Bought house and regretting it

Gavin83

csgohan4 said:

Took us 5 years to do everything fully. Only now are we 100% happy with the house. 

We moved in, the en suite leaked water into the kitchen in the first week the other bathroom was old dates and also had large hole behind the sink. Wall paper was also not to our taste and had mould on it, the list goes on

We knew this as we bought a fixer upper in a way. If you wanted everything 'perfect' you would need a new build per say. 

I'd say even that doesn't guarantee perfection. Every new build I've ever known someone move into (including the last place we lived) had a huge list of problems. The only real way to guarantee perfection is to build the house yourself and have deep enough pockets to get everything to how you want it to be.

To the OP, I wouldn't stress too much. We also moved into a fixer upper around 2 months ago and there was a period where we felt we'd made a mistake once the romance had worn off and we realised how much there was to do. However we've now got over the initial shock and we're enjoying living here. We're estimating the amount of work we need to do will cost between £25k-£35k as well so certainly not an insignificant sum. However were this house perfect it would have been well outside our price range and given we're going down the DIY route as much as possible we know we'll make the money back.

I do understand though, it's a lot to take on!

gwynlas

If  heat is escaping through the windows you can fixx up secondary glazing using film like polythene. Might not be optically perfect foe seeing out but helps keep the heat in iver winter. Wide bubblewrap and double double sided tape is a;sp effective in rooms you are not using. In really cold climates theu use quilted window coverings.

andy444

Thanks for the advice everyone. I do feel a bit more positive about it today; it is a bit of a shock to the system to move to a new place and a new house so maybe I just need to get used to it. I'll start doing it up this month and see how I feel about things afterwards.

Gavin83

It's worth noting that the day we moved in our vendor had left the house incredibly dirty so that brought us swiftly out of the honeymoon phase as well. They'd left a small skips worth of stuff behind (of course nothing valuable) there was dirt and old food imbedded into the carpet and the kitchen cupboards looked like they'd been using them as a toilet. It took us a full day of scrubbing to clean that kitchen. They didn't leave the house on completion day until about 3pm either. That's enough to make anyone question their decision.

Sunsaru

For 20 plus years I wanted my own house. The day i got my keys I walked into the house and thought

"What the frig have I done??"

Took me about 3 months for it to sink in. I'm now 8 months in and have sunk 5 figures into the property with another 5 planned. No regrets.

Crashy_Time

Many recent buyers wouldn`t have that sort of money to put into a property IMO.

MrsBrush

Gavin83 said:

It's worth noting that the day we moved in our vendor had left the house incredibly dirty so that brought us swiftly out of the honeymoon phase as well. They'd left a small skips worth of stuff behind (of course nothing valuable) there was dirt and old food imbedded into the carpet and the kitchen cupboards looked like they'd been using them as a toilet. It took us a full day of scrubbing to clean that kitchen. They didn't leave the house on completion day until about 3pm either. That's enough to make anyone question their decision.

I very much feel that pain! We are 6 weeks in, and we still have half a 15x10 fully insulated shed that is full of the previous owners old furniture, a second shed filled with ancient garden tools and I am still cleaning the place. I prioritised the upstairs toilet and sink, a corner of the kitchen and our bedroom to an acceptable level of clean enough (initially to the point where I would have started cleaning under normal circumstances!) The heating is old so we have cold spots in the house and the decor is terrible. My poor husband nearly cried when he saw the state of the place on moving day. My new vax carpet cleaner has been put through its paces and the hoover has been on constantly. I have gone through a ton of cleaning products and had to buy heavy duty rubber gloves as the sainsburys ones were just not man enough to protect my hands.

6 weeks on, I spend about an hour a day tackling a corner or a box during the week, and weekends are have been full on cleaning days! There is a ton to do, but now it is almost clean and we have largely unpacked, we are starting to see what really needs doing first, and working out what doesn't need doing (but we might want to) isn't going to be what we originally thought. One huge example was the windows - the surveyor concluded that they all needed replacing, and following a deep clean and a bit of WD40 we have realised that they are completely fine and are better than the windows in our old house. Instant £7-8k saving! The kitchen was only put in about 4 years ago, so we were thinking it can stay a while, but it was clearly put in for effect, as it has almost no working space at all - definitely a kitchen for someone who didn't cook! The heating system is a conundrum - gas hot air, with a 45 year old boiler... so need to decide whether to replace like for like or start again. And we have one old fashioned electric socket in each room upstairs, so a partial rewire is likely, where we thought that would be ok as the consumer board is pretty new. 

Still, the house was bought at £50k below everything else of equivalent size and area on the market - and I expect that the work will end up costing us about £20k by the time we are done. We decided to make it liveable and comfortable enough, so that there is no rush to refub and make it look picture perfect!

For the OP - it is partly state of mind. Buying a house is an expensive and emotional journey, so don't underestimate the toll it takes on you. As others have said, give it 6-12 months, invest in a few homely touches and embrace the positives rather than focus on the overwhelming amount to be done. Rome wasnt built in a day!

 

Crashy_Time

Sunsaru said:

For 20 plus years I wanted my own house. The day i got my keys I walked into the house and thought

"What the frig have I done??"

Took me about 3 months for it to sink in. I'm now 8 months in and have sunk 5 figures into the property with another 5 planned. No regrets.

Do you think there is a possibility that you bought at the wrong time?

aoleks

Crashy_Time said:

Sunsaru said:

For 20 plus years I wanted my own house. The day i got my keys I walked into the house and thought

"What the frig have I done??"

Took me about 3 months for it to sink in. I'm now 8 months in and have sunk 5 figures into the property with another 5 planned. No regrets.

Do you think there is a possibility that you bought at the wrong time?

Do you think there’s a poasibility you sold at the wrong time? :-)

Sunsaru

Crashy_Time said:

Sunsaru said:

For 20 plus years I wanted my own house. The day i got my keys I walked into the house and thought

"What the frig have I done??"

Took me about 3 months for it to sink in. I'm now 8 months in and have sunk 5 figures into the property with another 5 planned. No regrets.

Do you think there is a possibility that you bought at the wrong time?

In a word, nope.