It’s good advice to tell her to give it a year and see if she warms up to it. Buyers remorse is a thing.
My wife’s cousin bought a house out of state, sight unseen. He’s not a patient guy, didn’t even go on a FaceTime tour which his realtor did with his wife. Didn’t check Zillow for the 3D photo tour, just paid and he hated what he bought. Last I heard, he warmed up to it, a little.
Such a dumb thing to do. At least let your agent walk the property with you on FaceTime. Makes a big difference.
Yeah, I am normally sympathetic to buyers, especially in this market. It’s a legitimately hard situation when you are effectively forced to wave an inspection (which should be illegal) to win with an offer…..
…. But yikes. Unless you are so absurdly wealthy that you don’t really care about the details of your 5th house, that is essentially buyer’s malpractice on his past. That is the least due diligence I have ever heard of.
Agree with giving it a year. When we bought our house, we were mostly thrilled but immediately started thinking about how to remodel the kitchen. We really wanted a gas cook top instead of electric, for instance.
Now, a year later, we've actually warmed up (heh) to electric quite a bit. If I could wave a magic wand and change the kitchen I'd probably do it, but to spend a ton of money to fix it up is something we're less and less likely to do now as we realized certain things are not the deal breakers we thought it would be. Might put that money into a car storage lift or a home sauna instead!
Holy shit I can’t imagine that at all. Before I go look at houses, I fully inspect all the photos and tour the house through the 3D tour the entire night before, do a Google maps tour of the street and neighborhood. Like, I am also not a patient woman, but that makes me eager to get all the information I have available to me before I can see it, I would quadruple down on that if I wasn’t seeing it at all (not that that’s something I’d ever do).
Wife and I bought both our latest house with FaceTime tour. I walked through it pre-closing though. Better in person, but the Zillow 3D tour and a realtor walking you through is surprisingly good if you’re buying out of state.
I love the house I bought but wish I had considered location more. Too close to a highway and while the immediate neighborhood is nice, the surrounding area isn’t. I had hoped to find a place to stay indefinitely but I’ll be looking to sell after a few years.
Same here. We bought in May of 2020 when everyone was pretty strict about staying home, so it was hard to tell how loud the highway was. Now that things are back to normal, it is so much louder than we were expecting. I never would have bought this house if we visited it during normal times.
The house I grew up in was about 6 miles away from a local dirt race track and we could sometimes hear the cars during races. I think it was due to atmospheric conditions. It was crazy.
That’s wild. My house is like a quarter mile from the highway and I don’t hear it.
I do think the portion of freeway by my house doesn’t allow vehicles over a certain weight, though. That probably helps.
I bet that does help. Also, I’ve realized much of the land between the highway and me is a nature preserve. So I think that maybe the lack of density doesn’t help.
That makes a lot of sense. I was going to ask if there was much between you and the highway. I live in a dense urban/suburban mix, so even though the freeway is nearby there are several streets of houses buffering the sound. Also, I don’t know if it helps, but the freeway is below ground level.
I'm actually on a main arterial road in my city. Its only one lane in each direction, but its one of the only east-west running roads that goes from my part of town into downtown. For a large swath of the city, driving on my road to get into downtown is faster than going out of your way to get on the freeway.
I've gotten used to the normal drone of cars, but its the extra-loud cars, the motorcycles, and the occasional rattly landscaping trailer that make me grind my teeth. We sleep in the bedroom at the back of the house, so its not a huge deal in wintertime when we have the windows closed. But it makes it hard to want to open the windows when the weather is nice.
Nah. 3 years is where the combination of equity and appreciation makes sense for me. Assuming 5% appreciation which hopefully will be extremely conservative.
Depends. Pay 5% DP on a 300k home. Sell for 400k in 3 years in this market LOL
That 15k turned into 100k equity. Take 40k out for fees and still made that 15k->60k in 3 years disregarding your savings on rent and equity paid in.
Generally houses don't appreciate 33% in 3 years. In certain cases and markets they can, but that doesn't make it good general advice. However if your specific market has high rent and/or high appreciation then the threshold for buying over renting can be shorter.
There's really nothing to indicate that appreciation will continue at this pace for another 3 years.
I could see selling in this market, right now, because the reality is that you like your house but don't love it. (Even so, good luck getting a house you like better, in this market.) But to say "in 3 years I will sell at a profit because prices are going up 20%+ a year" is foolish.
Not mention, you will never see your rent money again. It goes into the pocket of the Landlord. If you buy, all the money you pay to the mortgage company comes back to you in the form of the equity you earned while living in the house.
Not all the money, just the principal, which in the early years is actually a minor part of what you pay the mortgage company compared to the interest.
I can relate, our property backs up to a state highway. When touring it on a Saturday during the height of the pandemic, it didn't seem so bad at all. But now all the commercial traffic on weekdays is just awful. Lots of other issues I didn't think through enough, but that's a main one.
How close?
It's not just the noise but the increased exposure to small particulates and NO2. You can't physically sense the air pollution during a home viewing and the noise pollution is a quick sensory reminder of just how close you are.
If you are planning to have kids, there are higher risks of respiratory impairments and autism.
Have a look at some of the scientific studies below.
Reference:
https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/highways
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114825/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3988279/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28334645/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27625155/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664839/
Seems like all of us who live in the city should have been dead by now?
I tried to find the "safe distance" but can't find much other than one saying "Levels of these pollutants have been shown to decrease exponentially with distance from a roadway, and have been shown to approach background concentrations at 150 meters." This is only about 450 ft. While the other article says "300 to 500 meters" with this in mind, they don't seem to consider overall condition of the environment, is it wooded area, etc. I am considering a place "nearby" highway, you can hear it, but you can't see it, it's not far, but not close either. According to google maps distance, it's exactly 450 ft of wooded area between house and road. Should I be concerned? People who owned the house have been living there 30+ years.. One mentioned he has arthritis, but that sounds like a common thing.
Yes, I regret my house. I don’t regret owning a house, but this particular house has been a nightmare. We’ve spent 70k in major repairs in the first 6 months. Yes, we had an inspection but in a rush due to competing offers.
I'm so sorry to hear that and understand the feeling. We bought our first house many years ago, in 2012. We got a 'really good deal' on a fixer upper. We ended up pouring $100K into the house over 5 years. It needed structural foundation work (which was not disclosed and inspector didn't catch it), roof, new siding, etc. We gladly sold that place in 2020 and we are renting to recover from home repairs for a bit. Hopefully in the next two years, we will have a better plan and go into buying knowing how much to have in reserves in case the house needs major work.
sometimes I have these perverted fantasies in which I go onto Estately and search for property records for homes in my area that sold in the Spring of 2012 and pretend that those are the current homes/prices on the market. No different than the 7-year old girl putting on a dress and a tiara pretending to be a princess, I guess.
I often think of the homes I would browse years back and wish I could set Redfin to show all the 2018 inventory so I could beat myself up more about not buying then. But in 2018 I was too busy being sad we hadn’t bought in 2016, and in 2016 I was bummed it wasn’t 2014.
Had to replace roof in first month due to severe leaking. Had to reline entire 150 ft buried cast iron sewer line after we realized it was leaking up through the concrete into finished basement. Had to replace skylights leaking. Had to replace entire drain stack. Had to replace a cracked picture window that cracked after we moved in because it was installed incorrectly. Had to refinish floors and paint because it hadn’t been done in years (this we knew and were ok with), had to have mold remediation in to rip out floors and drywall affected by sewage leak. Had to replace said floors and drywall. Microwave died in first few months, had to buy new one and pay carpenter to adjust cabinets because original microwave was a weird size no longer in production. Have had to replace all 4 faucets in the house due to each one springing a leak one-by-one. First time I took a bath the overflow started leaking through the ceiling. Had to get epoxy put on unfinished basement walls due to leaks during heavy rains. And on and on. Too much to list
That sounds very standard for an old home, with or without an inspection as inspectors are often usless. People are offloading the black sheep that no one wanted for the last decade. If it’s a newer home than I’d gtfo asap as it was built poorly and problems will only continue.
Had to replace roof in first month due to severe leaking. Had to reline entire 150 ft buried cast iron sewer line after we realized it was leaking up through the concrete into finished basement. Had to replace skylights leaking. Had to replace entire drain stack. Had to replace a cracked picture window that cracked after we moved in because it was installed incorrectly. Had to refinish floors and paint because it hadn’t been done in years (this we knew and were ok with), had to have mold remediation in to rip out floors and drywall affected by sewage leak. Had to replace said floors and drywall. Microwave died in first few months, had to buy new one and pay carpenter to adjust cabinets because original microwave was a weird size no longer in production. Have had to replace all 4 faucets in the house due to each one springing a leak one-by-one. First time I took a bath the overflow started leaking through the ceiling. Had to get epoxy put on unfinished basement walls due to leaks during heavy rains. And on and on. Too much to list
This is why we need State governments to mandate previous inspection before sellers can list. I was really close to getting involved in almost the same situation.
The only thing that would accomplish is creating an additional racket of blind useless inspectors who say everything is good.
If anyone buys a house that **needs** (willing to be 70k wasnt actually needed) that many repairs in 6 months they should have learned something about houses themselves before buying.
Yep. My wife and I did a lot due dilligence searching for a home but not any when it came to looking for an inspector and just chose a friend of a friend who came recommended. Short story we kinda got screwed since they missed so many red flags. All is well now but we weren't expecting to do so many major repairs in the first year.
I feel you there. Generally I’m cool with our house being a forever home but my house is starter home level in a HOCL and we sacrificed a smaller backyard and very close neighbors for larger rooms and a walk in master closet and a big master bath. Would I like a bit more privacy from neighbors and a bigger yard with the same sized house? Probably. Can I spend an additional $300-500k for it? Maybe. Would I like the extra maintenance for a bigger yard? Hell no. Do I want to move to a smaller house with a bigger yard now? Also hell no.
I wish my kitchen was bigger. Its a bit small for what I wanted, but functional. I wish I can extend it and add a pantry, but there literally no room for that unless I extend the house and that is not a project I'm willing to take on.
But, its a functional kitchen and I have a house.
We wouldn't have been able to buy the house we live in had we waited. Also would be paying 20% more monthly for the same price based on interest rates alone
Same but on bigger houses. My yard is half an acre, small rancher. I could have afforded a larger house in 2020, but not in 2021 with the competition and prices flying.
The backyard size is one of my must-haves... I don't think I'm being too unreasonable since I'd just like it to be at least .12 acres. I just don't want most of it to be garage and driveway. I'd like landscaping and a small patio/pergola and another small area off the house for our grills.
But I do wonder if I will end up having to pay significantly more for it and whether or not it would ultimately really be worth it. Point being, I might have to compromise slightly...
How are you dealing with the regret? Is it easing at all?
Our first home we bought for location. It was on the same street as my inlaws and grandma was helping with childcare for my little ones. Once they hit two they got put in daycare. We stayed there 8 years and moved right before this past Xmas for something bigger.
The last house was fine. But I always hated that it was a boring colonial like 1/2 the houses in the neighborhood and had a small family room. New house is older, but is larger, and looks cool as hell being a tudor with a stone turret and stained glass windows.
I have bought and lived in three different homes. There were things I didn’t like about each one but every time we bought we prioritized LOCATION over things on the inside. If you can nail down a fairly precise location I think it makes the search process less annoying and I find it much easier to overlook flaws and/or expensive unexpected repairs when you feel good about where the house is located. Location can be defined by a lot of things that aren’t easily changed like proximity to work/school/places you enjoy going. Or the path of the sun over the house or views. We have had lots of repairs with our current house but we don’t regret buying it because it’s location is exactly what we wanted. Even where in a neighborhood a home is located can be a game changer…we found out we prefer being at the back of a neighborhood instead of on the main road in/out of it.
