Am I overthinking why sellers are moving after a recent renovation?

[grkmommy]

Hello fellow mums ... We are moving from Kidbrooke SE3 to Eltham SE9. The house we like seems to have been renovated just 6 years ago and you can tell the owners spent a lot of money (thanks rightmove!). This has always troubled me as the answer I got from the agent as to why the current owners are moving isn't convincing. Agent said they wanted to be closer to their friends and they told the surveyor they were moving for the secondary school. I know the area and moving 3 roads down will not make a difference for the secondary catchment (plus the closest secondary to the house now has the best results in the borough) and to be willing to pay stamp duty and kind of waste the £150k spent on the renovation. I know they're buying in the same area from same agent and it's max 10 mns on foot from the current house.
So, I am worried that we are missing something as we had terrible experience with neighbours in the past, which has damaged me forever, lol
Furthermore, the other side of the semi detached is for rent from October 2026 onwards. All I see is red flags but am I over the top and paranoid?
For local SE9 mums, the house is near the Oxleas / Shooters Hill area.
Thank you

6 years is hardly a recent renovation!! You are massively overthinking this. People move for all sorts of reasons.

You could get your solicitor to ask very specific questions around the noise levels of the neighbours etc so if they lied you should have some comeback on them.

I had a friend who moved into a fabulous, extortionate new build and put it up for sale 6 months later as she got PND and wanted to be closer to family. That probably looked odd to neighbours and new buyers but it was all perfectly innocent.

People move for so many reasons and I'm imagine very few of them would affect your purchase/move.

This ^

We've moved eight/nine times, buying a run down house and renovating it before selling again although it was rarely the intention to do so. Eg, our last five moves have all been to completely different parts of the UK.

The first three sales it was just a case of moving up the ladder and we sold within two and five years each time. No issues with neighbours, but the last of those we sold due to road noise/proximity of traffic lights/lack of parking (we'd purchased on the rebound after losing the perfect house and was a big mistake!). These issues were immediately apparent to anyone viewing the house and it was priced accordingly so sold very fast.

Another three houses were sold after three years six months, three years seven months and three years two months respectively. All but one were fully renovated including extending one massively. These moves were all down to the area not suiting our needs.

Our most recent sale in 2024 was after a huge renovation that took almost six years to complete. We went on the market as soon as we'd finished.

I don't think anyone has ever questioned why we were selling so quickly. If it had been after one year, I'd get it - but six?

Just to say that I’m always confused when people make this kind of statement. In England we sadly have very little recourse against sellers once the sale is completed, even if they were found to have lied about things, and certainly not about noise from neighbours.

But OP I think you’re really overthinking it.

Six years? That's not recent.

Agree ask extra questions about neighbours if you want.

But remember - someone could have lived somewhere happily for twenty years then decide to move as someone else new on the street is an absolute nightmare. You never really know.

I know someone who moved just a couple of streets so that they were in the catchment area for a particular school. Their old house was outside the catchment because the boundary was redrawn due to oversubscription so they moved, the change meant a different postcode and put them within catchment. But as pps have said, people move for all sorts of reasons and 6 years is not a recent refurbishment.

6 years is ages ago! We knocked some walls down and had a new kitchen etc less than a year ago and our house is now up for sale.

If i was really interested in a house and felt there was something weird about the selling i'd go myself and look at the street at different times of the day. You have to declare conflicts with neighbours these days don't you ? Have you double checked about that?

Is there any big housing developments on the cards?

I do agree that 6 years is a long while since house renos tho. Anything could have happened in the family and they don't have to be entirely honest. Are they in fact splitting up maybe?

I don't think moving within 6 years of a renovation is at all worrying. They are not obliged to tell you the reason they are moving, and the reason could be absolutely anything.
Having a rental property attached to yours though, that might make me a little cautious. Although the vast majority of renters maintain their homes and gardens, some do not, so that might be a concern.

We did a major rennovation and extension 5 years ago and are now moving. We are mainly moving as my parents health has recently deteriorated and I want to be closer plus my husband wants a completely different sort of house (he has never liked ours). I wouldn't worry about it at all.

I did a renovation and then moved after a year- I was trying to make the house work but it still didn’t so I moved. How does the new house compare to the one they’re selling? If it’s massively similar I might be a bit suspicious I guess.

Some people keep renovating in the hope that they will eventually love their house but come to realise they never will so end up moving. I don’t love the area my house is in and my tiny back garden. We’ve done lots of work to the house to make it nice and really comfortable but I still will move in a few years

Thank you all for your answers! In my mind 6 years isn't that long ago considering they bought the house 6 years ago and renovated same year as paperwork but maybe I am paranoid!
They need to declare neighbour disputes on TA6 and they have come back blank so, I guess that's a relief.
We will visit at nights to see if anything weird goes on.

I don’t think 6 years sounds a lot, especially as their kids coming near secondary age. You need different houses for primary and for secondary. Maybe they’ve realised that sharing bedrooms doesn’t work anymore, maybe they want to be strictly in the catchment, maybe they want bigger garden or drumming studio, maybe they need more accessible accommodation for health reasons or extra office for their business. Also if they did renovation themselves it could be their way to earn extra money.
I would visit at different times of the day and think how you would do your usual activities at that house.

Six years is not a recent renovation.

I wouldn’t think about nights only. There might be noisy business near by, problems with parking, traffic jams in the morning. I would do times of the day and on different days. But not because of 6 years but because it’s a big purchase and you need to be absolutely sure that it will work for you.

What state of repair are the properties nearby?

So is yours a semi and the other half is for rent? Does rhe other half look well maintained?
I'm not sure being joined to a neighbour would bother me either. I think you'd have a better chance of getting rid of an annoying renter neighbour than an annoying owner neighbour if that's what's worrying you?

Is the one they are buying in need of an update? My friend moves relatively locally every few years into tired properties that she enjoys making lovely (her builder husband perhaps not quite so much…😂I think he’d like to have his weekends to himself!)

My neighbours renovated and were up for sale 3 months later. The renovations were the kind to make things for comfortable for them (electric car charging point for example) so it didn't like a money making project.
So I assumed moving for school.
I found out later that the couple had split up but were keeping that low key.

Everyone around me had renovated in the last 6 years. The only noise and annoying neighbours is the actual renovation!

The house is big enough, 4 bedrooms and each child have their own bedroom. The garden is also very big and well maintained. We saw another property almost across the road and needed a lot of renovation so we decided against it.
They are in the same catchment for secondaries and actually by moving, where the agent said, they're probably missing out on the secondary with the best results in the borough.
Thank you, food for thought. It's a very expensive mistake to make so I guess I am scared and trying to be extra cautious.

I have a relative who "flips" houses. They move in, live in chaos with a massive refurbishment project and after a year or 2 move on. They made a load of money doing it once or twice, but barely break even now.
They always tell buyers they are moving for schools or to be near family.

@grkmommythey have to declare DISPUTES they don’t have to declare noisy/selfish/over bearing/weed smoking etc neighbours

We bought a fully done up house from a family that were serial doer-uppers. They told us that they were moving because they were having another child (and they’ve had more since) but mostly because they love renovating!