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

I never mentioned I had arseholes on one side and complete twats on the other, why would I? My old place sold within 3 days of being on the market.

Is the renovation reflected in the sale price? Sometimes people buy a house and do it up while they live in it, then sell at a profit and move on to the next project. They are coy about it because people feel different about buying from property developers.

The other half of the semi going to be rented might be a concern. But there is never much you can do about new people moving in next door. Checking at night and maybe in the rush hour is sensible to see what the general noise and traffic is like.

Do not buy a house that is next door to a rental because it will be a nightmare.
Check out the local Facebook page to see about local issues.
I speak from experience.

I wouldn't be worried about 6 years. We renovated a substantial part of our old house, intending to never move, but although we were happy with it, the kids were older and we realised we'd need more space and would be using the rooms in a different way to what we envisaged.

We've had neighbours do huge renovations and sell up soon after because of divorce or a surprise baby or just having not felt "settled" there. My cousin and his wife put their house up for sale 6 weeks after moving in because his wife suddenly hated it though couldn't explain why. I also have a friend who loves renovating and decorating but once it's all done she feels bored and wants the challenge of a new project.

So you are right to research the area but it's probably an innocuous reason like that.

Definitely look at the quality of the renovation closely. We bought a house which had been renovated in the last five years and regretted it massively. It looked amazing on viewings and the survey didn't detect any issues. But we've had huge problems with the roof, drainage and plumbing.

My fear of rental is that if they're a nuisance, it's not easy anymore for the landlord to kick them out.
Seeing the previous sold price and the amount of renovation via rightmove, I doubt they made huge profit but of course, this is not information I can ever be sure of.

Oh and yes, surveyor identified issues as not as perfect as it looked and we asked for a reduction. We had previously offered the asking price as it looked immaculate.

Well I think I’ve found the house! It looks lovely. Is the new place they’re buying bigger?

We are another family that renovated and did a huge extension and then moved 50m away in about 3 years .just visit at all hours of day and night and listen for noise .. or go and introduce yourself to the next door neighbours .

why do you think they spent 150k on refurb? There's no correlation.

My neighbours moved having renovated a year before. The husband found out the wife had been inviting a male friend in during the school day but she was repentent so they decided to stay together but he could no longer look around his home without feeling sad. People move for all reasons and they do not necessarily want the world and their neighbours to know why.

we renovated our whole house, and by that I mean we stripped it down to the brickwork and started again as it was in a dreadful state, only to move three years later. Very genuinely, we just fancied a change 🤷‍♀️ there was really no more to it than that

Don't think that's accurate. You can sue. But I think people rarely exercise this right which seems silly to me.

Yes the next door rental would be of concern to me but only you can decide.