning the very old plastic curtain hooks snapped off and are jammed in the rail. Everything's scuffed and there are grubby marks I can't get rid of.

We are in a five year fixed mortgage, bought at the top of the market and overpaid anyway. A similar house on our street has been on the market for months at £15k less.

Finally, I have tried to get multiple builders around to quote for work and they are all booked up. I don't know if I should get a large building company or individuals. I don't know how to progress about some of the issues - like what is causing the cracking, mould etc. I don't know whether to consider moving, but even if we did work would need to be done to get it sellable. I've accepted we will lose money overall, but don't know how much work to do or how long we should stay. We can't decorate or have much furniture because of all these things needing to be sorted out.

I understand because I have the money to theoretically get stuff done, typed out this doesn't seem like a big problem. However, every room in this house feels disgusting and unliveable and I'm really struggling to find anyone to even quote for work or get any advice about what needs to get done first. I havent been able to relax or enjoy life for a year. I'm very aware I could easily waste the entire inheritance on things like 'damp treatments' that might not even work or something that doesn't add value. I just don't want to live like this anymore.

It can be extremely overwhelming...even for those of us who are seasoned renovators! So I completely get what you're going through.

We have done several back-to-back renovations - mostly DIY as we've picked up the skills over the years - some of which were real gut jobs (friends suggested they'd be unable to live on site during the work, but we couldn't afford to do that) and a couple which were fairly large (2500 and 3500 sq ft). One (the largest) took ten years, doing it as and when we had the money, but it was worth it because we felt we'd saved a beautiful house that had previously been divided up into crappy tenanted flats.

In fact I think we've been on a two person mission to save decrepit houses!

We did have one that we gave up on because the location was making us both depressed. Curiously, it probably needed the least work, but we were in a bad place mentally and - having stripped acres of woodchip wallpaper and reskimmed where necessary - we put it back up for sale thinking we'd not lose money as what we'd done was an improvement on what we'd purchased. Unfortunately the potential buyers obviously didn't agree as we made a loss of around 10%, but at the time (with hindsight I deeply regret the decision) we felt it was the right thing to do.

Our current house - purchased in 2018 - was bought cheaply because it was a repossession. I actually hated it on first sight (although it's some people's idea of heaven, being a 400 year old quirky cottage with 0.5 acre of garden) and wanted to put it back on the market immediately. However, DH persuaded me to persevere and five years on (and £100k+ spent on the 'project' so far), it's finally starting to look good and has increased in value by £250k+.

I do think you have to be cut out for this kind of stuff though! We spend every waking hour whilst not working on our day jobs DIYing, gardening or planning the next phase. We've not had a holiday since 2015. It's very rewarding (but not necessarily in a financial way - and less so if having to rely on trades for everything, particularly now when prices have rocketed) and I can't imagine us ever buying a soulless new build.

If it's not for you, that's just the way it is and probably better to not throw good money after bad, but to sell up (taking a hit if necessary) in order to move on to somewhere you'll both be happy! Good luck whatever you decide.

Well you did well.

id charge a lot more than that for most of them.

Didn’t the survey pickup damp issues and the roof problems ? I would be checking as you may have some legal recourse if missed

If you don't love the house, and/or the neighbourhood, do it up to the bare minimum and sell it. This house sounds like a money sink and from what you've said, even if you spend a fortune on it, you still won't like it. Plus, you probably won't get your money back after extensive repairs.
Cut your losses.
Do sort out the bathroom - shitty bathrooms are a real heart-sink. You're going to have to lose your smallest bedroom upstairs for a proper bathroom, if you don't have a large space to rejig.
Can I strongly advise you to get a full survey on the next home you buy? It's worth every single penny. Also - you can sue them if they fail to spot major issues like serious damp, or structural issues.
Sorry this all sounds very negative. But I think you'll just have to bite the bullet and regard it as lessons learned.
But just think how happy you'll be in a decent house in a nice street in the future.

