Just moved in. Massive regret. How soon can we sell up?

[Pearmain]

Ignoring the fact we’ve spent all our savings on stamp duty and fees and it’s going take a long time to save plus selling in a falling market and equity being at risk - how soon are you actually allowed to sell after buying?

If it makes you feel any better it is 5am now and I cannot sleep as we just exchanged on a house and moving next Wednesday. I feel sick with nerves, not eating properly and really really worrying about the house we have bought. It's strange because I have been desperate to move from my current house since I moved in (a beautiful house but in the wrong location - I have always missed my tiny flat in the right location!) We now have a good location but the garden and bedrooms are a lot smaller. The problem with house-buying is it's the biggest decision of your life but you have to make the decision at lightning speed. I think it is so common to feel like this though. Hope you start to feel better and know that you are not alone.

First time DH showed me this house on Rightmove, I thought the photos looked OK at best, felt "meh" about it. Then DH brought me to look at the street and the house from the outside. I thought "meh." Then we actually had a viewing - from the moment I stepped in, I loathed this house and didn't even bother to really look around; a few minutes was enough for me to spot the layout problems, the damp, the cracks, and the feeling that this was not the house for me.

Reader, we bought it. DH had for some reason loved the house since he first saw it on RM, kept pleading that we would be able to make improvements and it would be great for us.

When we moved in, my loathing simply increased. And the problems that I'd guessed at were only the beginning, there were actually many more waiting to spring up and surprise DH us.

It has been over 7 years. We have done thousands of £££ of work, some of it in great urgency because of the aforementioned surprise problems.

What I can say is that this house has become familiar to me, and in that sense is "a home." But underlying that, I still loathe it as much as the day I first viewed it.

I do realise that I'm a definite outlier, though. Most people just have a brief moving-in wobble and then fall in love with their house.

When we moved I kept crying too and just wanted to ‘go home’ to the old place. Stayed with family for the first few nights and was constantly on Rightmove. Kept thinking WHY did we pick this place?! I didn’t like the layout and everything was smaller than I remembered. The neighbours seemed to keep themselves to themselves and everything just felt wrong.

9 months on, I don’t yet love the house and there is still so much to do, but I am feeling much better. We’ve re-decorated a few rooms, put a new kitchen in and met more neighbours. It also helped to re-frame thinking from ‘we’ll probably be in this house forever now’ to ‘this will be our house for the next few years then we can always move again’.

Hope you feel better soon OP. I can’t promise you’ll love the house eventually (though you might!), but you’ll almost certainly feel much better than you do now.

I had exactly the same OP! You will fall in love with loving there I am sure!

We moved for more space and investment, found property in roads we'd often looked around. Moving day was awful and then saw neighbours in tears as we were leaving.

We've now been in present house nine years, still sort of miss our old property (still see neighbours though). It does tick all the boxes of why we moved, it's in a quiet road, good neighbours, but close to lots of facilities. We often wonder about moving, but to be honest I don't think we'd find anything better we could afford in our location, and to be honest I think we could be here years.

We're selling up after less than a year. Initially we were going to try to wait 2-3 years but I decided life is too short to live in an area I hate this much.

You can start selling your house whenever you want but you may not be able to complete until Land Registry has updated with you on the Title, confirming you legally own the property. At the moment, Land Registry is taking 6months or more to update, but solicitors may be able to do something to help.

Also worth noting, if you have a mortgage, there will be high early repayment charges too for clearing your mortgage in full early or you can look at porting it (taking it with you).

Hopefully, once you've been in the house a little while, and you've put your own stamp on it, you'll fall in love with it :)

Honestly, we moved in and out in less than a year. Made up some bullshit excuses to the new buyers above a new job in London.

We hated it - the noise was unbearable and it just doesn’t get any better.

If it’s bad, I’d try to cut ties asap. Not worth the mental toll imo.

We moved in April and I have yet to meet our direct neighbours. We now know why, they pinched some of our garden!
I was told by the agent the development was home to doctors etc. Complete rubbish. I have never met a single one with this profession. I hate the smell of weed and the parties that go on every weekend but I do love my modern house. I had never bought one before. No damp, crumbling plaster or a dodgy boiler /electrics.
We once put a large house up for sale within eight months and it would have been better to wait. The gossip in the village as to why we didn't like it reached the ears of potential buyers. Be mindful of that.

Oh I do feel for you. We downsized four years ago as there’s only the two of us now. We underestimated how much work we’d need to do, plus the boiler packed in, the hallway had a funny smell that no one else could smell, and I spent a fortune on air fresheners diffusers etc. I would have moved back in an instant.
We immediately decorated and put new flooring everywhere, the smell finally went after about two years. I’ve come to realise the smell was just not my home smell just someone else’s. I don’t love it, but I do like it.
Hope you can feel more settled very soon.

Ok, it is normal to feel insane levels of anxiety about a house. It takes a long time for a place to feel like home.

