Gutted new neighbour paid less for his house

[newyorkdonuts]

I know it’s too late now, but AIBU to feel a bit gutted?

I bought my house at the end of last year. I’m very happy here and have 0 regrets, but my new neighbour, who completed last month, paid 10k less for his house. To be fair it does look like his needs a new kitchen / bathroom and it also has a conservatory that looks very old (it’s open plan and connected to the living room) and like it needs knocking down. He has a garage though and I don’t. His house also has new windows / doors and mine will all need replacing at some point.

I’ve already spent around 8k (new boiler, rads, driveway repaired, plastering, painting, carpets and flooring). Luckily I managed to get things a bit cheaper as I know a few people in the trade. The previous owner also put a new bathroom suite in, although no extractor fan so I will need to get one installed at some point, and also new kitchen cabinets and drawers, so I guess I’ve saved money in that regard.

The neighbours house actually came on the market whilst I was in the process of buying mine but I dismissed it as I preferred mine. I know 10k isn’t a huge difference in the grand schemes of things but it’s still bugging me. Nothing I can do now, of course.

Anyone else experienced the same thing?

If you were happy with your house before you found out then there is no need for you to be unhappy now.
You can let it ruin your enjoyment or just forget it.

Jealousy is the thief of joy, OP...

I thought you were going to say they are all identical new builds and he's paid less for his for no obvious reason.

House prices fluctuate for so many reasons, you even said you dismissed his property because you preferred yours so I don't see what the problem is?

You paid what you thought your house was worth to you.

Im pretty sure I overpaid for my house 12 years ago it still bugs me once in a while.

Don’t forget about the increase in stamp duty. Neighbours probably had higher transaction costs.
And as you said. If they need a new bathroom that’s pretty much the difference gone.
Enjoy your house!

A new kitchen and bathroom will definitely be more than the difference between the two houses.

No house in any street will go for exactly the same price. How ridiculous

Are we talking £10k difference on a £100k house or a £1m house?

Not quite the same problem, but when I bought my houses there were a couple of different houses that I dismissed because the vendors wanted more than my budget- then I found out that they sold for less than I bought mine for. And of course there’s always a house that comes on the market that might be “better” when you’ve just completed.

It really annoyed me at the time, but years later I have realised that I bought the right houses for me in the end. Enjoy making your new house your own and try not to think about your neighbour. A few years down the line and £10k will be nothing.

I think I overpaid a bit for mine, maybe 5-10k. It doesn't bother me, it's saved me a ton in rent, gone up in value (although probably only just kept pace with inflation).

At the time I bought it it was worth to me the price I paid for it. Which was all that mattered.

The real crazies were the ones who paid 20K over what I reckon it was worth over the road !

@icelolly12 eh, ok? Is there any need to be so rude? Why not just scroll past if you don’t like the thread? Honestly

I’m very happy here and have 0 regrets,

This is literally the only important thing

@TheMagicDeckchair thank you. My house was listed for 165k and I paid 160. Neighbours house went on at 160 and he paid 150.

Comparison

But the neighbour's house needs loads of work!

@IHopeYouStepOnALegPiece thank you. I keep reminding myself that I’m happy here and if I really wanted the other house then I would have made an offer at the time.

It's annoying, but there isn't much you can do about it.

We had a similar situation - the house 3 doors down was bought for the same price as our 2 years later, but theirs has had a side return and the loft done which ours hasn't! The market has just changed.

I'm fairly sanguine about it - I did remind myself that we got a great price for our flat when we sold to buy this place, so there isn't a whole load we could have done.

Subtract from the £8k what you’ve paid on redecorating as you’d have to pay that on any property. A new bathroom and kitchen will probably cost at least £25k and he might need to do some of the work you did to the heating too. Sounds like you got a better deal than he did tbh!

Sounds like a totally reasonable difference under circumstances. We paid about £20-15k less than the most recently buying neighbours when we last bought because the house needed a lot of modernisation. Really no need for you to think about 10k, you know why there was the difference.

That is all that matters.

Seriously, you're going around in circles as to what you're spending and what needs doing next door. The houses will never have parity because you have individual tastes and budgets and you've been able to get 'mates' rates' Add to this that house prices also depend on the particular vendor's circumstances, if they need to sell quickly for whatever reason, or if they get a better deal on where they're moving to, if they're buying again, then they can afford to drop the price.

You have the house you wanted at a price you were happy with at the time, so enjoy it and enjoy doing it up just to your own taste.

The two houses sound nothing like each other considering other costs required to do up.
If they were in the same condition you might have a point however the difference is negligible and house prices are now receding generally.
Another house in the street could sell for £20 000 or £30 000 less within the near future and that’s just the way it goes with house prices as they don’t always go up and are currently on a downward trajectory.

Count your blessings. We offered full asking and it was accepted. Then someone put an offer in £50K over which we had to match. Then as soon as we completed the house opposite went up for over £100K less than we’d paid for ours.

To rub salt in the wounds the new buyers were the same fuckers that gazumped us and now I have to seethe at her every time she puts her bins out!

you're right that in the scheme of things £10k isn’t that much. You just can’t compare like that without knowing the full story. Perhaps something came up in their survey that might have impacted on the price they paid (we negotiated down due to asbestos for our current house, for example). There are so many factors that go into it, if the houses are not identical it’s just the way it goes.

If it makes you feel any better I once bought a new build end terrace town house, around 2007 just before the financial crash. Found out later our neighbours paid more than £50k less just 9 month later when the market had changed, the only difference being theirs was a mid terrace not an end terrace. It’s life, don’t worry about it!

Plus kitchens and bathrooms are expensive and disruptive. Just be happy in your new home.

My neighbours paid 90k less for theirs. Granted it was about 10 years before we purchased ours. But it does sting 🙈

All my neighbours who bought around the same year have paid way more than I did for their house but my house had one previous owner (the first person to have owned the house when it was built around 1949) and hadn’t been modernised since- everything needed changing included electrics, new boiler, complete refurb, new windows and asbestos removing. We negotiated further on price once we discovered the asbestos.It looked lovely from the outside, but my neighbours wouldn’t have known to what extent it needed work on the inside. It cost a lot of money including blood sweat and tears. Never again.

If his was on the market late last year, it hasn't gone because yours is better - probably due to all the reasons you state. He'll easily spend more than £10k on a kitchen, bathroom, and getting rid of the conservatory!