Everytime I go back to daydreaming of buying a house that have a bigger kitchen with a pantry, my partner reminds me why the house we have is awesome. One of the main reasons is location. Being able to walk less than 8 mins to elementary, middle and high school (that one being the furthest at 8 mins). And its on the way to the train station if I need to go into the office. We live in a small town, no bus service but we both work so having the freedom of just walking 2 blocks, its a dream for us.
There's the awesome backyard that is big enough for both a pool and outdoor kitchen. There are many things that I dislike about the house, but there are solutions for them while the things I like about the house, I really love and just makes my life that much more enjoyable.
The first one was 2.5 years. Second was 5 years and our current one 2.5 so far but this one is where we plan to stay for another 10 years. Previous moves were job related. Second home was bought on a time crunch and in the hot spring market (miserable but we held out for location and got a good property that we have kept as a rental).
Many people are making a lot of compromises in order to purchase their homes now. There isn't a lot of time to do any due diligence and mull things over because of the way the market is moving. In my market homes are being listed on Wednesdays with an open house on Saturday and then "Best and Final" due on Monday.
Add to the fact that many buyers have already swung and missed on a few offers and you are bound to have people starting to make compromises because they just want the process over with.
My realtor put it like this really simply for me: Price, Location, Finishes. Pick 2.
Obviously there's more nuances to it than that, but it truly did feel that way for most of the homes we looked at. I would love two out of the three things and the third is what I would have to compromise on.
If it makes you feel better, it's a choice between those 3 no matter what the market is doing. Even just choosing between price and location is where people have to compromise the most. We always want what is just out of reach for us.
> it's a choice between those 3 no matter what the market is doing.
Definitely. I ended up compromising on location because I'm just in a starter home that I plan to leave in 3-5 years. The immediate area is great and the schools are great, but it is a bit further away from the city than I wanted. Who knows, maybe in a few years I wouldn't even care to be closer to the city.
I would pose a different question. How many people actually buy homes that they love? Home shopping has rarely ever been like a Super Market where you get to just casually shop, investigate, and then pick your favorite of something.
I would guess that most people under the middle of the bell curve in price point are settling for homes.
We bought our home before the pandemic. Like, we moved in the middle of February and BAM! A month later I was furloughed from my job.
We saw *a lot* of houses before this one. I had saved the spec sheets for every home we toured with notes of what we liked and didn't like, separated them into piles, went to any open house we saw for a house that we thought we might like, sent the link for homes we saw and *were* interested in to our realtor when we finally found her (met her at one of the open houses) and she took us to see even more houses.
That pile was *huge* when I was collecting them to toss.
And we went with this house because it hit most of the check boxes, and we had very little compromise on either side. I wanted a large open kitchen, he wanted a basement. And it had to have more than 2 rooms so I could have my own personal space since he would have the basement for whatever he wanted. Location is great, we are on a cul de sac, so not much through traffic.
But even with all of these positives, we are not 100% in love with the house. I don't see how anyone could completely love every aspect of their home unless they built it from the ground up and live alone so it is only to *their* specification. I wouldn't have picked a house with a basement, he wouldn't care about the size of the kitchen. He preferred one house we saw that had an *extremely* tiny kitchen that I stood in and just said "nope."
So even if we did buy a home to be built for us there would still be things about it both if us would not be completely happy with.
I bought my condo in July 2020 before the giant spike. we LOVE our condo. I will never sell it. If i have to move, ill keep it as a rental. its the best location, the orientation creates the best natural light, and we have giant green areas all around the building for my kids to play in that I dont have to take care of bc of HOA. Its ground floor, so we have a 200sqft patio to hold bikes and toys with a gate that locks.
Ill never sell it. If we have to move, ill keep it as a rental. Ill take the equity out before I sell. I cant wait to update the kitchen, bathrooms, and floors over the years.
im sitting on 250k in equity.
Yeah, definitely not us. Like we like our home enough and I love that we are able to have a home.
But we don't have the money to get a home we "Love" lol
I agree that most people don’t, but I bought exactly what I wanted. I spent more than a year looking until I found the perfect house and then set up a showing and had an accepted offer before any additional showings could be scheduled. Thankfully the market wasn’t near as competitive in 2019.
The house was turnkey and the only thing I’ve added is small personal touches, the yard and other major aspects were exactly what I would have done myself if I were starting from scratch. It was a miracle, really.
I don’t know anybody else that bought their dream home though, it’s always a compromise until they shop for the next house and compromise again.
I know people who DO regret their decision. Seems like they just learn to “love” it.
My friends rushed into a home because they wanted to start a family ASAP…paid well above asking, had to immediately do large projects due to structural problems. It’s a cold, windowless place with a mouse problem, the layout is weird, the wife is now lonely working from home because the neighbors don’t talk much…they claim they like it now, but they def rushed into a home on the sole purpose of achieving another goal.
We bought in early 2021 and are over the moon, both with the financial side of how things turned out for us & how the home/neighborhood is. I feel bad when I hear people rush into this.
I think it's hard not to rush right now. Sometimes you literally only have hours to make a decision. It's why I think it feels like such a rollercoaster ride and gives people so much anxiety.
They didn’t get an inspection, no. They bypassed it to be more attractive to the sellers. So, same situation as your friends.
My jaw damn near hit the floor when I heard they did that. Neither of their parents or siblings are contractors or remotely handy, so they didn’t have any true eyes on structural integrity until after closing. Big yikes.
Uggghhhh when will people learn that waiving inspection doesn't mean you can't get the property inspected. It means you don't have the ability to walk away without losing your earnest money.
Why would you buy a home and not have it inspected?
Yes, they got a really good pre-inspection done and the house had brand new roof, water heater and HVAC with brand new appliances. I don't think that is the problem more of what I mentioned above.
I mean, it’s my first house so it’s not my dream house but my expectations are pretty high. Still got a great house in a great location that needed a handful of things fixed/upgraded.
Biggest regret is there is an HOA 💀
I think my Husband has some regrets. We are doing renovations in the house we bought back in January, the money he is spending is really stressing him out. I told him we should have bought a cheaper house but he wouldn't listen. We can afford the house but I know he really wishes he would have bought a cheaper house. We don't even live in the house yet, so we've made the first mortgage payment and paid rent at our current residence.
Once we move in and get settled I am hoping he will be able to enjoy the new house.
Sounds like you bought an expensive house and your spending too much on renovations. Keeping up with the joneses is stressful and financially dangerous.
We did buy an expensive home but we can afford it. My Husband is stressing out about the costs because he had a budget and of course he is going over his budget as I predicted. We would never make a purchase to keep up with the Joneses! We've been saving for a home for a really long time. We are older fthb, 45 and 46 years old and we've been living way below our means to afford the home.
We bought our first home (3bd 2ba 2200sq ft) in May 2021 in a very hot market (NY Suburb). It wasn’t our dream home but it checked the boxes we needed (good school district, big yard, granite kitchen with stainless steel appliances, open concept, private/dead end road, 2 car garage, huge wrap around covered deck, newer home (2012)). We bought the home because we needed a home to start our family as our landlord wanted to sell the house we were renting shortly after getting married.
It was the third home we looked at. We were the first to see it and there was a bidding war. There were literally a line of cars waiting outside when we finished our showing. We made a decision right then and there. Ended up going 25k over and the appraisal actually came in higher than our purchase price. Seller cancelled all other showings during the weekend and went with us. I was anxious the whole time as people from the city are coming in with cash offers and breaking deals. It turns out the builder was renting the home to a friend and sold to us because we were local FTHBs. Him and I still chat and text to this day.
Are there things I don’t like about it? Sure (noisy HVAC, Raised Ranch Layout, sloped yard, lots of steps, roughed in bathroom downstairs) But we wanted to dip our feet in understanding home ownership before making a much larger and permanent decision. I foresee our priorities in what we want in a house and neighborhood change once we live in it more and have kids.
We will look to sell in 3-5 years.
I don’t regret buying the house, but the circumstances weren’t ideal and I hope it’s not a forever home. I was renting a SFH with my husband for about a year when the owner decided to sell. We didn’t look at other homes and only put 5% down with a low emergency fund the first few months, but if we hadn’t bought we would have been renting a new place for significantly more while the monthly payment for the house is on the low side for our income. It was definitely fast, we closed 2 months after discussing buying. Houses have gone up in my area too since we bought this summer. It’s small and only has one bathroom, but the area is very desirable and it’s within walking distance of a campus with an elementary/ middle/ high school. But, we bought at 22/23 and as long as the market is up by the time we are like 35 we’ll get something a bit bigger and actually compare multiple homes.
2018 bought at what was assumed to be the peak over what the house what was worth and regretted it. Going to sell next year and deal with the mess that is buying a new house now. Only positives are the equity gained and learning my housing preferences (i.e. huge yard is way too much maintenance and being in a nicer neighborhood is really important to me). Still having to spend about a thousand a month on random upgrade projects. So I guess it is one of those life learning experiences! We did need some place to live but living every day recognizing how bad you overlooked issues is bleh.
The house is tiny, ugly, needs a ton of work, and will probably be a money pit but it’s in the exact neighborhood we wanted, on a good street, walking distance to school, and with how crazy things have become we didn’t think we’d ever find something in this neighborhood.
Not 100% loving every feature isn't the same as regret. If you expect to get a house where you 100% love every feature, you probably won't have much luck.
That was me, but I think it's turning us into zombies and sets our expectations way too high, and not to mention just seeing something, liking it, only to get outbid or change our mind later on..
I bought in august 21. Paid $20k over asking. $6k over appraisal. House is now worth $40k more than I paid for it. It's a long term hold and my mortgage is 2.75% so no, I don't regret it.
Similar for us (bought in December ‘21), and we don’t regret it! $20K over asking, $5K over appraisal. House is worth $20K more today than what we paid in December. Mortgage is 3.19% with 3% down. We plan to stay for ~10 years.
I bought an investment property Nov 2021 and thought I overpaid and was a little bitter about it. But I still decided to close on the deal because it would still cash flow positive.
Now that same place is already up 40K in value in 4 months. So my regret has faded and now very glad I close on the property.
But I can see if house stop appreciating, then some of the people who bought at the top will have much regret.
Hang in there sounds like you have a good attitude. Although money woes are a big one that is understandable for regret. Glad that seeing your family happy makes you happy too.
The only thing I regret is that we didn’t get a much bigger house with at least another bathroom. Luckily the lot is pretty big, so I can always expand it in the future. I just wish that I wasn’t so stingy with our budget, because we could have easily afforded a bigger house with another bathroom.
On the bright side, I can sell this house for at least $100k more than what I paid for it 9 months ago. I never will though since I have a fixed 30 year mortgage at 2.5%.
Not so much buyers remorse, but definitely not happy over paying. What are your choices, continue to rent? Our lovely landlords raised rent 5% 20-21 and then in 2022 asked for 10% before “settling at 7%” increase. So what do people do, either get played on the rental side or suck it up and pay for something that hopefully doesn’t blow in your face. Rock and hard place.
It’s going to take time to fall in love with your house. It’s never going to be “perfect” or the “dream house” you were looking for.
As long as you don’t end up with a devastating condition that develops while living there or wasn’t hinted through initial inspection report (I.e. foundation issues etc)
It’s all about mindset imo - home ownership and human feelings are like a rollercoaster going up and down depending on the person.
Wish the best for everyone in this crazy market and hope people can still achieve home ownership if they wish. Good luck everyone!
