How to get over buyer's remorse?

steph2901

I agree with others who have said to decorate and make it feel more homely.

When I moved in to my previous house, I wasn't sure I'd made the right decision. The first few days I hated it! But after a while and by ripping up the horrible carpets and putting nice new ones down and decorating throughout, I loved it there and stayed 11 years.

But I know when I buy my next house I'll probably feel the same. It's just a case of getting used to a new place.

a_silver_lining

I moved from city flats in Brighton to a one bed a 50 minute bus journey away. I envy your walk. Where I am now has no real shops or social life. I was desperate to buy and getting more and more priced out. My first night in the flat there was no furniture and all I could heard was children screaming next door. I wanted to leave and felt that way for a good year.

Little bits made me feel better. the first was financial security, which was a major buying push. My flat has gone up over 15k (although I know this could drop now) I've paid about 5k off the mortgage and saved more by no paying rent. I know I'll always be buying alone so I know that in three years I'll be able to afford to keep up with the market.

Secondly my garden. This was not possible in the city and I have found so much joy in my space. It also meant I could get a cat (great company too).

Thirdly I fixed little issues. I felt over looked, so I planted some big beautiful plants in the front garden after ripping out all the grass. It makes it look less communal, stops the neighbours kids kicking a football at my door etc. I plan on making more privacy for the back garden. I bought some radios and play music if sound bothers me, although now futniture is in it isn't as echoy. I hated the smelly stained carpet and beige walls and have slowly repalced them all. I hated the inbuild wardrobe and so ripped it out. My plan was to have everything done by the end of the second year so I could have three years enjoying the space before selling. I'm on track for it to all be done bar the kitchen for the 2 year deadline.

I didn't invite people round when I bought as I felt ashamed of the flat, but I'm planing on having my 30th birthday party here with it all done up and I'm actually a bit excited.

It has also made me consider my needs. Next buy will either be a smaller flat buy central or I want a massive garden and house but will move a longer commute, perhaps a train journey away from the city.

bigfreddiel

needhouseadvice wrote: »

Would it be crazy to sell after 2 years? Or rent it out?

Where will you live?

needhouseadvice

bigfreddiel wrote: »

Where will you live?

Walthamstow, which seems to a very popular place to buy even in this shaky market, so it probably would be quite easy (fingers crossed) to sell but who knows how the market's going to look in 2 years!

Mortgage_Moog

Hi, you posted a message on my thread today and we are in a similar position except that I like my new place and am just looking forward to moving back to my old area eventually.

I also only have to travel 15 minutes to be back there so it's no big deal but I understand how odd it feels to be just down the road but feel like you're in a different country. I live alone and one of my biggest tips is to simply have a TV or radio on so that your new place doesn't feel so empty. It's surprising what a difference it makes to fill the room with sound and it always makes me feel better.

I've had two experiences of moving and hating it which I can go into more detail about if it'd help.

I think the main thing to remember is that you're not stuck at all. It's easy to think that you can never get out of your mortgage and that you're in this awful place forever. The reality is that you can sell at any time and get most of your money back after paying a few fees. Then you're free to rent/buy wherever you want. The lender won't mind as you'll owe them about 3% of the amount you owe on the mortgage. They won't be mad, in fact they'll take you on again if they think they might make some more money out of you!

If you're really that unhappy after 6 months then selling might be the thing to do but first of all try going back to your old area and see how it feels. Does it really make you feel better? If so then go back there. I sometimes find when I go back that I'm glad I have my new place to return to. I think it's a case of the grass always being greener on the other side.

A final thought: at one point that old area would have been new and unfamiliar to you just as your new area now is.

Mortgage_Moog

I have another two tips that I found very handy as well. If you're not happy where you are then try getting out more. In the day time I used to go exploring and found some great places to walk which got me out the house and gave me time to think.

Being self employed I also started working evenings which I don't usually do. Not only did it get me out of the cold empty home but I also started earning so much that I could move out months earlier than planned!

These were both before when I wasn't happy with where I moved to.

needhouseadvice

Mortgage_Moog wrote: »

Hi, you posted a message on my thread today and we are in a similar position except that I like my new place and am just looking forward to moving back to my old area eventually.

I also only have to travel 15 minutes to be back there so it's no big deal but I understand how odd it feels to be just down the road but feel like you're in a different country. I live alone and one of my biggest tips is to simply have a TV or radio on so that your new place doesn't feel so empty. It's surprising what a difference it makes to fill the room with sound and it always makes me feel better.