That said, there are real mistakes. I moved to a place that really was a huge error. Wrong place, awful town, horrible house, nightmare neighbour... Everything about it was just fecking awful. And you know what? It's not the worst thing in life. You get by, you get through and you eventually move away having learned a lot from the experience. Compared to dealing with chronic illness or bereavement, it's a walk in the park. We stress too much over property really. I bought before the financial crash of 2008 and sold after and still didn't lose any money- property is still a very safe bet financially in the medium term.

Our last house was in a village down a country lane. It looks so quiet and rural. To our horror, the country lane turned out to be a transit route to the pubs, and the village a real ale tourist attraction. We had drunks singing, puking, pissing, scrapping, throwing glasses and kicking off...every night, and the weekends were like a city center. We used to get in our campervan at 10pm and drive down the canal to a quiet park up. Even in winter we'd head down the canal at bedtime. Sometimes you just can't tell until you've lived there.

I nearly started a post about this same thing. Experienced the same feelings when we first moved in. 8 years and £££ later I still don’t love my home. It irritates me on a daily basis.
On a good day I can find reasons to ‘like’ it and on a bad day, it makes me feel sad to live here, even though every job has been done andit is fully decorated.
Im trying to find peace with it… family doesn’t want to move and would cost us a fortune we don’t have to do so.
logically we are very lucky blah, blah, blah…. But you can’t force a feeling and it gets me down that I will never love it.
Give It a year. If those feelings haven’t changed, I’d move in a heartbeat.

We bought ours in the housing madness of 2021 and it took months and months to go through. Genuinely saw it for 10 minutes and had to put in a 10k over asking to even stand a chance. On the day we moved in I had truly realised how small it was, the galley kitchen for example you can barely have 2 people pass each other! The fridge didn’t fit, I HATED IT.

however fast forward 18 months we’ve adapted to the space and it does feel like home.I just streamlined the clutter and made sure everything had a place. It’s got lots of pros out compared to our previous place and the be day when we can afford it we will do an extension :)

having our own driveway will never not be amazing though!!

I hope you feel better about it soon. It does take such a long time to settle sometimes.

What you're experiencing is a natural human reaction to change, as defined by Kubler - Ross. You will be able to see where you are now I'm sure, and also see that your emotions will follow a natural pattern of uplift. Good luck!

Look at the cost of moving again versus spending that on renovating the new house. With the noise, can you do anything to open up the side away from traffic? Can you share any pictures of the layout - may get some good ideas here. The location may feel better if you meet nice people in the area.

What I find intriguing op is that you don’t once mention how your DH feels

I have def had buyers remorse in all 4 houses I’ve bought:

First flat I bought in 2003 in London. Was lovely when I looked but once they’d taken furniture etc out was dismal. Was on a depressing noise in a horrible area with terrible neighbours. I never really liked it and other circumstances took me abroad after 9 months so never had to live in it after that. Kept it and rented it out though it used to give me nightmares but sold it recently for a decent profit.

Second place was a maisonette with a garden totally overlooked all the way around and an odd person upstairs and alcoholic neighbours who used to row all the time. I remember crying on the phone to my parents after I’d bought it saying I wish I hadn’t. However I did a lot of decorating and made it mine and grew to love it. Was there about 7.5 years then moved with now DH as we wanted kids and it wasn’t suitable (no parking) but was so sad to leave it

Next place we had real reservations about buying but was a heartstrings house. Ended up buying it. It was beautiful but its limitations became very apparent almost instantly. Wish we’d stayed in the maisonette until closer to having kids and cut out that move. We also made a very stupid mistake in selling between lockdowns 1 and 2 with nothing to go to and renting, thereby not getting a huge increase in price for that place but being beasted by increases after that and having to move twice in rented in between.

Final place and current house cost us a kings ransom and is about to cost around another 400k to extend and renovate. I guess not buyers remorse as such with this as I do love the bones of this house (and the huge amount of space/land) but it’s still not in our preferred location (though the location has actually turned out to be very convenient) and it’s scary financially but we are hoping that over a 25-30 year period it will either hold or increase its value. Sometimes I do wish we were back in the third house even though I know we’d be getting pissed off at its limitations as it was “done” and we could now be mortgage free

so I guess what I’m saying is that it’s very very common to have buyers remorse at first!

@Morphle the amount you must have spent in stamp duty and fees!