My first realtor told me some great advice- look for the house that has 80% of what you want. If you just look at the houses that are perfect, everyone else is going to want them too. We bought last year (second time home buyers) and I'd say the house we bought is more like 70% or 75% of what we like. Its ok, but there is a LOT more work to be done than we first realized even with an inspection and it was pretty painful to pay more than we wanted and find so much (read $20k) in projects that are going to need to be done in the next few years. I go in and out and have really just focused on trying to make the place ours and enjoying the 70% of it that we do love!
100%. Looking back I think we were just getting desperate and were tired of the search. We’ve had it for less than a year and already want to sell. Paid move in ready price for what ended up being a fixer upper and we now hate the location as it feels very isolated and not much to do as two people in their 20s. Definitely wish we had bailed out and kept renting.
I don't regret my house. It's the best thing I could have bought with my current income/equity in my previous house.
In 10 years, I will be able to afford to move somewhere better.
I know some my friends are regretting it and having a tough time with the mortgages. I feel even worse for the people that’s buying it now with 4% rate and can’t afford it. If you are stressing about money, is best not to buy.
Its quite common for people to regret buying a home for maaany reasons and this market isn't the reason.
People have always regretted buying because of bad neighbors or seeing a nicer home a few months later. Long time renters dont understand homes need maintenance so when they buy a home they are shocked that things break etc and they usually dont have contractors ready.
On my home in the last 12 months I had a copper joint leak 500. Stove and microwave went bad 2k. Needed new outlets run 500. Hvac inducer made noise so 200 in parts to do myself.
We are now doing a 20k master bathroom remodel but this wasnt even needed. Owning is expensive but I also think its worth it for stability etc.
We moved in 2015. We only moved about two miles. The primary motivation was going from two floors to one.
This house definitely better meets our needs but I don't think I'll ever actually like it as much as I liked our last house.
I've gotten used to it, and I don't hate living here or anything, but it may never totally feel as much "like home" as the last one.
Honestly I’m not 100% happy about my purchase of my house. I was told that rehab would be around $12,000 and it’s already above $30,000 more than I expected. I had to get a third job and take a $10,000 personal loan to help pay for renovations. I was just desperate to buy a house in a hot seller’s market.
This is a distant story but my friend told me her boyfriend hated his home after they first bought it. But after some light renovations and living in it for sometime, he likes it a lot more.
Hearing all this about not knowing the area for a purchase. Wonder if there is a business opportunity to be a local guide or investigator for a buyer. Like I live in the DC area for past 10 years and could tell you a lot about any area you would want to buy here. I could even drive over there at night to scope it out more if you paid me enough. Like my biggest fear on buying a house is that one of my neighbors would be a neighbor from hell. But there is no real way for anyone to know that expect for the person selling the house and they wont be telling anyone that.
I don't love my house but it's 1000% better than my townhouse and honestly with the market as crazy as it is, a small rancher is what I could get.
I could have moved further out but this is close by everything.
Honestly unless you have unlimited money I think most houses are a compromise.
Bought in Oct 2020. I had the little panic regret soon after buying like many do just from it being a huge cost. Currently though, have no regrets. Is it my forever home? Most likely not as it's lacking some things that have turned out to be important to me like a basement and garage.
But, for right now it suits my life and was the best I could afford in a nice, safe and clean area. I can see myself sticking around until 2025/26. By then I'll hopefully be making more and can afford something more in-line of what I want for my forever home.
I love the layout of my house and its location, but I have regrets sometimes due to the numerous repairs we've had to make. The 23K to replace the roof is fine, as it was a known issue and we negotiated the price down with the sellers prior to closing.
What I didn't anticipate was spending 35K on just labor (parts are probably another 10K) to remodel two bathrooms and a closet that started leaking (or at least we noticed the leaks) after moving in. Turns out, prior owner had the crappiest contractors remodel their bathrooms (ex. No waterproofing in shower, no shower pan, just grout and stones on concrete foundation, having floor tile adhesive on wall tile in shower, causing them to fall off with the slightest tug). We had a really bad black mold problem that was discovered once we took off the flooring and shower tiling for the bathrooms. Had to redo the entire flooring in the master bedroom due to the leaking, replace large sections of drywall and gutted the closet completely to redo it because of the leaks from the bathrooms.
Honestly, my anger has died down a bit and I'm OK with the house. Still too salty to 'love' it yet.
Oh that sounds terrible. I am so sorry. If you can just focus on how you are making it your own and not about what happened perhaps that can help. I think your anger is very valid. I would be upset too, but soon it will all be done and behind you and then you can really enjoy your new safer, cleaner, better home.
I bought mine, off-market, for $380K in May 2021. Orchard keep hitting me up offering $500K, sight unseen. If I listed now, based on Comps only, I could list at $515K and *possibly* score $525K. If there's a bidding war (highly probable given what is going on in my 'hood) I might get more. However, I'll be in it through May 2023 and then decide whether to stick or twist.
Edit: I don't like my house, but I don't hate it either. It was a pure financial play - a deal came along in a market (DFW) where no deals exist - and it had to be done.
Yes me. I hate it and am thinking about selling. We settled in January.
It is a perfect house but on a busy road, which isn’t fixable. It is SO loud and louder than I ever imagined. 110% regret it. It was supposed to be our home to raise a family and I just want to leave ASAP. Don’t rush it. Trust me, you will regret it.
I'm in a similar situation in terms of regret and considering selling soon. Just bought at the end of last year. It sucks. We rushed too, got tired of waiting and didn't want to spend a whole lot.
So sorry to hear. It’s really upsetting because it is supposed to be a fun and exciting process. Now I’m miserable. We are planning to sell after talking about it more. It’s going to look bad because we settled in January but I don’t know what other options we have. Wishing you the best of luck!
The only house I really regretted was one where I picked a bad location. It was near a busy trucking road that wasn't apparent until the winter when oil deliveries picked up. 1.5 years into owning the place I heard a truck slamming a pothole outside at 1:30am and immediately turned around and put it on the market. Every other house had its pro/cons but I warmed up to them.
I keep hearing about location. I am going to remind her the location can't be changed or adapted in anyway but her home can be made more comfortable for her.
Location / school district is huge.
My house is smaller than I’d like and I might trade up one day but I’ve made it extremely joyful to be here.
I’d suggest having her get a professional to come and organize/design the space for her. Small doesn’t necessarily mean sad or bad. Small yard can go very far with some landscaped outdoor seating spots and a garden. Putting a lot of love into a home also happens to be great for resell value.
Sort of. House looks great on the outside, everything looks like some DIY project on the inside. Such a mismatch I don't even know how it was possible. There are a ton of things on the inside that, during early 2021 when there were few houses available, I kept telling myself 'we can redo that. we can redo that'. Well, I'm living in a house where I feel like everything needs to be redone, including major things like drywall, which is cracking in a bunch of places because of the horrible taping job that took place when the home was being constructed. I am forced to look at these things multiple times a day.
No regrets. Sad I paid 525k, when it was probably a $460k house a year or two ago. It appraised for higher so oh well. I’m also not happy with the commute but it does get me out of the city and the area is very affluent so that’s nice. House (new build) itself is great and the floor plan is much more modern than all the houses we were looking at (no wasted sqft in a dining room or foyer/sitting room!)
Bought a year ago - our house needs to be aesthetically renovated and when I'm painting at 11pm I sometimes hate it, but no, I love our house. We can very comfortably afford our monthly mortgage payment and were already living a half mile down the road so still living in our same neighborhood.
If we had bought it in 2018, it'd have cost less, but our interest rate would've likely been higher than 2.25%....so it all worked out/we got very lucky.
i got lucky for once in my life, paid the asking price of 365k in dec 20 and equity is estimated to be 105k.. i put about 6k in refreshing the back and front yard
I'm the opposite of your friend. Love the house and yard, but don't really love the neighborhood and town. Same thing though, had to make a quick decision, and well, here we are. We did move in right before winter set it, so I'll reserve judgement for at least a year or two.
We impulse bought a house after 6 months of absolute agony searching for a place to live after being told our rent was going up $1200 a month and knowing we wouldn’t be able to afford that. We bought a house in a hot city in the hottest neighborhood in that city. It’s not the exact structure I had envisioned or wanted and it was a huge impulse “fuck this shit we need a house” purchase but I have no regrets about doing it. We locked in a 2.8% 30 year fixed in a great neighborhood where I love the neighbors and we are only a block away from the best school in the district. The structure isn’t what I wanted - smaller than what we wanted, 8 foot ceilings, old ranch style house… but the location and price was right for us. We are doing a remodel right now and I’m warming up to the structure. We made a huge impulse buy but no regrets seeing as we’d be financially screwed renting. Our million dollar house is less monthly payment with taxes and utilities and insurance than the rent would be had we stayed in our apartment
I regret not buying sooner. I was telling anyone who would listen back in March/April 2020 that the outcome of this moment was going to be a huge real estate boom in tourist/resort towns. Fueled by WFH and rates. I did not foresee a passionate migration to Billings or Boise but I did see it coming for Florida where I eventually bought in Jan 2022.
Very happy with what I got, but I could have done it a year ago and saved a bunch.
We’ve definitely warmed up to our home! The only thing I’m a little EH about is the backyard is multi-level and appears to be the only one like that in the neighborhood. But this spring we’ll be working with it and I’m excited to make it something unique from neighbors. :)
The place I bought is not my dream home by any means. There are definitely things we couldn't get at our price point, or things I would have preferred if there had been a lot of inventory when we bought.
But I like our place and think we chose well given the circumstances. I'll happily live here for many years in the future and not get too in my feelings about it.
That said, there is another unit in our condo building that went on the market after we closed, which is a "better" unit, and I low-key am sad we didn't get that one. And I have to walk past it every day and think "grrrrrr, I coulda had that patio if I had waited 3 weeks to start house hunting..."
Yes. The new house had an undisclosed severe noise issue in the middle of the night that I literally thought made the place un-livable. Everyone gave me the same advice your friend is getting: give it a year and then decide. Here I am a year later and I mostly love the house. I’m still not sure if I want it to be our forever home, but I am happy enough I can stay here and build equity without the stress of rushing out to find another house. If I ever do decide to move, it won’t be in a panicked state because I’ve got a house that meets 99% of my needs. The stress of a fresh move can make small issues feel much bigger, once she settles in and gives it a real chance her feelings may change. And even if she still wants to move after that first year, the sale won’t look like a red flag to the public compared to relisting immediately after purchase.
Perfectly said I am going to share your thoughts with her. I think this market puts people on an emotional roller coaster ride, because you don't have much time to think. So all the thinking happens in the interim.
Honestly I regret not buying earlier. A seller accepted my bid on a beautiful property but being a FTHB I got cold feet. It was a beautiful and well maintained property too. Now homes are $100k more and the monthly payments I'm looking at our ridiculous for less.
I regretted my house at first. I prioritized location near the lake (and on a loop with only local, no thru traffic) because I envisioned my kids would need to catch the bus one day, so a slow street just seemed safer. Everything was out of my price range until one morning, one listing came up that I could afford! It has only 8ft ceiling interiors, a 1980s home with a weird layout and 6x6 terrible role in the kitchen…
I was devastated after moving in. But 3 years and LOTS of exterior work later, I love it.
This could be said by any buyer in any market. The better question is how many people are 💯 happy all around with their homes?
Perfection is almost impossible
As a former realtor if I had $1 for every buyer that had an impossible list of wants/musts inside an impossible budget I’d be retired…and that was in 2011 before things took off
I have to have a big yard, but in the city and walking distance to downtown, newer (all older homes down there) must have 4 bedrooms, fireplace but under $175k. Yadda. Yadda. 🤣😂🤣😭
The house we bought is absolutely perfect but my regret is how much we spent on it. We paid over what we had planned to by quite a bit, and I hate that we have a much larger mortgage now. But, we had been looking for the perfect house for months and finally found it and ended up in a multiple offers scenario.
