Buyers Remorse - help 😢

[Punkyskullyy]

I’m looking for words of wisdom to help me see sense and stop feeling this way.. I need to know this feeling will go, or is to be expected?

We exchanged on a 1970s semi last week, got the keys Monday and we move in this coming Monday. We left a week as we’re in a rental and had a plumber/elec visiting, and I wanted to paint the bedrooms.

I have been happy literally until Monday when we got the keys. I’m having huge anxiety as reality has set in and this now feels very real. I’ve never dealt with transition too well, I remember feeling like this when moving up a year in school, when as a child we were looking at moving house. I’ve had PND and severe anxiety after having both children.
We currently rent on a 15yr old estate, we live on a through road with a tiny 3bed semi. We’ve bought in a quiet culdesac with the majority of owners being old.

I’m feeling really overwhelmed now I’ve seen the property empty and can look at finer details of what needs doing to bring it up to our spec. We have a huge garden (we can fit around 7 of the size we have in rental) that I know my 2 DC will love, but it needs a lot of work.

I knew all of this when we offered/exchanged, so why am I feeling like this now? I’ve been painting at the new house this week and I’ve just been full of anxiety, questioning whether we’ve done the right thing. I come back to our rental, and although it’s small, it’s my comfort zone and I see it as my home.

I’m really embarrassed about how I feel and I don’t want to mention to my DH as he and our 2 DC are excited for the move. My excitement and happiness is gone, when I think deep down, do I want to move, I feel like I don’t. I wish I had felt like this sooner, this is why it has come as a shock to me 😔
I feel like this is very permanent now, it’s an overwhelming pressure and I feel like this is it. I’m stuck longterm in a house I’ve started feeling anxious about but did see potential during viewings.

Please help 😢

I think once you move in with your own things it will feel different. An empty house can feel very cold and unwelcoming. Hang on in there - remember why you bought it - the garden sounds lovely!

I think it’s normal to look at an empty house that needs work with regret. Once you get it painted with all your furniture in, it will feel much better. Think of next summer on a beautiful day with most of your jobs done, sitting in your big garden.

I'm in the same boat. Completed on my house end of September. I'm still in my rental which was cosy and homely and in an excellent location.
I see so much stuff wrong in my new place and I feel nothing but panic. I move in next week. It's the fact that all the maintenance is down to me too!
I'm reassuring myself that it's the right thing by telling myself that to rent a similar house now I'd be paying 600 per month more than my mortgage. Just because I'm a long term tenant doesn't mean my landlord won't decide to sell or hike my rent up.

I will try and think of this, thank you 🙏🏼

Give it 18months OP. You’ll look back and see the changes you’ve made, and how far you’ve come to make the house into a home . It’s the start of an adventure x

It’s horrible isn’t it? I’m so sorry you feel like this too 😞

For me; we’ll end up paying more than rent, but I knew this and was happy to knowing it’s paying our mortgage. It’s as if since getting those keys and going into this empty shell of a house I feel scared, overwhelmed and as if I’ve made a huge mistake.

I don’t want to feel like this. A few days ago after exchanging I could look at photos of the house, I can’t look at them without feeling anxiety now 😢

Thank you for that nice mindset, I will definitely keep trying to think like this. I feel like I’m going to feel like this forever and I’m stuck in a house i’ve now started feeling sad about 😢

Give it time to allow yourself to adjust and settle. A quiet cul de sac and a big garden sound fab to me! 🙂Change is scary but I bet in time you will love it, it will take time for it to feel like home.

I can't tell you how many identical threads I've read on this. I don't say that to criticise but to make you aware that this seems to be a perfectly normal reaction to moving house and that everyone who updates does so to say they are happy and settled and it just took time.

This is so relatable. I completely and unexpectedly lost my mind when we bought our first place (also a 1970s property), to the extent that my boss could see I was unwell and made me take an additional week off.

It was an irrational, slightly primal response but to what I still don't know?! I remember saying to my partner that I know this will pass and I wish I could just skip to 6 months later when I know we'll have settled in. And sure enough by the 6 month mark, I was completely fine (not because we'd done anything particularly significant to the place but I think my nervous system had just calmed down and gotten used to my new surroundings). You'll get there OP.

We moved house from a place we were very happy in to a bigger one for schools etc. but I felt exactly the same for around three months. The day we moved in the light in the bathroom broke, as did the heating. We were both miserable. Very happy now though. A bigger garden is fantastic, as is more space. You will get there OP but how you feel is very usual so don’t be tough on yourself.