We bought in 2008 just before the crash. Paid top whack on 100% mortgage. Absolutely hated it. So many problems from neighbors to layout to structural issues. We were young first time buyers and just didn’t have a clue! We couldn’t move as a couple of months later the crash happened and we were immediately in negative equity. We renovated as best we could and threw as much money as we could over the years on overpaying the mortgage so we had some equity. We only moved out a couple of years ago. Got what we paid but had spent 30k on it over the years. Got used to the house, stopped hating it but never loved it. I didn’t feel sad when we moved out and to be honest skipped out the door. I adore our new home. It was lack of money that kept us in our mistake house so long and to be honest if you still feel the same in a few months and it’s not going to be a huge hit financially I would move. Good luck

Hard relate to everyone who has given it plenty of time and is still not happy somewhere. Your feelings are valid and there’s something deeply wrong if it still feels wrong. However I would caution you to think very carefully about what is wrong, whether it’s missing the old place and the old life you had there or your overall current circumstances, or it’s new place and emotional life there that you are upset about. Grief for an old life is a good way to think of it and is a normal reaction but the feeling will usually change over time and not be so immediately painful after a couple of years. And if all the adults involved regret the move then obviously there’s a more clear cut decision for you.

But it is the move? So before you sell up, try to make every effort you can into working out why it is that you haven’t settled.

I am wondering if in previous moves what I was so unhappy about has been less the actual place (a lot of work to take on but we got way more space) and new location (less busy and stressful, but hugely isolating).

I think at a deeper level my upset was what this move said about DH and my relationship at the time. Also my own fear and hurt over what the move was doing negatively to our relationship. He has no regrets at all, because he’s not looking at that move in relationship terms and will do anything to avoid looking at our relationship.

I hated it so much it affected my mental and physical health, and I allowed that emotional side to overshadow the specific positives of the move. It felt like grief though because it was our second move. When DH and I first moved together it was so happy and optimistic and equal. Now life is just a lot more complicated. But we did move because it never felt right before, and things are a bit easier now.

I was quite ill with a kidney infection when I moved into this house, and unable to do any more than make my bed and get into it.

After about 3 days, I finally felt well enough to get up and have a shower. Afterwards, I went downstairs to make a cup of tea and found the kitchen awash with water, that had leaked while I was showering and pissed down the wall.

I sat with my head on the kitchen table, sobbing, for what seemed like ages, desperately wishing I could turn the clock back and move back into my old house.

To add to the joy, it had snowed and I couldn't go further than the end of the road for a few days, because the house is at the top of a steep hill that the council don't bother to grit, even though it's a bus route.

On the plus side, I discovered what lovely neighbours I have. A colleague who lived along the road came and checked on me regularly and her teenage daughters walked my dog, another neighbour came and put sealant along the side of the bath and wouldn't let me pay him, and when it was snowy, a neighbour with a 4 x 4 did shopping for half the street.

It will get better OP. Moving house is fairly near the top of the list of life's most stressful events!

the poroblems would be all the fees for getting out of the mortgage the solicitrs etc

All this - but I think a year or two probably wouldn't raise as many eye brows - people can get wary if a house goes back on the market too soon.

Our first bought house - ten years saving for - and we felt like this and it didn't get better.

Didn't help it was filthy when we moved in with huge amount of rubbish left we had to deal with and we'd got hugely messed around by seller getting keys.

Withing a few weeks we got burgled luckily just garage but they took DH bike so we got left out of pocket despite insurance needing to spend last saving on improved security - neighbour not attached to us got bullying - everything cost more and the items needing doing were more fundamental. We'd fixed mortgage so were stuck for 7 years and house prices dropped like a stone as did interest rates. Also turned out DH wasn't keen on even painting let along DIY work and if I tried I rapidly ended surrounded up by our young kids.

Honestly made the most of the area and house space- wish I could have got DH to take Mum's advice to get one room completely done so we could have relaxed.

Took ages to sell - had to decouple buying and selling and got stuck at families for months - move in was made hugely stressful by movers - we essential got everything dropped on drive and doorway and left - neighbours immediately in our faces wanted shit done- garden and back kitchen were much more overlooked than ideal and it was noisier in some rooms couldn't get in nearby schools so had long walk and over years secondary has gone very down hill huge disappointment reason we ended up in this area - yet it felt almost immediate like home where previous house never did - and like a huge mental weight had been lifted.

Think you can sell as soon as you want but potential new buyers are going to be looking up recent sold prices in the area and def going to think - why’s this house back on the market so quickly, what’s wrong with it? So may be putting yourself at a disadvantage. Plus immediately losing the stamp duty and fees.

I hated my last house when we moved in and immediately realised we’d made a mistake (getting a bigger house but in a horrible area). We stayed 4 years and have just moved again to a different city where I immediately know we’re going to be a lot happier. Funnily enough we have road noise here which is probably the one negative but I am ignoring that!

But to try and make you feel better - those four years weren’t awful at all. We improved the house massively, made some great local friends, had our kids and enjoyed the benefits the area did have eg a park on our doorstep.

I think, don’t panic, think of two good things and hold on to that, make some plans for improvements (apparently a running water feature in the garden near the back door really helps to cover/distract from road noise, we’re going to put one in at some point) AND at the same time know that you’re not actually trapped, you can move on in a few years, this is just one chapter, not necessarily the whole rest of your life.