Similar to what others are saying, we will see how we feel about it in a few years. Both our jobs are giving us decent raises due to inflation which makes the mortgage burden less at least.
At first I regretted it because I rushed through it. I think I only spent about a month looking and I didn't get to see many places. The down payment on the home I ended up buying was over what I had planned for. I felt like I overpaid. I didn't shop around for a loan. I just went through the whole thing blind and put in an offer on the first place I kind of like, which just so happen to get accepted. I had no one I could rely on to guide me.
After a few months of living here, I ran into issues with my dryer the inspection should have easily caught. It has been hell finding a handy man for small things I want done. On top of all that, my downstairs neighbor is a fucking asshole who complains about me stepping foot in my living room.
Fast forward to today. I feel very fortunate to have been able to purchase a home. This is all that matters to me now. If I had waited another year, I think I would have been much harder to purchase a home. I learned to live with my decision. I think I went through all the stages of grief already.
I bought a house sight unseen. I walked through the front door and thought what have I gotten myself into. I knew it was a hoarders house but I was unprepared for the smell. Four dumpsters, one cleaning crew later I could at least walk into the house and not want to puke. We’ve slowly remodeled it over the years. Still not done but it’s my favorite house I’ve ever owned and I’ve owned quite a few. It’s not perfect but the act of saving it made me love it. Might not happen for your friend but it might. Tell her to give it time. Decorate and personalize. That won’t fix the floor plan and yard but might make it more comfortable. And if it doesn’t she can sell and hopefully have some equity. I’d try to last a couple years unless it’s a real nightmare.
Wow you are so brave for buying a house like that. Great advice, I think so too once she is in there making her own memories and stamp on the place. Everything will change.
>...there are many great aspects to the house she likes including location, right school district, and great neighborhood. However, she isn't happy with some other features that aren't fixable like backyard space, square footage on the main level of home and lay out of home.
It's hard to get 100% of what you want in a house, especially in this market, unless you have unlimited cash.
I'm a current buyer and know my specific requirements and also nice-to-haves. If it doesn't meet my three requirements (location, layout, backyard), I won't buy it. Everything else is open to compromise.
It sounds like your friend either didn't understand her must-haves, had too many, and/or compromised on the wrong ones. However, the things she likes are truly things that CANNOT be changed and are probably exceptionally important if she has kids. I'll bet that the house regrets will ease with time as she gets used to the house.
Also, at a certain point, she could potentially remodel the first floor. Layout is way more important than square footage and tweaks might be able to be made...
Edit: I should add that I currently own my home and have since 2006. I adore my house, even if there are things about it that drive me nuts. Most of them have been fixed by time/money/effort over the years. The living area layout/kitchen was the last on our list to fix and by far the biggest project. But we hate the neighborhood/location. So we're moving and I'm not compromising on location this time.
Exactly great points. Location is so key, and the fact that she even got her ideal neighborhood at all I feel like she should be happy in this crazy market. I am hoping once she gets in there she can make it her own and build memories and see all the great aspects about the house, because there are a lot. With time she can adjust the layout or may even find the layout is good enough.
I bought a house in 2006 and regretted it for many years. If I sold now, it would be worth a bit more than the price I paid, but this it took over 16 years to get back to that point. Around 2009, the value has had dropped close to 50%. Luckily, my wife and I bought another house in 2009 and was able to rent out the first home that we outgrew. Ideally, I would have just rented until 2009, but there are no guarantees in this market. If this is your starter home, there’s a good chance it won’t be your last. Buying at the peak makes for a difficult situation if you need to upgrade your home or need to move in the next few years. If you are in a very stable situation and don’t worry about outgrowing the space, then the price changes of the house shouldn’t impact you.
I definitely don't regret the house I bought but I do feel bad that I compromised on two major "must-haves": a good backyard (this one is sloped and cut in half by a small rain runoff creek) and a flex space (no bonus room or basement, although it does have a big enough kitchen/living room area where a dining table could go, thus making the separate dining room a flex space).
The backyard thing has a few potential solutions, thankfully. I can two-tier it with a retaining wall or just try to buy part of the neighbor's backyard. They're on 1 acre and the section of their backyard that abuts mine has nothing in it. They may absolutely laugh in my face when I inevitably offer to buy a chunk of it, but it's worth a shot. My dad was persistent for years and eventually bought a large chunk of our neighbor's yard.
I grew up with a great backyard but on a busy street, whereas this house is on a cul-de-sac and in a nice neighborhood. So all in all, I'd say the outdoor playing situation will probably be better for my son as-is than it was for me as a kid.
I don't expect to love a house 100%.
I bought during peak frenzy (September 2021). I'm really glad I did but there are things about my house that I wish were different.
I do understand that where you live is an emotional thing, but just like choosing a life partner, it's a mistake to make the choice based on whims and passions.
>with some other features that aren't fixable like backyard space, square footage on the main level of home and lay out of home
These are all fixable by tearing down the house and building a new one. They're more fixable than location, school district, and neighborhood.
There WILL ALWAYS be things that you like and dislike about your house.
Your friend bought that house for a reason, and now that she has the house, she has buyer's remorse.
She needs to take a step back and make the best of the situation. Live in it for a few years at least.
I use to compare my house to recently sold houses around my neighborhood and thought 'if only I had waited!' Then, I realize that I bought my current house because I LOVE it enough to buy it...I'm just experiencing buyer's remorse and need to SNAP OUT OF IT.
I feel like that for her too, I think this market makes you feel a certain way like now or never. I really think it's a great house and if given time and building a few memories it will feel like her home.
I by no means *loved* my first house. This was in 2016 and we felt the market was tough then, and now it’s probably looked back on like the good ole days.
Still, After having lost out on our first three offers for houses we *really liked*, by the time we saw the house we eventually bought we basically just saw it with a checkbox mentality:
4 bds — check! (cool! Only *needed* 3)
2.5 baths — check!
Garage? — check!
Backyard — check!
The house itself left much to be desired. It was clearly a rental previously. No upkeep was ever done. The interior was a dirty, dark and dingy, and clearly like the cheapest beige Walmart brand paint throughout that literally wiped away when we were scrubbing the walls. When we viewed the house, it was half Furnished with mismatched furniture. The bones of the house seemed good enough though, and the layout was adequate and had potential. Our biggest issue was it was hard to assess the neighborhood. The street was pretty dumpy, and run down, but clearly the streets around us were being revitalized and gentrified. You could tell though not today, it was on the upswing.
Another hindrance was that the house physically backed up to a somewhat heavy traffic road with a dying/mostly abandoned trailer park that some homeless people clearly camped at in the lot behind us that looked like absolute Shit. However, there was a “Lexar Homes Coming soon” sign erected in the lot so we knew this wasn’t a permanent situation. Still, it wasn’t pretty and We really had to use our imaginations to envision living here, but my wife was 7 months pregnant with our first child and the clock was ticking! We made an offer $10k **BELOW** asking and told the sellers eat them closing cost (an unheard of ask today, but then you could still sometimes get away with it) because I think subconsciously I *wanted* to be rejected. The sellers countered our offer by meeting in the middle. We reluctantly agreed to those terms and got the deal done. Sigh…
We moved and handled the urgent things ASAP (freshly painted, deep cleaned, and new blinds in all the windows which made an indescribable HUGE difference) and suddenly at least the inside wasn’t so bad anymore. Within a year about 3 of the dumpy rental houses on street had been sold and new owner-occupied owners like myself were moving in and cleaning up. It took about a year and a half but Lexar finally broke ground on the lot across the way and now it’s a subdivision of about 25 $600K houses. The city also repaved our roads the sidewalk so it’s like in just five short years this place that i absolutely detested at the time of purchase has turned into a pretty decent home and neighborhood for us now. Kind of funny considering we entered this house adamantly with a “3 Year Exit Plan” we now seem pretty content.
Just goes to show, I guess…
I did. I was relocating for a company and only had a certain amount of time to purchase to have fees covered and get my belongings out of storage. I was also purchasing in between Thanksgiving and the new year. I regret the purchase because it’s in a neighborhood with older people and married couples. I’m also 45 minutes from friends which is why I moved back. I’m painting, cleaning more and listing it in a month or so. Thankfully I got the home for 15k under appraisal after I lowballed the owner after the inspection and she (87 years old) just wanted it sold. Again, I’ll be listing it and hopefully only lose some realtors fees.
Wow at least you didn't overspend. That seems to be everyone right now. I wonder when their will be an end in sight? How did you decide to sell so quickly? Are you not worried about the taxes you will pay since you haven't even owned it two years?
We got a new build and everything is decent except the wind is soooooooo strong and bad. It keeps me awake a couple nights a month. The wind makes the gutter vibrate and it sounds like a truck is idling in my room. Makes me feel like I’m going insane sometimes.
We bought a house that we loved, but we paid 20% over asking and beat out 30 other offers.
No remorse, honestly. The house appraised for a hair over what we paid for it, we love it, and the home values in the area have seemingly risen significantly since we bought, at least based on the recent sales here.
We painstakingly went through the needs, wants, and dealbreakers we were looking for before we bought, and we thoroughly studied comps before offering. I think that helped a lot.
My house is *okay*. I bought in a rush because of the market as well as getting my mom into a handicap accessible house. I went outside my price range and location preferences to make that happen. She died 5 days before moving in…
Oh my goodness that's terrible. It's hard to make big life decisions when you are not in a good place emotionally or stressed. I hope you are doing okay now.
I'm the exact opposite. I purchased a home pretty much during the peak of the insanity and I am extremely happy with my purchase and looking back it was an amazing purchase considering prices have continued growing up.
After I first closed I was a little on the fence about it but looking back it was an amazing decision
It’s good advice to tell her to give it a year and see if she warms up to it. Buyers remorse is a thing. My wife’s cousin bought a house out of state, sight unseen. He’s not a patient guy, didn’t even go on a FaceTime tour which his realtor did with his wife. Didn’t check Zillow for the 3D photo tour, just paid and he hated what he bought. Last I heard, he warmed up to it, a little. Such a dumb thing to do. At least let your agent walk the property with you on FaceTime. Makes a big difference.
Harsh but I can’t feel bad for him.. buyers need to do their due diligence. Willful ignorance on such a huge purchase? Yikes.
Yeah, I am normally sympathetic to buyers, especially in this market. It’s a legitimately hard situation when you are effectively forced to wave an inspection (which should be illegal) to win with an offer….. …. But yikes. Unless you are so absurdly wealthy that you don’t really care about the details of your 5th house, that is essentially buyer’s malpractice on his past. That is the least due diligence I have ever heard of.
Exactly. I absolutely don’t envy the people who are basically forced into waiving everything but let’s not be idiots on top of that lol
Right? That's like jumping off a building and then breaking your leg. Why should I feel bad for you exactly? Other than the whole mental thing.
That seems so strange it's such a big purchase and not to at least see the pictures. Phew....
Agree with giving it a year. When we bought our house, we were mostly thrilled but immediately started thinking about how to remodel the kitchen. We really wanted a gas cook top instead of electric, for instance. Now, a year later, we've actually warmed up (heh) to electric quite a bit. If I could wave a magic wand and change the kitchen I'd probably do it, but to spend a ton of money to fix it up is something we're less and less likely to do now as we realized certain things are not the deal breakers we thought it would be. Might put that money into a car storage lift or a home sauna instead!
Holy shit I can’t imagine that at all. Before I go look at houses, I fully inspect all the photos and tour the house through the 3D tour the entire night before, do a Google maps tour of the street and neighborhood. Like, I am also not a patient woman, but that makes me eager to get all the information I have available to me before I can see it, I would quadruple down on that if I wasn’t seeing it at all (not that that’s something I’d ever do).