I've had two experiences of moving and hating it which I can go into more detail about if it'd help.

I think the main thing to remember is that you're not stuck at all. It's easy to think that you can never get out of your mortgage and that you're in this awful place forever. The reality is that you can sell at any time and get most of your money back after paying a few fees. Then you're free to rent/buy wherever you want. The lender won't mind as you'll owe them about 3% of the amount you owe on the mortgage. They won't be mad, in fact they'll take you on again if they think they might make some more money out of you!

If you're really that unhappy after 6 months then selling might be the thing to do but first of all try going back to your old area and see how it feels. Does it really make you feel better? If so then go back there. I sometimes find when I go back that I'm glad I have my new place to return to. I think it's a case of the grass always being greener on the other side.

A final thought: at one point that old area would have been new and unfamiliar to you just as your new area now is.

Thanks for the tips. I'm kicking myself as I really thought I needed to be realistic to get on the ladder so I had to make lots of compromises but I just wish I'd stayed in rented and waited for something better to come along. That's what I'm struggling with - that I chose this even though I had a lot of doubts. I thought it was just fear of change.

Mortgage_Moog

Why not just sell up and go back to renting then? If I were you I'd get a couple of estate agents around to value your property and see how that makes you feel. You might be surprised at the price and realise it's not worth selling or that you could even make a bit. You never know, prices change quickly.

I almost rushed into buying a studio with a 5% deposit but decided against it. It was a very hard decision as I had been living at home for a long time and really wanted to get my own space. I waited about 8 months and then made an offer on a flat. A month into the mortgage being arranged I went back for a second viewing and immediately changed my mind! I then found the place I'm living in now and I sometimes think back and imagine what it would have been like living in the other two places. I'm always glad I didn't.

I will type out my story later of when I first moved because there's something in it that I learnt, a valuable lesson that might make you think differently about where you are now.

Mortgage_Moog

Here's my story about moving out, how it made me feel and the lessons I've learned from the three moves I've done in recent times. It's a long story but I wanted to give as much detail as I could to see if you, or anyone else reading this, can relate to what I say. If nothing else you should get a laugh from it.

The first time I moved out was a disaster. After a death in the family I decided that life was for living and that I was going to follow my dream and move to the seaside where I'd always felt relaxed and more at home than living in a busy city. After several trips there and back I'd not only found a flat that I could rent but even made a friend there

I had to pay 3 months rent up front because of the risk of me moving to a new area and being self employed but I had saved that up. I packed up the car and a friend and I travelled the 244 miles to my new home. He came along for a laugh and to help me unpack when I got there but we didn't choose the best time of year to do it as it was December 22nd.

We got there for about 4pm, rushed down the local Argos and bought the only duvet they had to keep us warm overnight. It was on that first night that I knew it was a mistake. The place was so cold that neither of us got any sleep. There we were lying on an inflatable queen sized air-bed with a thin summer duvet to keep us warm when it was minus 2 outside. We made it back the next day but it's a night I'll never forget. The point of me telling you all this will become clear later so bear with me.

I went back there just before new years eve and just couldn't adjust to it at all. The friend I had travelled with called me and as I told him how I felt he said he was thinking of getting divorced. We shared our problems and had a kind of competition as to who was in the bigger mess!

I felt so far away from everything I knew and I couldn't even go back to the familiar areas I knew because they were a 4 hour drive away. As stupid as this sounds I hadn't realised I wasn't renting a flat but a sort-of-studio. It had a large separate kitchen and bathroom but no bedroom at all. I didn't even know such places existed. It only had one power point in the whole place so I had to lug around an extension cord every time I went from one room to another. I had been in such a rush to just rent anywhere that I overlooked all these things.

Worst of all was the other tenants. The man upstairs had this bizarre problem where he kept moving furniture from one side of the flat to the other. He'd move it all over one side, then back, then back...It went on and on for hours all day and night. I went up and asked him what he was doing and he said it must just be the TV that I can hear. I pointed out the furniture behind him and asked why he kept dragging it from one side to another but he said he didn't know what I meant. As soon as I went downstairs he started dragging it again.

I didn't think it would get any worse but then I woke up one morning to find it had been so cold that my phone screen had frozen over. It was covered in Ice and it had been inside the flat all night. The windows were also frozen over on the inside and there was no heating at all. I then found out I was on a pay as you go electric meter and it had run out.

It was a this point I found out that the man above me who dragged the furniture around ran a wrestling club for transvestites. He'd have men with beards wearing dresses visiting and they'd be performing various moves on each other as another one did the commentary. That was it.