I would probably cut my losses, sell it as it is and find your ideal happy home. I wasn't happy in our first home, we stayed 2 years and moved and have been here since. Just not worth the stress and burden and sounds like you can afford to, just go for it? X

Haven't read all the replies.. But..

This, move on and find something to put your inheritance and saving into that you really like while, I assume you're still young, especially as you don't sound to keen on the area.

Finding reputable tradesmen can also be a nightmare although before I get jumped on I dare say there are some decent one's out there, there are also the cowboy bodge it and scarper with your cash types which is the last thing you need

If you feel you do want to stay have you thought about having a rejig of the house, removing/rebuilding walls and such like.

I think you're being overwhelmed. If it was me, and I stress that if it was me, I would strip everything in the house, the flooring, the wallpaper, the lot and my idea would be that I was looking at a blank canvas and start doing it room by room and pre-figuring out problems and how to solve them, ie, the WC and the shower room, the kitchen and so on.

I can't suggest anything about the travelling except that you'll be coming back to what you left behind...

Honestly I would put it back on the market, it sounds like a nightmare.

Paint the interiors, clean it, get some photos done and get rid.

You might lose 15K but it's going to cost you a lot more than that in time and energy.

Then buy a smaller property that needs no work, go travelling and pay down your mortgage a bit and next time (sorry) buy more carefully.

I would definitely sell it even at a loss. The freedom will be worth it. We all make mistakes- don't beat yourself up.

I think Jennyforeigner has given you excellent advice. I don’t have her level of knowledge but we bought a small, 2 bedroom house with a great exterior but in a hideous state inside (the bath had sunk through the floor; the wooden floors were rotten; the builder said the kitchen - which was small but had an inbuilt deep fat frier - was “top spec in 1971”), so I hope I can be of a little help.

the first thing is - of course this is stressful and also potentially bad for your mental health. You obviously feel bad about complaining and yes it is quite a privileged thing to own a property now, but please be kind to yourself about feeling the way you do. We had a very long period before builders could start work and at various points it would become overwhelming and I’d feel almost despair over it all. You’re entitled to feel the way you do about it all.

but the second thing is - you have to confront it to feel better about it. The best thing we did was get a very local architect to manage the build - yes, it cost us some money theoretically but I wonder if it actually saved us cash. It kept the project in budget, we had someone who knew what they were doing to oversee things (ie not us) and because his office was so close, he popped by regularly. He also helped manage our trickier neighbours.

if you can afford this, why not move out for the 3 or so months the work would take? We had to live elsewhere for the start of it because the house was in such a bad way, and though it was a tiny flat, that was helpful.

also get one company to do everything. We had a separate kitchen company and had to wait months and months after we had moved in (we ran out of money and had to stop renting) for them to do anything, relying only a microwave, barbecue and toaster, which was pretty grim (and eg we had no kitchen sink).

wishing you so much luck with it all. Do update us with what you decide to do

On the plus side at least you're not the people next door, who spent 850k on a 2 bed new build, and then had to stump up 30k to excavate the garden because the water board hadn't approved the way the pipes had been laid...

Well this is interesting, a mix of some really good advice and some absolute codswallop.
OP without being outing on here if you want to dm me with a complete list of works, I will do a schedule of works for you, with the priorities, time frames, budget costs, but I do need a set of drawings and or photographs. At this stage do not contact an architect, despite what some may think, they do not give you “free advice” and if your uncertain about even wanting to continue to live in this property it will be another expense.
An architect is great if you’re having additional structural works doing, if this is not the case then an architectural designer is more appropriate.
Its completely overwhelming for many to have a magnitude of works done, a schedule of works helps you focus on the important key works that are priority, and sadly the nicer parts which are the finishes are last on the list.
Clients get frustrated as they cannot see visible progress on site and that is due to all the dirty works have to be done first. I think it’s always good to bear that in mind, damp, chemical treatments, tanking, insulation, substrate reinforcements, partition works, the list goes on but these are the important ones. Certainly not the paint or blinds!
For all those suggesting “new builds” as an option, there are good new builds out there certainly but there are some absolutely atrocious ones, and the some of latent defects in these builds will never go away unless the property was ripped down and rebuilt. Before anyone pipes in with the NHBC guarantee, good luck if you ever have the misfortune to get the developer rectify anything. Your be waiting many months before they even admit to anything.