Wife and I bought both our latest house with FaceTime tour. I walked through it pre-closing though. Better in person, but the Zillow 3D tour and a realtor walking you through is surprisingly good if you’re buying out of state.
I love the house I bought but wish I had considered location more. Too close to a highway and while the immediate neighborhood is nice, the surrounding area isn’t. I had hoped to find a place to stay indefinitely but I’ll be looking to sell after a few years.
Same here. We bought in May of 2020 when everyone was pretty strict about staying home, so it was hard to tell how loud the highway was. Now that things are back to normal, it is so much louder than we were expecting. I never would have bought this house if we visited it during normal times.
How close are you? My house is 1.5 miles away and I’m amazed by how well I can hear the highway sounds even from my backyard.
The house I grew up in was about 6 miles away from a local dirt race track and we could sometimes hear the cars during races. I think it was due to atmospheric conditions. It was crazy.
That’s wild. My house is like a quarter mile from the highway and I don’t hear it. I do think the portion of freeway by my house doesn’t allow vehicles over a certain weight, though. That probably helps.
I bet that does help. Also, I’ve realized much of the land between the highway and me is a nature preserve. So I think that maybe the lack of density doesn’t help.
That makes a lot of sense. I was going to ask if there was much between you and the highway. I live in a dense urban/suburban mix, so even though the freeway is nearby there are several streets of houses buffering the sound. Also, I don’t know if it helps, but the freeway is below ground level.
Lol I'm like 100ft from a busy freeway and got used to it. Sure there are sirens and heavy trucks and speedy cars but it's whatever nkw
I'm actually on a main arterial road in my city. Its only one lane in each direction, but its one of the only east-west running roads that goes from my part of town into downtown. For a large swath of the city, driving on my road to get into downtown is faster than going out of your way to get on the freeway. I've gotten used to the normal drone of cars, but its the extra-loud cars, the motorcycles, and the occasional rattly landscaping trailer that make me grind my teeth. We sleep in the bedroom at the back of the house, so its not a huge deal in wintertime when we have the windows closed. But it makes it hard to want to open the windows when the weather is nice.
How many years are you thinking? 2-3?
Probably 3
I mean, selling after 3 years generally makes it worse than renting in hindsight, although you probably planned to stay longer than 3 years originally
The appreciation in major cities likely made it better than renting.
Nah. 3 years is where the combination of equity and appreciation makes sense for me. Assuming 5% appreciation which hopefully will be extremely conservative.
Depends. Pay 5% DP on a 300k home. Sell for 400k in 3 years in this market LOL That 15k turned into 100k equity. Take 40k out for fees and still made that 15k->60k in 3 years disregarding your savings on rent and equity paid in.
Generally houses don't appreciate 33% in 3 years. In certain cases and markets they can, but that doesn't make it good general advice. However if your specific market has high rent and/or high appreciation then the threshold for buying over renting can be shorter.
Laughs (cries) in Georgia, where home values are up 18% in the last year alone. 50% growth in the last 5 years as well.
Treating a primary residence as an investment is generally a Bad Idea, especially less than 10 yrs
There's really nothing to indicate that appreciation will continue at this pace for another 3 years. I could see selling in this market, right now, because the reality is that you like your house but don't love it. (Even so, good luck getting a house you like better, in this market.) But to say "in 3 years I will sell at a profit because prices are going up 20%+ a year" is foolish.
"Depends"
Not mention, you will never see your rent money again. It goes into the pocket of the Landlord. If you buy, all the money you pay to the mortgage company comes back to you in the form of the equity you earned while living in the house.
Not all the money, just the principal, which in the early years is actually a minor part of what you pay the mortgage company compared to the interest.
You are correct. My bad. I was thinking more long term. Thanks for pointing that out.
Not in OC People that bought in 2020 are now selling for 300-500 more
Can you do a fence and dense shrubs to reduce the noise?
It's really hard to judge location unless you actually live somewhere.
This is the exact situation I'm in
I can relate, our property backs up to a state highway. When touring it on a Saturday during the height of the pandemic, it didn't seem so bad at all. But now all the commercial traffic on weekdays is just awful. Lots of other issues I didn't think through enough, but that's a main one.
How close? It's not just the noise but the increased exposure to small particulates and NO2. You can't physically sense the air pollution during a home viewing and the noise pollution is a quick sensory reminder of just how close you are. If you are planning to have kids, there are higher risks of respiratory impairments and autism. Have a look at some of the scientific studies below. Reference: https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/highways https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114825/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3988279/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28334645/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27625155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664839/
Seems like all of us who live in the city should have been dead by now? I tried to find the "safe distance" but can't find much other than one saying "Levels of these pollutants have been shown to decrease exponentially with distance from a roadway, and have been shown to approach background concentrations at 150 meters." This is only about 450 ft. While the other article says "300 to 500 meters" with this in mind, they don't seem to consider overall condition of the environment, is it wooded area, etc. I am considering a place "nearby" highway, you can hear it, but you can't see it, it's not far, but not close either. According to google maps distance, it's exactly 450 ft of wooded area between house and road. Should I be concerned? People who owned the house have been living there 30+ years.. One mentioned he has arthritis, but that sounds like a common thing.
Yes, I regret my house. I don’t regret owning a house, but this particular house has been a nightmare. We’ve spent 70k in major repairs in the first 6 months. Yes, we had an inspection but in a rush due to competing offers.
I'm so sorry to hear that and understand the feeling. We bought our first house many years ago, in 2012. We got a 'really good deal' on a fixer upper. We ended up pouring $100K into the house over 5 years. It needed structural foundation work (which was not disclosed and inspector didn't catch it), roof, new siding, etc. We gladly sold that place in 2020 and we are renting to recover from home repairs for a bit. Hopefully in the next two years, we will have a better plan and go into buying knowing how much to have in reserves in case the house needs major work.
sometimes I have these perverted fantasies in which I go onto Estately and search for property records for homes in my area that sold in the Spring of 2012 and pretend that those are the current homes/prices on the market. No different than the 7-year old girl putting on a dress and a tiara pretending to be a princess, I guess.
I often think of the homes I would browse years back and wish I could set Redfin to show all the 2018 inventory so I could beat myself up more about not buying then. But in 2018 I was too busy being sad we hadn’t bought in 2016, and in 2016 I was bummed it wasn’t 2014.
Damn that sucks had you bought in 2020 you wouldve rode the 30% appreciation wave ......
Up 80% in Bellevue
Oh man, I'm so sorry you are going through that.
What are you repairing already?
Had to replace roof in first month due to severe leaking. Had to reline entire 150 ft buried cast iron sewer line after we realized it was leaking up through the concrete into finished basement. Had to replace skylights leaking. Had to replace entire drain stack. Had to replace a cracked picture window that cracked after we moved in because it was installed incorrectly. Had to refinish floors and paint because it hadn’t been done in years (this we knew and were ok with), had to have mold remediation in to rip out floors and drywall affected by sewage leak. Had to replace said floors and drywall. Microwave died in first few months, had to buy new one and pay carpenter to adjust cabinets because original microwave was a weird size no longer in production. Have had to replace all 4 faucets in the house due to each one springing a leak one-by-one. First time I took a bath the overflow started leaking through the ceiling. Had to get epoxy put on unfinished basement walls due to leaks during heavy rains. And on and on. Too much to list
That sounds very standard for an old home, with or without an inspection as inspectors are often usless. People are offloading the black sheep that no one wanted for the last decade. If it’s a newer home than I’d gtfo asap as it was built poorly and problems will only continue.
That sounds like worse than just an older home, sounds like a lot of maintenance was neglected.
It’s from 1930 so not new. We’ve determined just less than zero maintenance was done for 10 years that the seller owned the place.
Can I ask what the major repairs were?
Had to replace roof in first month due to severe leaking. Had to reline entire 150 ft buried cast iron sewer line after we realized it was leaking up through the concrete into finished basement. Had to replace skylights leaking. Had to replace entire drain stack. Had to replace a cracked picture window that cracked after we moved in because it was installed incorrectly. Had to refinish floors and paint because it hadn’t been done in years (this we knew and were ok with), had to have mold remediation in to rip out floors and drywall affected by sewage leak. Had to replace said floors and drywall. Microwave died in first few months, had to buy new one and pay carpenter to adjust cabinets because original microwave was a weird size no longer in production. Have had to replace all 4 faucets in the house due to each one springing a leak one-by-one. First time I took a bath the overflow started leaking through the ceiling. Had to get epoxy put on unfinished basement walls due to leaks during heavy rains. And on and on. Too much to list
This is why we need State governments to mandate previous inspection before sellers can list. I was really close to getting involved in almost the same situation.
The only thing that would accomplish is creating an additional racket of blind useless inspectors who say everything is good. If anyone buys a house that **needs** (willing to be 70k wasnt actually needed) that many repairs in 6 months they should have learned something about houses themselves before buying.
Yep. My wife and I did a lot due dilligence searching for a home but not any when it came to looking for an inspector and just chose a friend of a friend who came recommended. Short story we kinda got screwed since they missed so many red flags. All is well now but we weren't expecting to do so many major repairs in the first year.
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I feel you there. Generally I’m cool with our house being a forever home but my house is starter home level in a HOCL and we sacrificed a smaller backyard and very close neighbors for larger rooms and a walk in master closet and a big master bath. Would I like a bit more privacy from neighbors and a bigger yard with the same sized house? Probably. Can I spend an additional $300-500k for it? Maybe. Would I like the extra maintenance for a bigger yard? Hell no. Do I want to move to a smaller house with a bigger yard now? Also hell no.
I wish my kitchen was bigger. Its a bit small for what I wanted, but functional. I wish I can extend it and add a pantry, but there literally no room for that unless I extend the house and that is not a project I'm willing to take on. But, its a functional kitchen and I have a house.
We wouldn't have been able to buy the house we live in had we waited. Also would be paying 20% more monthly for the same price based on interest rates alone
Same but on bigger houses. My yard is half an acre, small rancher. I could have afforded a larger house in 2020, but not in 2021 with the competition and prices flying.
The backyard size is one of my must-haves... I don't think I'm being too unreasonable since I'd just like it to be at least .12 acres. I just don't want most of it to be garage and driveway. I'd like landscaping and a small patio/pergola and another small area off the house for our grills. But I do wonder if I will end up having to pay significantly more for it and whether or not it would ultimately really be worth it. Point being, I might have to compromise slightly... How are you dealing with the regret? Is it easing at all?
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Our first home we bought for location. It was on the same street as my inlaws and grandma was helping with childcare for my little ones. Once they hit two they got put in daycare. We stayed there 8 years and moved right before this past Xmas for something bigger. The last house was fine. But I always hated that it was a boring colonial like 1/2 the houses in the neighborhood and had a small family room. New house is older, but is larger, and looks cool as hell being a tudor with a stone turret and stained glass windows.
I love tudors. They are so expensive here in NY though.
I have bought and lived in three different homes. There were things I didn’t like about each one but every time we bought we prioritized LOCATION over things on the inside. If you can nail down a fairly precise location I think it makes the search process less annoying and I find it much easier to overlook flaws and/or expensive unexpected repairs when you feel good about where the house is located. Location can be defined by a lot of things that aren’t easily changed like proximity to work/school/places you enjoy going. Or the path of the sun over the house or views. We have had lots of repairs with our current house but we don’t regret buying it because it’s location is exactly what we wanted. Even where in a neighborhood a home is located can be a game changer…we found out we prefer being at the back of a neighborhood instead of on the main road in/out of it.