It is so scary, OP. I absolutely feel you. The day my partner and I moved from our long term rental into our cottage we both, at different times , had a little cry. It looked so bare and broken (needed a lot of work!) and we felt like we had made a huge mistake.
Fast forward two years and we've made it our own and we absolutely love it. It still has a way to go but we've done so much and it properly feels like home.
You'll be okay, OP, and in the rare instance that your feelings don't change, if you don't like it, you can sell it and try somewhere else, but the beauty of owning rather than renting is that you are in charge of your own destiny! Good luck OP x

I felt like this (I’ve never liked transition either and cried for months after leaving primary school and starting Secondary).

The day we got our keys on this house I cried and cried and didn’t sleep really that night, felt all out of sorts and unsettled for a bit. Was grieving my tidy , modern flat. I think it was a mixture of being overwhelmed with the DIY ahead and it not feeling like home but honestly it all went . We did it up over the years and it definitely felt like my home in no time.

Been here 18 years now and when we downsize and leave London in the next five or so years I will grieve fir this house too a lot.
It’s just a huge change for you and you will adjust. Get looking on Pinterest and get excited by your ideas for all the rooms. Good luck !

I’m too scared to look at them as I’m worried I’ll come across those that continued feeling like this long-term 😢

That’s so reassuring, thank you for sharing your experience 🙏🏼

I think a lot of it is coming from living in this modern style rental house, to a very dated house. Both externally and internally, but I was ok with this previously.. this feeling has magnified everything that I knew needed work. I feel like I’m letting my DH and DC down who are so excited to move 😢 I just want to crawl into bed and hide away.

Grieving is exactly how I feel. We’ve been in this rental for 7 years, and whilst it’s too small and noisy with a busy road outside, it’s our home and we have so many memories here.

I wanted a quiet street, but being there this week painting has left me feeling scared as it’s so quiet, being a 70s house the street looks dated to the modern estate I’m on. These things didn’t worry me before though. It feels like somebody else’s home, and I felt so disoriented and looked forward to leaving to come back to the rental. I’m ashamed of feeling like this.

We moved into our new house over an October break and I don't think I'd ever been as miserable before or ever again.
Days were short, everything felt wrong, nothing was in the right place.
I stood in the hall and cried when I got home from work several times.
Eventually we got things into place and I remembered why I loved the place enough to buy it. Been there nearly 20 years now and will stay until all DC have completed university, then I'll be downsizing to the coast. But I'll be sure to move in summer next time!
You will be fine, it sounds like a great house for your DC to grow up in.

If you decorate it then would renting it out be an option to cover mortgage and then you rent elsewhere until it’s worth you selling again in time without a loss?

Try not to worry+this is very common. It’s a big purchase and can be daunting so you begin to doubt yourself. It’s also a big commitment. Thing is, you’d be paying rent anyway if you hadn’t bought a place-and renting will never be yours. The first few days will be a whirlwind trying to organise your stuff but soon you’ll see it as home and wonder why you doubted it. And congratulations 😊

Plus seventies houses have very well proportioned rooms, large windows and good size plots. It’ll be a love,y home for you.

Sorry can't help a lot, just wanted to say I feel your pain. Moved from rented a few years ago and have the same feeling of regret. What really helps me is calculating how much money I've saved on rent! At least something...

Ps Sorry just saw you're paying more than rent now. But you're investing this money instead of just 'losing' it - renting is like setting fire to your money isn't it

Oh I've felt like this every time I've moved. Especially if there is overlap and your still comfy in your old place and looking at the new house that very much does not feel like yours. I promise you it's just an awkward adjustment period and once you start moving in it will slowly start to feel different. We moved into our 70s house in Feb and I am absolutely thrilled to bits with it now after some reno and fix ups here and there. And I definitely felt exactly how you are feeling now at first! We had the same overlap happen while we knocked down a wall and painted in the new house. It will change and you will love it!

Totally normal feeling for lots of people.
I moved from a 10 year new built to a 1960s house.
I vividly remember walking in and thinking what the heck have we done!
However before I knew it we were working on it and not much time to consider things but what needed doing next.
A year down the line I was so glad we'd done it and now 6 years down the line I LOVE my house so much.
A know it's corny but a home is the things you love being in it, your family obvs 😁 and the objects that you see everyday and those all come with you

I spent more than a month hating my fixer upper...to the point that I wanted to put it back on sale.

There is much more work needed than I thought (boiler died on the first day, there was a leak in the toilet cistern and various bodged jobs) and like you I am moving from a cosy flat into a period property that needs some serious updating and has been neglected for a while.

The empty house was so depressing and having some many trades people coming and going. I thought I had made the worse mistake ever.

I started feeling a bit better after I got rid of all the crap the previous owners had left and removed all the ugly old carpets.

I am now at a stage where I am painting the walls and putting things like bright lampshades and rugs so the house now already looks completely different.

At least I don't have to worry about landlords anymore and I can do whatever I want in decoration and have pets if I want to. My mortgage is also less than the rent on my small flat...

But I still have a lot of anxiety about the move but hopefully with time things will improve.