In the end I had just decided to move out when the landlord rang to check how I was settling in. I said I wanted to leave and he said it's no problem because he already had someone else lined up who'd wanted it before I did. I was very lucky there.

The journey home was awful. I got about a quarter of the way home and decided to turn back and make another go of it. I got about 20 miles back towards where I left then changed my mind again. I did this throughout the journey and it turned a 4 hour drive into a 6 hour drive. It's the worst drive I've ever done. I kept wanting to go back and make it work, thinking of the new friend I'd made there who was texting me to ask if I wanted to go out for the night. They didn't even know I was miles away on my way home. It was a terrible thing and I remember sitting at the end of a car park just not knowing what to do. I felt like it was all over and everything I'd worked for had gone.

I did eventually make it home and was on the verge of going bust. I'd put everything into that move and now I had huge debts I could never hope to pay off, the mess of the flat contract to sort out and no work back home as I'd cut all ties here when I moved. My main memory of this time was spending one hour on a phone to a debt help line who advised me that if they were me they'd just give up and go bust.

My next move was 2 years later. I moved just round the corner from my family home to the next street. It was a 3 minute walk away, a lovely 2 bedroom flat with great views all over the city. It even had power points in every room! The thing is that I felt no better there than I had at the other place. I stayed there for 6 months to see out my tenancy and had a great time but I still felt as awful as I had last time. It didn't matter that I was right by where I knew in the area that I liked, I still felt every bit as odd as I had before. I couldn't settle, couldn't sleep and felt like I was on the other side of the world when I hadn't gone more than 0.3 miles up the road. I enjoyed a new years eve there and as I sat watching the worlds top 10 worst airports and waiting for the fireworks display to start from the great view I had (something I'd looked forward to since moving in ), I didn't know what to do.

Then came the snow. We had the worst winter in decades and there were icicles hanging from my roof that were over 4 feet long. I couldn't work, couldn't get out anywhere and had no money coming in at all. It cleared after a month and I knew I was going to end up having to go back home again.

I started to worry because what if I could never get over this problem? What if every time I moved I ended up going back home? I decided I was going to buy next time and there'd be no more renting for me. I was sure it was the fact I was renting that bothered me, along with the fact I still had a lot of debt.

I spent the next 5 years living back home. I paid off every penny of debt. I saved up a deposit. I looked at buying a studio and decided I wanted to wait until I could afford a one bed flat instead.

Just a few weeks ago I bought my first place and when I moved in I had a bit of the feeling that I'd had before, that feeling of being overwhelmed and panicked because there's so much to do. This move was like a mixture of my last two; further from home than before but still in an area I knew a little.

This time though, unlike previous times, I quickly got over that and have really enjoyed living here. Yes it's about 5 miles out of where I'd really like to be but it's just a short drive back to my home area and the more hours I work, the less time I'm at home and the earlier I can move back to the other area.

What I've learnt from all this is that you get a massively different feel when you rent than you do when you buy. Maybe buying isn't the right thing for you? It's not for everyone and there are some advantages to renting such as not having to worry about repairs. Those are all outweighed by the advantages of owning for me but you're not me and everyone wants different things from life.

When I went down the local supermarket by my new place for the first time I overheard these two women talking and one of them gave the other some advice that I'll never forget. She said “Everything in life is temporary. Whether it's good or bad, whatever you are going through will end at some point so if it's bad just focusing on it ending and if it's good enjoy it while it lasts”.

I often lie in bed thinking about those wrestling transvestites by the sea and the bad times I went through spending years saving and paying things off. I can laugh at them now but they seemed awful at the time. I know in the future I'll move again, probably more than a few times as I'm not old.

I've got good times and bad times to come but one day I'll be back where I want to be and I can certainly live where I am now for a long time without being desperate to move. I can actually pay my entire mortgage off in 3 to 4 years and I'll likely be living back where I want to be next summer or early in 2018. Maybe when I am I'll look up this thread and update it on how it all went.

You're not alone in the way you're feeling and you should do whatever you need to do to get happy again. Although I've been talking about myself a lot in this story, maybe some people reading this can relate to it and see themselves too. Just know that whatever you decide you'll be happy again soon and one day you'll look back on this and laugh, just as I do when I think of those wrestlers.

[Deleted User]

The change has happened - Move on & learn from it. You never know, you could even profit from a rising market .... If not, make the most of it whilst you're there.