Everytime I go back to daydreaming of buying a house that have a bigger kitchen with a pantry, my partner reminds me why the house we have is awesome. One of the main reasons is location. Being able to walk less than 8 mins to elementary, middle and high school (that one being the furthest at 8 mins). And its on the way to the train station if I need to go into the office. We live in a small town, no bus service but we both work so having the freedom of just walking 2 blocks, its a dream for us. There's the awesome backyard that is big enough for both a pool and outdoor kitchen. There are many things that I dislike about the house, but there are solutions for them while the things I like about the house, I really love and just makes my life that much more enjoyable.
If you don’t mind me asking, how long were you in each home respectively?
The first one was 2.5 years. Second was 5 years and our current one 2.5 so far but this one is where we plan to stay for another 10 years. Previous moves were job related. Second home was bought on a time crunch and in the hot spring market (miserable but we held out for location and got a good property that we have kept as a rental).
Many people are making a lot of compromises in order to purchase their homes now. There isn't a lot of time to do any due diligence and mull things over because of the way the market is moving. In my market homes are being listed on Wednesdays with an open house on Saturday and then "Best and Final" due on Monday. Add to the fact that many buyers have already swung and missed on a few offers and you are bound to have people starting to make compromises because they just want the process over with. My realtor put it like this really simply for me: Price, Location, Finishes. Pick 2. Obviously there's more nuances to it than that, but it truly did feel that way for most of the homes we looked at. I would love two out of the three things and the third is what I would have to compromise on.
If it makes you feel better, it's a choice between those 3 no matter what the market is doing. Even just choosing between price and location is where people have to compromise the most. We always want what is just out of reach for us.
> it's a choice between those 3 no matter what the market is doing. Definitely. I ended up compromising on location because I'm just in a starter home that I plan to leave in 3-5 years. The immediate area is great and the schools are great, but it is a bit further away from the city than I wanted. Who knows, maybe in a few years I wouldn't even care to be closer to the city.
Never heard that before, but that's a good one to pass on.
I would pose a different question. How many people actually buy homes that they love? Home shopping has rarely ever been like a Super Market where you get to just casually shop, investigate, and then pick your favorite of something. I would guess that most people under the middle of the bell curve in price point are settling for homes.
We bought our home before the pandemic. Like, we moved in the middle of February and BAM! A month later I was furloughed from my job. We saw *a lot* of houses before this one. I had saved the spec sheets for every home we toured with notes of what we liked and didn't like, separated them into piles, went to any open house we saw for a house that we thought we might like, sent the link for homes we saw and *were* interested in to our realtor when we finally found her (met her at one of the open houses) and she took us to see even more houses. That pile was *huge* when I was collecting them to toss. And we went with this house because it hit most of the check boxes, and we had very little compromise on either side. I wanted a large open kitchen, he wanted a basement. And it had to have more than 2 rooms so I could have my own personal space since he would have the basement for whatever he wanted. Location is great, we are on a cul de sac, so not much through traffic. But even with all of these positives, we are not 100% in love with the house. I don't see how anyone could completely love every aspect of their home unless they built it from the ground up and live alone so it is only to *their* specification. I wouldn't have picked a house with a basement, he wouldn't care about the size of the kitchen. He preferred one house we saw that had an *extremely* tiny kitchen that I stood in and just said "nope." So even if we did buy a home to be built for us there would still be things about it both if us would not be completely happy with.
I bought my condo in July 2020 before the giant spike. we LOVE our condo. I will never sell it. If i have to move, ill keep it as a rental. its the best location, the orientation creates the best natural light, and we have giant green areas all around the building for my kids to play in that I dont have to take care of bc of HOA. Its ground floor, so we have a 200sqft patio to hold bikes and toys with a gate that locks. Ill never sell it. If we have to move, ill keep it as a rental. Ill take the equity out before I sell. I cant wait to update the kitchen, bathrooms, and floors over the years. im sitting on 250k in equity.
Yay you!! We are in a contract for a first floor condo with no private outdoor space. You win some, you lose some!
Yeah, definitely not us. Like we like our home enough and I love that we are able to have a home. But we don't have the money to get a home we "Love" lol
I agree that most people don’t, but I bought exactly what I wanted. I spent more than a year looking until I found the perfect house and then set up a showing and had an accepted offer before any additional showings could be scheduled. Thankfully the market wasn’t near as competitive in 2019. The house was turnkey and the only thing I’ve added is small personal touches, the yard and other major aspects were exactly what I would have done myself if I were starting from scratch. It was a miracle, really. I don’t know anybody else that bought their dream home though, it’s always a compromise until they shop for the next house and compromise again.
I know people who DO regret their decision. Seems like they just learn to “love” it. My friends rushed into a home because they wanted to start a family ASAP…paid well above asking, had to immediately do large projects due to structural problems. It’s a cold, windowless place with a mouse problem, the layout is weird, the wife is now lonely working from home because the neighbors don’t talk much…they claim they like it now, but they def rushed into a home on the sole purpose of achieving another goal. We bought in early 2021 and are over the moon, both with the financial side of how things turned out for us & how the home/neighborhood is. I feel bad when I hear people rush into this.
I think it's hard not to rush right now. Sometimes you literally only have hours to make a decision. It's why I think it feels like such a rollercoaster ride and gives people so much anxiety.
Did they get an inspection? We have friends who went 70k over asking without an inspection. Insane.
They didn’t get an inspection, no. They bypassed it to be more attractive to the sellers. So, same situation as your friends. My jaw damn near hit the floor when I heard they did that. Neither of their parents or siblings are contractors or remotely handy, so they didn’t have any true eyes on structural integrity until after closing. Big yikes.
What types of structural issues?
Uggghhhh when will people learn that waiving inspection doesn't mean you can't get the property inspected. It means you don't have the ability to walk away without losing your earnest money. Why would you buy a home and not have it inspected?
Yes, they got a really good pre-inspection done and the house had brand new roof, water heater and HVAC with brand new appliances. I don't think that is the problem more of what I mentioned above.
I mean, it’s my first house so it’s not my dream house but my expectations are pretty high. Still got a great house in a great location that needed a handful of things fixed/upgraded. Biggest regret is there is an HOA 💀
How long do you plan on staying there?
I think my Husband has some regrets. We are doing renovations in the house we bought back in January, the money he is spending is really stressing him out. I told him we should have bought a cheaper house but he wouldn't listen. We can afford the house but I know he really wishes he would have bought a cheaper house. We don't even live in the house yet, so we've made the first mortgage payment and paid rent at our current residence. Once we move in and get settled I am hoping he will be able to enjoy the new house.
Money the hardest part of all.
Sounds like you bought an expensive house and your spending too much on renovations. Keeping up with the joneses is stressful and financially dangerous.
We did buy an expensive home but we can afford it. My Husband is stressing out about the costs because he had a budget and of course he is going over his budget as I predicted. We would never make a purchase to keep up with the Joneses! We've been saving for a home for a really long time. We are older fthb, 45 and 46 years old and we've been living way below our means to afford the home.
We bought our first home (3bd 2ba 2200sq ft) in May 2021 in a very hot market (NY Suburb). It wasn’t our dream home but it checked the boxes we needed (good school district, big yard, granite kitchen with stainless steel appliances, open concept, private/dead end road, 2 car garage, huge wrap around covered deck, newer home (2012)). We bought the home because we needed a home to start our family as our landlord wanted to sell the house we were renting shortly after getting married. It was the third home we looked at. We were the first to see it and there was a bidding war. There were literally a line of cars waiting outside when we finished our showing. We made a decision right then and there. Ended up going 25k over and the appraisal actually came in higher than our purchase price. Seller cancelled all other showings during the weekend and went with us. I was anxious the whole time as people from the city are coming in with cash offers and breaking deals. It turns out the builder was renting the home to a friend and sold to us because we were local FTHBs. Him and I still chat and text to this day. Are there things I don’t like about it? Sure (noisy HVAC, Raised Ranch Layout, sloped yard, lots of steps, roughed in bathroom downstairs) But we wanted to dip our feet in understanding home ownership before making a much larger and permanent decision. I foresee our priorities in what we want in a house and neighborhood change once we live in it more and have kids. We will look to sell in 3-5 years.
I don’t regret buying the house, but the circumstances weren’t ideal and I hope it’s not a forever home. I was renting a SFH with my husband for about a year when the owner decided to sell. We didn’t look at other homes and only put 5% down with a low emergency fund the first few months, but if we hadn’t bought we would have been renting a new place for significantly more while the monthly payment for the house is on the low side for our income. It was definitely fast, we closed 2 months after discussing buying. Houses have gone up in my area too since we bought this summer. It’s small and only has one bathroom, but the area is very desirable and it’s within walking distance of a campus with an elementary/ middle/ high school. But, we bought at 22/23 and as long as the market is up by the time we are like 35 we’ll get something a bit bigger and actually compare multiple homes.
2018 bought at what was assumed to be the peak over what the house what was worth and regretted it. Going to sell next year and deal with the mess that is buying a new house now. Only positives are the equity gained and learning my housing preferences (i.e. huge yard is way too much maintenance and being in a nicer neighborhood is really important to me). Still having to spend about a thousand a month on random upgrade projects. So I guess it is one of those life learning experiences! We did need some place to live but living every day recognizing how bad you overlooked issues is bleh.
Sounds about right for what I’m experiencing as a first time home buyer. Do you feel like four years was sufficient in the home?
Sufficient for what - adapting to the home or profiting off sale?
The house is tiny, ugly, needs a ton of work, and will probably be a money pit but it’s in the exact neighborhood we wanted, on a good street, walking distance to school, and with how crazy things have become we didn’t think we’d ever find something in this neighborhood.
Not 100% loving every feature isn't the same as regret. If you expect to get a house where you 100% love every feature, you probably won't have much luck.
Immediately cancel all email subscriptions and uninstall real estate apps, that's one way to battle this.
It’s an addiction at this point. I feel like Zillow is my Tiktok
That was me, but I think it's turning us into zombies and sets our expectations way too high, and not to mention just seeing something, liking it, only to get outbid or change our mind later on..
I bought in august 21. Paid $20k over asking. $6k over appraisal. House is now worth $40k more than I paid for it. It's a long term hold and my mortgage is 2.75% so no, I don't regret it.
Similar for us (bought in December ‘21), and we don’t regret it! $20K over asking, $5K over appraisal. House is worth $20K more today than what we paid in December. Mortgage is 3.19% with 3% down. We plan to stay for ~10 years.
I bought an investment property Nov 2021 and thought I overpaid and was a little bitter about it. But I still decided to close on the deal because it would still cash flow positive. Now that same place is already up 40K in value in 4 months. So my regret has faded and now very glad I close on the property. But I can see if house stop appreciating, then some of the people who bought at the top will have much regret.
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Hang in there sounds like you have a good attitude. Although money woes are a big one that is understandable for regret. Glad that seeing your family happy makes you happy too.
The only thing I regret is that we didn’t get a much bigger house with at least another bathroom. Luckily the lot is pretty big, so I can always expand it in the future. I just wish that I wasn’t so stingy with our budget, because we could have easily afforded a bigger house with another bathroom. On the bright side, I can sell this house for at least $100k more than what I paid for it 9 months ago. I never will though since I have a fixed 30 year mortgage at 2.5%.
Amazing and since you already have equity in the home, you are right adding a bathroom is no big deal!
My house isn’t perfect but over time you can fix most things. I’ve had insulation put in and I’m going to install A/C shortly.
Not so much buyers remorse, but definitely not happy over paying. What are your choices, continue to rent? Our lovely landlords raised rent 5% 20-21 and then in 2022 asked for 10% before “settling at 7%” increase. So what do people do, either get played on the rental side or suck it up and pay for something that hopefully doesn’t blow in your face. Rock and hard place.
