House Buying - Regrets & Boo-boos

Skiddaw1

montymouse wrote: »

The house I grew up in had an absolutely enormous garden - going on for an acre maybe - and my parents could never keep on top of it. They spent many a day off toiling in the garden, which always seem to end up a jungle anyway.


Nevertheless, us kids had a great time - hacking our way through the undergrowth, having bonfires, camping out. :j
Also, there were fruit trees galore - apples, pears, and also raspberry canes, gooseberries, rhubarb. It was a happy garden.

Snap!! I still miss my parent's orchard...

Saga

SensibleSarah wrote: »

I have a long list of things that I did wrong when I bought my house. I followed the advice that said to buy the worst house on the best street I could afford (which still wasn't a very nice street - but hey). Sadly, I do regret failing to properly think through how I was going to fix up a house with no savings and not enough disposable income to save enough to ever have the level of money needed for the task. :rotfl: Not to mention, truly abysmal DIY skills.
So 9 years in, I still have a fixer-upper that looks worse than it did when I moved in because I have started but not finished several things, plus all the things that were already old when I bought it are just 9 years older now!

Planning on cutting my losses in 2020 and moving to a slightly 'worse' area (it's all subjective), where I can afford a house for not much more money than I should get for mine, which doesn't need a new kitchen, new bathroom x2, total rewire, new doors and windows, new roof, new boiler and complete floor to ceiling redecoration in every room, all at once.

And semi-detatched is a dream after living in a mid-terrace for most of the last 20 years (including rentals before buying)!

I could extend myself to the limit to buy in a 'nicer' area - but as a single income household - I absolutely won't take that risk when I have an alternative that is perfectly fine and £40k cheaper.

Oh you have my sympathies and understanding! I do like your stoic/pragmatic approach though!

I've said elsewhere that as a lifelong renter I have zero DIY skills and the thought of taking on somewhere that needs even just "a lick of paint" (which in reality means hours upon hours of reading/watching to make sure the surfaces are prepared correctly, weighing up mountains of differing opinions from experts on countless forums....) is really quite daunting!

Saga

vroombroom wrote: »

We bought our first house in 2014 in a help to buy/shared ownership scheme. Whilst I love the house as it's great for school/work, we're now desperate to move as we've since had another child (b/g 6 years between) and we're stuck in this tiny 2 bed.
Due to the scheme we are on, we have to sell it at a price the company we bought it through gives us. If we get any offers less, we have to pay the difference which means we'll not only have to pay them a load of money we don't have, but we'll have no shares either.

Worst thing we ever did.:(

Oh how awful. Fingers crossed that you manage to sell without the hassle.

GaleSF63

Saga wrote: »

Looking back, what big house-buying mistakes have you made and regrets that you have, particularly as a FTB, which with hindsight you would avoid now?

At some point I realised that when I viewed a property and immediately felt it was right, I never regretted buying, but if it was bought because it ticked boxes and seemed the most suitable I never felt 100% happy with it (nothing major though).

Saga wrote: »

Surely not everyone has nightmare neighbours?

In over 40 years I (sometimes we) have lived in one semi, 2 terraces and 3 (ground floor) flats and have always had great neighbours, both sideways and above. No noise issues or anything else.

Smodlet

I think it has been said already but follow your dream... Just don't let your feet leave the ground then have to downsize to worse than that from which you up-sized, if that makes any sense. Having said which, you cannot predict the future and I will never regret buying the dream house; I will also never stop missing it.

Totally agree with RelievedSheffield about detached if at all possible; unfortunately, for most of us it is not. Apparently, only about 15% of housing stock in England is detached, or so I have read somewhere.

I think the only thing you can really do is believe and I am so not religious. Some achieve the dream and manage to hang on to it, like Davesnave; good for him.

Saga

GaleSF63 wrote: »

At some point I realised that when I viewed a property and immediately felt it was right, I never regretted buying, but if it was bought because it ticked boxes and seemed the most suitable I never felt 100% happy with it (nothing major though).

That's interesting: all these property TV shows say there's nothing such as the perfect house, so don't keep searching for it, and that compromise is normal and to be expected.

Smodlet

Saga wrote: »

That's interesting: all these property TV shows say there's nothing such as the perfect house, so don't keep searching for it, and that compromise is normal and to be expected.

Either you feel it or you don't. One person's compromise is another's perfection. TV is not an authority. No-one knows how you feel except you.

-taff

Not listening to my fathers advice about offering less for the first flat I bought, but to be fair, it was after the fact.
Not taking into account the rickety build of 3 bed semi [1st house purchase]
3rd time lucky in a house that is also semi detatched, lovely [and distant] neighbours each side and in front.
In hindsight, we could have bought something that needed less work [and we regularly mona about this] but we wouldn't have had the size of property nor the garden and garage with it. It has also dramatically increased in [perceived] value so quite happy with that.

Mickygg

For me it was 3 main things:

1) buying a house with residents/management charges. Paying out each month with no work being done stressed me out. Never again.

2) buying a house on a steep sloping plot. I really liked it at first, but simple things such as cutting grass were difficult. Kids on steep sloping gardens don’t mix very well. Trying to sell was a nightmare.

3) buying a new build off plan. Turned out to be concrete jungle and the houses on top of each other. Then my front door was a play point for all the kids on the estate.

You live and learn, now happy in an older house on a flat plot. Oh with no management fees!

Davesnave

Smodlet wrote: »

Some achieve the dream and manage to hang on to it, like Davesnave; good for him.

:huh: Que?

I don't remember dreaming I'd be looking after sheep and going out in all weathers!

The original dream was to continue running our plant nursery in a rural location, not far from our old home. It was just possible at the time when I checked prices in 2002. We'd keep our connections built up over the previous decade and it would all be great. We'd sell until mid July each year, then disappear, just like some other semi-retired nursery people we knew. Lovely!

But life takes interesting twists and turns... Soon, I was a carer for my Dad who developed dementia, and from then on everything went paridae-up for 6 years, culminating in us selling in the Crash. It was a daft thing to do, perhaps, but mad people similar to someone who posts here regularly convinced me selling to rent was the way to go .. :rotfl:

Anyway, 9 months later we ended up here. We tried to run away from it, but we were more scared of having nothing but piles of money in wobbly-looking banks. We knew it ticked many boxes, but it wasn't what we'd been looking for at all. It was just a bargain with a motivated vendor and it looked easy to sell on later, when things had stabilised.....


Then there were these cute little lambs....:o