In the US you would be looking for a general contractor. Someone who would over see all the work and hire subcontractors to do the bits and pieces. They would give you an estimate. How do you find this person if you're unfamiliar with the area? You could contact your bank, a local trade organization, or ask co-workers.

One quick point OP - if you have room for a shower and a basin upstairs you have room for a loo. You can get space saving toilets now with a basin on top of the cistern, from cheap and cheerful to designer ones for a couple of thousand. Have a look, they're very useful.

Honestly I would sell it, take the hit of any lost money as an expensive lesson learned and buy something in better condition. This is not the house for you. Get on right move and find the one that is.

Sell it. You'll take a hit of course but currently it's just throwing good money after bad. There's a lesson to be learned here, such a big decision shouldn't have been made in haste!

Try and compartmentalise and make a list.

Get the bits that can't be done room-by-room out the way (floors, plastering walls & ceilings and new windows) and then just target one room at a time.

Get professionals in to do the above.
Painting and decorating you can do yourself if you wish.

By the time you've done the above it will already feel more homely anyway.

Get onto Pinterest and pin ideas of how you'd like each room to look and then you can mostly copy.

Leave the bathroom and kitchen till the end if that's too much of an initial expense and if you're sure you will be extending don't change the windows/floors/walls in those rooms.

OP I know exactly how you feel. I'm trapped in a house I inherited from my mum. It has a flying freehold and without drawing an entire floor plan of the house and garden it's difficult to describe. The situ of the house means that it's is not worth a huge amount, and I can't afford a mortgage to move so I'm trapped. It has mold, needs a new bathroom, damp is horrendous, windows need sealing....the list is endless. It was built in the 1850s so there's that too.

I'm like you, I never know where to start, it's a very very slow progress xx

How much will it cost to buy out of your fixed rate?
could you convert it to a buy to let - do some minor repairs - luck of paint everywhere and then rent it out to students.

the rental return might be enough to build a pot of money for the structural repairs.
you then rent somewhere else in the meantime for yourself- if you want to go travelling then a 1 bed house might be enough until you get back from travels.
then when you finish travelling- sell the house.
and buy one you actually want

Sell it immediately at auction and move on with your life.x

Yes I found this. Builder don’t want to do odd jobs they want bigger jobs. If you can financially do it it may actually work out cheaper

I would sell and move to a place with little or no work required, OP I can tell from your post that the stress involved will be really awful for your MH. Refurbishing is unbelievably stressful and really it will be such a weight lifted when you get rid. Good luck

Have not read all the replies so don’t know if this has been mentioned. Get an architect if you have money. They will re design the space, find the contractors and run the project for you. So you pay for that service but you have no stress and they will get the best out of the space and any dodgy contractors are the architects problem.

10k on the house doing the rewire, new boiler and 'fixing' the roof sounds very very cheap. I am not surprised you still have problems with the roof at least at that price.
I'd get a couple of local estate agents in to look at the place and give you a quote and advice on the local sales then you know where you stand regarding how much to do it up. As it's making you depressed to live there I would do the minimum needed to get it to a saleable state and then put it on the market.

If you do decide to keep it, definitely 100% bring in an architect as it needs structural work. They will keep an eye on tradespeople for you, they will improve its light and warmth and they have an overview of the latest building products and will choose them for you, in line with your budget.

Don't be fooled by 'architectural' designers - unlike an architect, anyone can claim that job title. Get an expert.