Feeling I have overpaid

getmore4less

If you bought in Berkshire as you were planning you just have to accept low value if you buy relatively new places.

You just don't get a lot for your money

TBagpuss

OP, I thinm it's fairly common to have worries or regrets - after all, it's probably the most expnsive thing you've ever bought, a nd you have to get used to the responsibility of maintenance etc, plus there can be an element of 'the grass is greener'.

You say others went for £310-315K so yours in well within that range, so even if you may have paid a couple of thousand more than some others you're not wildly out, and it is a very small % of the total value of the house.

If it's bothering you, stop looking at sold prices for a while.

Instead, focus on making it your home, rather than thinking of it as an investment, and enjoy.

getmore4less

How much of the place did you get painted?

£700 is not that much.

lalala1512

getmore4less wrote: »

How much of the place did you get painted?

£700 is not that much.

I got every internal walls painted except for the ceiling and the wood work. The price included Dulux One Coat paint and he completed the painting in 2 days, which was exactly what I needed as I needed to get my furniture delivered.

getmore4less wrote: »

If you bought in Berkshire as you were planning you just have to accept low value if you buy relatively new places.

You just don't get a lot for your money

It is the Berkshire area. It's crazy how expensive it is!

charlie792

mundibananas wrote: »

So i guess what I'm saying is it's all about timings - supply and demand - if you really wanted the house you were buying at the time and that was what you could negotiate then you paid what you paid for it. I wouldn't sweat £4k in the big scheme of things - it's not that much. Put your feelings aside and start enjoying your house.

This ^^^^^

We bought in an area where it's mostly made up of rented properties - 2 bed terraces and shared ownership. There were zero comparables for my particular house type/size and the prior owners bought in 1988.
We paid £135k for a large extended 4 bed semi. At the time we had bought the most expensive house in the street which worried us immensely and wished we had stuck to our guns of our £130k offer (up for £140k)
By contrast 3 years later my neighbours attached who have a smaller unextended property paid £160k. one year later the house opposite (end terrace instead of semi) but in all other ways totally identical to my neighbours sold for £140k.

Timing is everything.

cattie

Gwendo40 wrote: »

So are you saying your house was the only one in your area that had increased in value by a substantial amount and you were able to sell it and buy something bigger, better, nicer for no more money?

I actually bought something cheaper that needed refurbishment!

The house I mentioned had been refurbished to an extremely high specification with top quality fittings by a builder for himself & his family & sold due to them wanting a larger place when family expanded. I was guzumped because of course I wasn't the only one wanting this house. In short, it had the wow! factor & was in a very good location.

I really looked after this house, keeping it immaculate & well maintained during the years I lived there. Once it went on the market, the price I expected was higher than ea initially suggested going in at, but she thought it worth giving it a try. The house sold to the very first viewer at full asking price.

I'm not the only person in the country to beat the ceiling price of a road, nor the first person to have more of an idea than the ea of what the house could actually achieve.

Crashy_Time

Davesnave wrote: »

What's 0.5 of a toilet? Is it like the washbasin in pieces that was delivered to me a few weeks ago? I sent that back and got a whole one instead; much more practical.

But seriously, everyone feels a bit odd when they buy a new-to-them house or car, so the reality rarely lives up to the dream. As time goes by, you'll know better how your life fits into this house, and if after a couple of years you think it doesn't, it won't be a cosmetic stain that makes you feel that way.

Houses are like people; sometimes visually nothing special, but they gradually reveal their strengths, if they have them.

Our last house was bought as the best of a mediocre bunch, yet we came to love it, warts and all. Our current house was bought just to be a safe place for our money in turbulent times and I disliked it for the first 2 years, but again, the strengths shone though, so we stayed and spent money on it.


No promises , but just give it time.

Possibly the worst place to park money in turbulent times TBH, there are safer places where you can get at the money when you want/need it.

Gwendo40

cattie wrote: »

I actually bought something cheaper that needed refurbishment!

The house I mentioned had been refurbished to an extremely high specification with top quality fittings by a builder for himself & his family & sold due to them wanting a larger place when family expanded. I was guzumped because of course I wasn't the only one wanting this house. In short, it had the wow! factor & was in a very good location.

I really looked after this house, keeping it immaculate & well maintained during the years I lived there. Once it went on the market, the price I expected was higher than ea initially suggested going in at, but she thought it worth giving it a try. The house sold to the very first viewer at full asking price.

I'm not the only person in the country to beat the ceiling price of a road, nor the first person to have more of an idea than the ea of what the house could actually achieve.

That's a lovely story but you still haven't actually answered my question...was your house the ONLY one in the area to see such a rise in price?

Davesnave

Crashy_Time wrote: »

Possibly the worst place to park money in turbulent times TBH, there are safer places where you can get at the money when you want/need it.

Complete nonsense. Tell that to the people who invested in some of the Icelandic banks. Oh yes, they got their money back....eventually rather than immediately, if they were the unlucky ones.

When those banks collapsed, there was panic because the situation was unprecedented in modern times and few had any idea where the financial crash was leading.

Of course, you, with your superior knowledge, would have behaved differently. However, that's just theory.

We'd sold to rent, so there was >£400k sitting in the bank, and it's not terribly reassuring when your entire life savings are just pixels on a screen in times like those! Our reasoning was that a house was always going to be worth 'a house,' whereas we all know about times in history when fiat currency has become worthless.

So, we were on a mission to buy. It was nice receiving about £22k a year in interest without lifting a finger; indeed, we'd never been so well-off, but all temporary situations must pass. They did. Try getting 6% interest today!

As above, we stopped looking for the 'perfect' property, found a house with land that ticked a lot of our boxes and bought it at a bargain price, even though we didn't love it. We're still here and loving it 10 years on, having found it in 2009, at the very bottom of the price curve.

Lucky eh? Well that's what people tell us now, especially people who've never done anything particularly interesting with property, but I'd say the reality is much more complex.

tori.k

OP if it makes you feel better we will have spent around 20/25K+ above the ceiling price for our area with the changes we are making to our current property.
The changes we are making wont devalue the property but not add much value other than to us but this is home not an investment.
Painting may well have cost you £700 but if you factor in its another couple of years before it needs doing again that,s less than a months rent for many.
It helps looking at it with a different head if I sold this house in ten years for what I paid for it my extra 25K would have cost me around £200 a month I couldn't rent a bedsit around here for that. and if the market had dropped and i sold for 10K less it will have cost me £300 a month still couldn't rent that bedsit
enjoy your home it really isn't a worry.