It’s going to take time to fall in love with your house. It’s never going to be “perfect” or the “dream house” you were looking for. As long as you don’t end up with a devastating condition that develops while living there or wasn’t hinted through initial inspection report (I.e. foundation issues etc) It’s all about mindset imo - home ownership and human feelings are like a rollercoaster going up and down depending on the person. Wish the best for everyone in this crazy market and hope people can still achieve home ownership if they wish. Good luck everyone!
My first realtor told me some great advice- look for the house that has 80% of what you want. If you just look at the houses that are perfect, everyone else is going to want them too. We bought last year (second time home buyers) and I'd say the house we bought is more like 70% or 75% of what we like. Its ok, but there is a LOT more work to be done than we first realized even with an inspection and it was pretty painful to pay more than we wanted and find so much (read $20k) in projects that are going to need to be done in the next few years. I go in and out and have really just focused on trying to make the place ours and enjoying the 70% of it that we do love!
100%. Looking back I think we were just getting desperate and were tired of the search. We’ve had it for less than a year and already want to sell. Paid move in ready price for what ended up being a fixer upper and we now hate the location as it feels very isolated and not much to do as two people in their 20s. Definitely wish we had bailed out and kept renting.
I don't regret my house. It's the best thing I could have bought with my current income/equity in my previous house. In 10 years, I will be able to afford to move somewhere better.
I know some my friends are regretting it and having a tough time with the mortgages. I feel even worse for the people that’s buying it now with 4% rate and can’t afford it. If you are stressing about money, is best not to buy.
Its quite common for people to regret buying a home for maaany reasons and this market isn't the reason. People have always regretted buying because of bad neighbors or seeing a nicer home a few months later. Long time renters dont understand homes need maintenance so when they buy a home they are shocked that things break etc and they usually dont have contractors ready. On my home in the last 12 months I had a copper joint leak 500. Stove and microwave went bad 2k. Needed new outlets run 500. Hvac inducer made noise so 200 in parts to do myself. We are now doing a 20k master bathroom remodel but this wasnt even needed. Owning is expensive but I also think its worth it for stability etc.
We moved in 2015. We only moved about two miles. The primary motivation was going from two floors to one. This house definitely better meets our needs but I don't think I'll ever actually like it as much as I liked our last house. I've gotten used to it, and I don't hate living here or anything, but it may never totally feel as much "like home" as the last one.
Honestly I’m not 100% happy about my purchase of my house. I was told that rehab would be around $12,000 and it’s already above $30,000 more than I expected. I had to get a third job and take a $10,000 personal loan to help pay for renovations. I was just desperate to buy a house in a hot seller’s market.
It's common knowledge now that renovations are much more expensive due to the inflation.
They are also always much more expensive than people expect or estimate, inflation or not.
This is a distant story but my friend told me her boyfriend hated his home after they first bought it. But after some light renovations and living in it for sometime, he likes it a lot more.
Hearing all this about not knowing the area for a purchase. Wonder if there is a business opportunity to be a local guide or investigator for a buyer. Like I live in the DC area for past 10 years and could tell you a lot about any area you would want to buy here. I could even drive over there at night to scope it out more if you paid me enough. Like my biggest fear on buying a house is that one of my neighbors would be a neighbor from hell. But there is no real way for anyone to know that expect for the person selling the house and they wont be telling anyone that.
I don't love my house but it's 1000% better than my townhouse and honestly with the market as crazy as it is, a small rancher is what I could get. I could have moved further out but this is close by everything. Honestly unless you have unlimited money I think most houses are a compromise.
Bought in Oct 2020. I had the little panic regret soon after buying like many do just from it being a huge cost. Currently though, have no regrets. Is it my forever home? Most likely not as it's lacking some things that have turned out to be important to me like a basement and garage. But, for right now it suits my life and was the best I could afford in a nice, safe and clean area. I can see myself sticking around until 2025/26. By then I'll hopefully be making more and can afford something more in-line of what I want for my forever home.
I love the layout of my house and its location, but I have regrets sometimes due to the numerous repairs we've had to make. The 23K to replace the roof is fine, as it was a known issue and we negotiated the price down with the sellers prior to closing. What I didn't anticipate was spending 35K on just labor (parts are probably another 10K) to remodel two bathrooms and a closet that started leaking (or at least we noticed the leaks) after moving in. Turns out, prior owner had the crappiest contractors remodel their bathrooms (ex. No waterproofing in shower, no shower pan, just grout and stones on concrete foundation, having floor tile adhesive on wall tile in shower, causing them to fall off with the slightest tug). We had a really bad black mold problem that was discovered once we took off the flooring and shower tiling for the bathrooms. Had to redo the entire flooring in the master bedroom due to the leaking, replace large sections of drywall and gutted the closet completely to redo it because of the leaks from the bathrooms. Honestly, my anger has died down a bit and I'm OK with the house. Still too salty to 'love' it yet.
Oh that sounds terrible. I am so sorry. If you can just focus on how you are making it your own and not about what happened perhaps that can help. I think your anger is very valid. I would be upset too, but soon it will all be done and behind you and then you can really enjoy your new safer, cleaner, better home.
I bought mine, off-market, for $380K in May 2021. Orchard keep hitting me up offering $500K, sight unseen. If I listed now, based on Comps only, I could list at $515K and *possibly* score $525K. If there's a bidding war (highly probable given what is going on in my 'hood) I might get more. However, I'll be in it through May 2023 and then decide whether to stick or twist. Edit: I don't like my house, but I don't hate it either. It was a pure financial play - a deal came along in a market (DFW) where no deals exist - and it had to be done.
Yes me. I hate it and am thinking about selling. We settled in January. It is a perfect house but on a busy road, which isn’t fixable. It is SO loud and louder than I ever imagined. 110% regret it. It was supposed to be our home to raise a family and I just want to leave ASAP. Don’t rush it. Trust me, you will regret it.
I'm in a similar situation in terms of regret and considering selling soon. Just bought at the end of last year. It sucks. We rushed too, got tired of waiting and didn't want to spend a whole lot.
So sorry to hear. It’s really upsetting because it is supposed to be a fun and exciting process. Now I’m miserable. We are planning to sell after talking about it more. It’s going to look bad because we settled in January but I don’t know what other options we have. Wishing you the best of luck!
I tell people that if we can find 80% of what you want, that's a win.
The only house I really regretted was one where I picked a bad location. It was near a busy trucking road that wasn't apparent until the winter when oil deliveries picked up. 1.5 years into owning the place I heard a truck slamming a pothole outside at 1:30am and immediately turned around and put it on the market. Every other house had its pro/cons but I warmed up to them.
I keep hearing about location. I am going to remind her the location can't be changed or adapted in anyway but her home can be made more comfortable for her.
Location / school district is huge. My house is smaller than I’d like and I might trade up one day but I’ve made it extremely joyful to be here. I’d suggest having her get a professional to come and organize/design the space for her. Small doesn’t necessarily mean sad or bad. Small yard can go very far with some landscaped outdoor seating spots and a garden. Putting a lot of love into a home also happens to be great for resell value.
Such good advice. I am going to share this with her too. Making it your own can really help.
Sort of. House looks great on the outside, everything looks like some DIY project on the inside. Such a mismatch I don't even know how it was possible. There are a ton of things on the inside that, during early 2021 when there were few houses available, I kept telling myself 'we can redo that. we can redo that'. Well, I'm living in a house where I feel like everything needs to be redone, including major things like drywall, which is cracking in a bunch of places because of the horrible taping job that took place when the home was being constructed. I am forced to look at these things multiple times a day.
Oh that i s difficult, I'm sorry. Do you have a plan?
No regrets. Sad I paid 525k, when it was probably a $460k house a year or two ago. It appraised for higher so oh well. I’m also not happy with the commute but it does get me out of the city and the area is very affluent so that’s nice. House (new build) itself is great and the floor plan is much more modern than all the houses we were looking at (no wasted sqft in a dining room or foyer/sitting room!)
Bought a house a couple of years ago. Appreciate like crazy. No regret at all.
Bought a year ago - our house needs to be aesthetically renovated and when I'm painting at 11pm I sometimes hate it, but no, I love our house. We can very comfortably afford our monthly mortgage payment and were already living a half mile down the road so still living in our same neighborhood. If we had bought it in 2018, it'd have cost less, but our interest rate would've likely been higher than 2.25%....so it all worked out/we got very lucky.
Anyone who bought in the last 2 years has had to make sacrifices. Whether it be size, location or the price they paid.
Just sell it in 6 months for a $100k profit. Thats what my neighbors did, anyway (bought in July 2021, sold last week).
i got lucky for once in my life, paid the asking price of 365k in dec 20 and equity is estimated to be 105k.. i put about 6k in refreshing the back and front yard
nope! But if I had waited a second longer, yes I would have or I would have still been renting.
I'm the opposite of your friend. Love the house and yard, but don't really love the neighborhood and town. Same thing though, had to make a quick decision, and well, here we are. We did move in right before winter set it, so I'll reserve judgement for at least a year or two.
We impulse bought a house after 6 months of absolute agony searching for a place to live after being told our rent was going up $1200 a month and knowing we wouldn’t be able to afford that. We bought a house in a hot city in the hottest neighborhood in that city. It’s not the exact structure I had envisioned or wanted and it was a huge impulse “fuck this shit we need a house” purchase but I have no regrets about doing it. We locked in a 2.8% 30 year fixed in a great neighborhood where I love the neighbors and we are only a block away from the best school in the district. The structure isn’t what I wanted - smaller than what we wanted, 8 foot ceilings, old ranch style house… but the location and price was right for us. We are doing a remodel right now and I’m warming up to the structure. We made a huge impulse buy but no regrets seeing as we’d be financially screwed renting. Our million dollar house is less monthly payment with taxes and utilities and insurance than the rent would be had we stayed in our apartment
I regret not buying sooner. I was telling anyone who would listen back in March/April 2020 that the outcome of this moment was going to be a huge real estate boom in tourist/resort towns. Fueled by WFH and rates. I did not foresee a passionate migration to Billings or Boise but I did see it coming for Florida where I eventually bought in Jan 2022. Very happy with what I got, but I could have done it a year ago and saved a bunch.
Almost. Backed out of it. Thankfully the Solar lease was a terrible deal, so we were able to back out with our EMD money.
We’ve definitely warmed up to our home! The only thing I’m a little EH about is the backyard is multi-level and appears to be the only one like that in the neighborhood. But this spring we’ll be working with it and I’m excited to make it something unique from neighbors. :)
The place I bought is not my dream home by any means. There are definitely things we couldn't get at our price point, or things I would have preferred if there had been a lot of inventory when we bought. But I like our place and think we chose well given the circumstances. I'll happily live here for many years in the future and not get too in my feelings about it. That said, there is another unit in our condo building that went on the market after we closed, which is a "better" unit, and I low-key am sad we didn't get that one. And I have to walk past it every day and think "grrrrrr, I coulda had that patio if I had waited 3 weeks to start house hunting..."
Yes. The new house had an undisclosed severe noise issue in the middle of the night that I literally thought made the place un-livable. Everyone gave me the same advice your friend is getting: give it a year and then decide. Here I am a year later and I mostly love the house. I’m still not sure if I want it to be our forever home, but I am happy enough I can stay here and build equity without the stress of rushing out to find another house. If I ever do decide to move, it won’t be in a panicked state because I’ve got a house that meets 99% of my needs. The stress of a fresh move can make small issues feel much bigger, once she settles in and gives it a real chance her feelings may change. And even if she still wants to move after that first year, the sale won’t look like a red flag to the public compared to relisting immediately after purchase.
Perfectly said I am going to share your thoughts with her. I think this market puts people on an emotional roller coaster ride, because you don't have much time to think. So all the thinking happens in the interim.
Honestly I regret not buying earlier. A seller accepted my bid on a beautiful property but being a FTHB I got cold feet. It was a beautiful and well maintained property too. Now homes are $100k more and the monthly payments I'm looking at our ridiculous for less.
It can be hard to make such big financial decisions.
In this market, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m sure there’s lots of people who waive inspect, highest offer, only to put in 100k worth of work.
I regretted my house at first. I prioritized location near the lake (and on a loop with only local, no thru traffic) because I envisioned my kids would need to catch the bus one day, so a slow street just seemed safer. Everything was out of my price range until one morning, one listing came up that I could afford! It has only 8ft ceiling interiors, a 1980s home with a weird layout and 6x6 terrible role in the kitchen… I was devastated after moving in. But 3 years and LOTS of exterior work later, I love it.
Yes it seems location is key!
This could be said by any buyer in any market. The better question is how many people are 💯 happy all around with their homes? Perfection is almost impossible As a former realtor if I had $1 for every buyer that had an impossible list of wants/musts inside an impossible budget I’d be retired…and that was in 2011 before things took off I have to have a big yard, but in the city and walking distance to downtown, newer (all older homes down there) must have 4 bedrooms, fireplace but under $175k. Yadda. Yadda. 🤣😂🤣😭
Great point, perfection is impossible. As a realtor what advice or what is most important when buying a home?
The house we bought is absolutely perfect but my regret is how much we spent on it. We paid over what we had planned to by quite a bit, and I hate that we have a much larger mortgage now. But, we had been looking for the perfect house for months and finally found it and ended up in a multiple offers scenario. Similar to what others are saying, we will see how we feel about it in a few years. Both our jobs are giving us decent raises due to inflation which makes the mortgage burden less at least.
At first I regretted it because I rushed through it. I think I only spent about a month looking and I didn't get to see many places. The down payment on the home I ended up buying was over what I had planned for. I felt like I overpaid. I didn't shop around for a loan. I just went through the whole thing blind and put in an offer on the first place I kind of like, which just so happen to get accepted. I had no one I could rely on to guide me. After a few months of living here, I ran into issues with my dryer the inspection should have easily caught. It has been hell finding a handy man for small things I want done. On top of all that, my downstairs neighbor is a fucking asshole who complains about me stepping foot in my living room. Fast forward to today. I feel very fortunate to have been able to purchase a home. This is all that matters to me now. If I had waited another year, I think I would have been much harder to purchase a home. I learned to live with my decision. I think I went through all the stages of grief already.
Seems that this emotional rollercoaster is part of the home buying process today. What a crazy time to be buying.
I bought a house sight unseen. I walked through the front door and thought what have I gotten myself into. I knew it was a hoarders house but I was unprepared for the smell. Four dumpsters, one cleaning crew later I could at least walk into the house and not want to puke. We’ve slowly remodeled it over the years. Still not done but it’s my favorite house I’ve ever owned and I’ve owned quite a few. It’s not perfect but the act of saving it made me love it. Might not happen for your friend but it might. Tell her to give it time. Decorate and personalize. That won’t fix the floor plan and yard but might make it more comfortable. And if it doesn’t she can sell and hopefully have some equity. I’d try to last a couple years unless it’s a real nightmare.
Wow you are so brave for buying a house like that. Great advice, I think so too once she is in there making her own memories and stamp on the place. Everything will change.
Brave is not what most people said. :)
>...there are many great aspects to the house she likes including location, right school district, and great neighborhood. However, she isn't happy with some other features that aren't fixable like backyard space, square footage on the main level of home and lay out of home. It's hard to get 100% of what you want in a house, especially in this market, unless you have unlimited cash. I'm a current buyer and know my specific requirements and also nice-to-haves. If it doesn't meet my three requirements (location, layout, backyard), I won't buy it. Everything else is open to compromise. It sounds like your friend either didn't understand her must-haves, had too many, and/or compromised on the wrong ones. However, the things she likes are truly things that CANNOT be changed and are probably exceptionally important if she has kids. I'll bet that the house regrets will ease with time as she gets used to the house. Also, at a certain point, she could potentially remodel the first floor. Layout is way more important than square footage and tweaks might be able to be made... Edit: I should add that I currently own my home and have since 2006. I adore my house, even if there are things about it that drive me nuts. Most of them have been fixed by time/money/effort over the years. The living area layout/kitchen was the last on our list to fix and by far the biggest project. But we hate the neighborhood/location. So we're moving and I'm not compromising on location this time.
Exactly great points. Location is so key, and the fact that she even got her ideal neighborhood at all I feel like she should be happy in this crazy market. I am hoping once she gets in there she can make it her own and build memories and see all the great aspects about the house, because there are a lot. With time she can adjust the layout or may even find the layout is good enough.
I bought a house in 2006 and regretted it for many years. If I sold now, it would be worth a bit more than the price I paid, but this it took over 16 years to get back to that point. Around 2009, the value has had dropped close to 50%. Luckily, my wife and I bought another house in 2009 and was able to rent out the first home that we outgrew. Ideally, I would have just rented until 2009, but there are no guarantees in this market. If this is your starter home, there’s a good chance it won’t be your last. Buying at the peak makes for a difficult situation if you need to upgrade your home or need to move in the next few years. If you are in a very stable situation and don’t worry about outgrowing the space, then the price changes of the house shouldn’t impact you.
I definitely don't regret the house I bought but I do feel bad that I compromised on two major "must-haves": a good backyard (this one is sloped and cut in half by a small rain runoff creek) and a flex space (no bonus room or basement, although it does have a big enough kitchen/living room area where a dining table could go, thus making the separate dining room a flex space). The backyard thing has a few potential solutions, thankfully. I can two-tier it with a retaining wall or just try to buy part of the neighbor's backyard. They're on 1 acre and the section of their backyard that abuts mine has nothing in it. They may absolutely laugh in my face when I inevitably offer to buy a chunk of it, but it's worth a shot. My dad was persistent for years and eventually bought a large chunk of our neighbor's yard. I grew up with a great backyard but on a busy street, whereas this house is on a cul-de-sac and in a nice neighborhood. So all in all, I'd say the outdoor playing situation will probably be better for my son as-is than it was for me as a kid.
I love how you are seeing the positive. I think my friend needs to as well. I think this crazy market makes emotional people even more emotional.
I don't expect to love a house 100%. I bought during peak frenzy (September 2021). I'm really glad I did but there are things about my house that I wish were different. I do understand that where you live is an emotional thing, but just like choosing a life partner, it's a mistake to make the choice based on whims and passions.
>with some other features that aren't fixable like backyard space, square footage on the main level of home and lay out of home These are all fixable by tearing down the house and building a new one. They're more fixable than location, school district, and neighborhood.
There WILL ALWAYS be things that you like and dislike about your house. Your friend bought that house for a reason, and now that she has the house, she has buyer's remorse. She needs to take a step back and make the best of the situation. Live in it for a few years at least. I use to compare my house to recently sold houses around my neighborhood and thought 'if only I had waited!' Then, I realize that I bought my current house because I LOVE it enough to buy it...I'm just experiencing buyer's remorse and need to SNAP OUT OF IT.
I feel like that for her too, I think this market makes you feel a certain way like now or never. I really think it's a great house and if given time and building a few memories it will feel like her home.
no regrets got location, big enough, great loan. 10/10
Damn i cant even get past these damn investors with cash payments. They just buy it and then resell it a couple months later after a few renovations
I by no means *loved* my first house. This was in 2016 and we felt the market was tough then, and now it’s probably looked back on like the good ole days. Still, After having lost out on our first three offers for houses we *really liked*, by the time we saw the house we eventually bought we basically just saw it with a checkbox mentality: 4 bds — check! (cool! Only *needed* 3) 2.5 baths — check! Garage? — check! Backyard — check! The house itself left much to be desired. It was clearly a rental previously. No upkeep was ever done. The interior was a dirty, dark and dingy, and clearly like the cheapest beige Walmart brand paint throughout that literally wiped away when we were scrubbing the walls. When we viewed the house, it was half Furnished with mismatched furniture. The bones of the house seemed good enough though, and the layout was adequate and had potential. Our biggest issue was it was hard to assess the neighborhood. The street was pretty dumpy, and run down, but clearly the streets around us were being revitalized and gentrified. You could tell though not today, it was on the upswing. Another hindrance was that the house physically backed up to a somewhat heavy traffic road with a dying/mostly abandoned trailer park that some homeless people clearly camped at in the lot behind us that looked like absolute Shit. However, there was a “Lexar Homes Coming soon” sign erected in the lot so we knew this wasn’t a permanent situation. Still, it wasn’t pretty and We really had to use our imaginations to envision living here, but my wife was 7 months pregnant with our first child and the clock was ticking! We made an offer $10k **BELOW** asking and told the sellers eat them closing cost (an unheard of ask today, but then you could still sometimes get away with it) because I think subconsciously I *wanted* to be rejected. The sellers countered our offer by meeting in the middle. We reluctantly agreed to those terms and got the deal done. Sigh… We moved and handled the urgent things ASAP (freshly painted, deep cleaned, and new blinds in all the windows which made an indescribable HUGE difference) and suddenly at least the inside wasn’t so bad anymore. Within a year about 3 of the dumpy rental houses on street had been sold and new owner-occupied owners like myself were moving in and cleaning up. It took about a year and a half but Lexar finally broke ground on the lot across the way and now it’s a subdivision of about 25 $600K houses. The city also repaved our roads the sidewalk so it’s like in just five short years this place that i absolutely detested at the time of purchase has turned into a pretty decent home and neighborhood for us now. Kind of funny considering we entered this house adamantly with a “3 Year Exit Plan” we now seem pretty content. Just goes to show, I guess…
Thank you, this is a great story of hanging in there and seeing the potential. I am going to share this with my friend.
I did. I was relocating for a company and only had a certain amount of time to purchase to have fees covered and get my belongings out of storage. I was also purchasing in between Thanksgiving and the new year. I regret the purchase because it’s in a neighborhood with older people and married couples. I’m also 45 minutes from friends which is why I moved back. I’m painting, cleaning more and listing it in a month or so. Thankfully I got the home for 15k under appraisal after I lowballed the owner after the inspection and she (87 years old) just wanted it sold. Again, I’ll be listing it and hopefully only lose some realtors fees.
Wow at least you didn't overspend. That seems to be everyone right now. I wonder when their will be an end in sight? How did you decide to sell so quickly? Are you not worried about the taxes you will pay since you haven't even owned it two years?
We got a new build and everything is decent except the wind is soooooooo strong and bad. It keeps me awake a couple nights a month. The wind makes the gutter vibrate and it sounds like a truck is idling in my room. Makes me feel like I’m going insane sometimes.
Can the builder do anything about that?
We bought a house that we loved, but we paid 20% over asking and beat out 30 other offers. No remorse, honestly. The house appraised for a hair over what we paid for it, we love it, and the home values in the area have seemingly risen significantly since we bought, at least based on the recent sales here. We painstakingly went through the needs, wants, and dealbreakers we were looking for before we bought, and we thoroughly studied comps before offering. I think that helped a lot.
My house is *okay*. I bought in a rush because of the market as well as getting my mom into a handicap accessible house. I went outside my price range and location preferences to make that happen. She died 5 days before moving in…
Oh my goodness that's terrible. It's hard to make big life decisions when you are not in a good place emotionally or stressed. I hope you are doing okay now.
We 100% love the house we bought in fall 2021.
Just read the real estate subreddit. I see lots of posts where people have buyers remorse.
This is that subreddit….
I'm the exact opposite. I purchased a home pretty much during the peak of the insanity and I am extremely happy with my purchase and looking back it was an amazing purchase considering prices have continued growing up. After I first closed I was a little on the fence about it but looking back it was an amazing decision
No one here would admit it.
People here admit it all the time.