Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

If so, what did you do?

At the time DH and I bought her current home (2 years ago), it was the right purchase for us. However, because of changed circumstances, we are very unhappy in our current home and would like to move.

If we sell now, we should have no problem selling it for more than we bought it for, but we will not recoup the full amount we spent on redoing the kitchen (which we knew we would not be able to recoup the full amount right away).

However, while it is not the best time to sell, it is a good time to buy and we would be buying a new home that is approximately 2x the price of our current home.

I'm just not sure if we should suck it up and try to stay here a few more years or just try to sell now!

Just looking to see if anyone else regretted their purchase and what they did!

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

why are you so unhappy?

Also, if you bought two years ago, unless you bought for very under market, I'm not sure you can sell it for more. Especially since you factor in the cost of major improvements.


We would also like something bigger, maybe with more land and better layout..we are staying put for a while..maybe another 2-3 years. We bought 5 years ago.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

I definetly do, We bought when i wasnt working. we bought with the intention of living on one salary. We bought a major fixer upper that has cost us much more money to fix than anticipated. shortly after we closed I got a great job offer and could have afforded much more house. Now i feel that we are stuck because we would not get back all the money we put into the house.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

Posted by antoinette

I definetly do, We bought when i wasnt working. we bought with the intention of living on one salary. We bought a major fixer upper that has cost us much more money to fix than anticipated. shortly after we closed I got a great job offer and could have afforded much more house. Now i feel that we are stuck because we would not get back all the money we put into the house.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

I guess I could say I partially regretted the purchase.

I made a judgement call on a house that I probably should have gotten for less. But we bought at the peak so we paid peak.

We found more things we didn't like after living there and we did WAY more work to this house than we expected. I wasn't expecting to do anything except lay a new floor down. Instead we renovated both bathrooms (gutting one to the studs), along with a brand new kitchen, and added 350 square feet with an extension to add a dining room, and installed Central Air. We are now working on getting 1300 square feet of pavers installed for our driveway and backyard patio.

We probably put in close to 80-100k into this house already and I know for sure there is no way we will get this money back right now. But there are some positives now that it's all done.

- We bought in to a GREAT location and have GREAT neighbors (those are things you can't change)
- Great school district
- We pretty much have a brand new everything in the house now
- We were able to customize everything the way we wanted it

And finally I moved quick on this house because I was selling a property that I had a buyer on that was paying me top dollar. I got screwed on this house, but I can at least say I screwed the buyer on the property I sold. I also bought when interest rates were at an all-time low in 2005 (got 5.375% with 0 points).

Plus the one way I looked at this was I bought a cheap house and I always said to myself I would rather buy a cheap house and upgrade it at will with cash than buy a more expensive house and have a larger mortgage.

Business at my job has been real good so I have made more money than I anticipated so I was able to fund these improvements all with cash.

Plus I hate moving so I am glad we are set now. This house should last us many years since we don't plan on having a huge family (maybe one kid tops). I can't see us going anywhere, anytime soon.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

i hate my house. I feel like we were pressured to buy it.

We just moved back to LI, I was pregnant and we had 2 dogs. We couldn't find a decent apartment.

At the time, that was the best house out there for us for the money. It needs so much work. I can't wait to sell it.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

Sometimes I do. We bought at the peak of the market so we paid double what everyone else on our block paid 10 years ago. Also we bought it when DH was working in Commack and I was in the city. I had planned to come back to LI but so far I am still in the city and he was transfered to Valley Stream. Our commutes are terrible. I do love my house and neighborhood but I wish we had waited a little longer to purchase....but then we might not have been able to sell our condo.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

I do... We built our house upstate 2 years ago because the way things looked we would never be able to afford LI and raise a family.

Now, with this market, we probably would have been fine on LI if we had just rented for a little while. I guess hinidsight is 20-20, right?

I also am not crazy about the location of my house (DH wanted a lot of property so we ended up buying a house with a large lot size but that backs up to a busier double yellow road) and I also regret some of the design features of my home. I chalk it up to first time buyer naivete, however. I just hope we will be able to sell it for what we paid for it someday because I don't foresee it being my "forever" home. Right now if we sold, we will definitely take a loss.

The plus is that we are in a very desirable neighborhood and town so I am hoping that in a couple of years we will be able to recoup our original investment.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

I don't necessarily regret our purchase of our co-op 3 years ago. It was perfect for us at the time and got us out of a bad rental situation...

What I do regret is that last year, when we thought about selling, and decided not to because we found out we were pregnant, that we didn't sell then...

We're trying to sell now, and it's tough...had we done it last year, we'd be out now and we'd have been able to jump on the house that just slipped through our fingers...

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

I dont really regret buying our house? We got it 2 1/2 years ago......4 bedrooms 2 bathrooms in our price range but needed some updating. When I look online now at houses I see nicer houses that are in the range of what we were looking to spend and I think, wow if we waited we could have had this house............
Dont get me wrong, I love our house (and our interest rate) .......decent size house and yard, but its a good amount of updating we're doing. I just wish the house was all done already.

Message edited 4/14/2008 2:53:49 PM.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

we got our house last year and we are more than happy in it. But who knows in a few years what we will be thinking but I know we did the right thing at the right time for us.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

DH and I purchased about a year and a half ago and we love our home. The only thing I regret was not realizing how much work it really needed. Luckily DH is handy and we have done most of the work ourselves.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

we have a 2 yr old built house, love the house, hate that we live on a main road. we're trying to make the most of the backyard so we don't have to deal with the front.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

We just bought, so we got a great deal and love our neighborhood. But, I DID regret buying our previous condo. We ended up making a small amount of money but remember, you are going to make out on the other end.

I hated our condo - the location, the neighbors, the small-ness. If you are unhappy and *think* you can do well on the sale of your condo, I'd look into it.

Also, LIC is an awesome area and has done well the past few years. Used to work there and it's really great right down by the water. I miss the great seafood places.

Good Luck!

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

Sometimes I do... but I think everyone does.


If I had to move - I would find something wrong with the new place too. I drive myself crazy sometimes!

Overall the positives outweigh the negatives, and I think I may be sad to go.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

I do at times. We bought at peak. I felt a little pressured. We were seeing so much crap at that point in our price range. We had just lost a house that we were bidding on that I loved (which the new owners have not been able to sell in over a year) we found this house it was bigger and we thought better.

Now we realize that its 36 years old most original and needs a lot of work. My dh is NOT handy and does not enjoy doing household projects. He has said several times he would rather have bought a townhouse or condo. He doesn't like the responsibility of the up keep of a house.

We are SLOWLY making this house our own but it seems like 2 steps forward 3 step backs. For example we are replacing the windows this year but now it looks like we will need to have something done on the cesspool. Oh and we need to replace the front door and the framing. This June will be 4 years that we are in the house and I am starting to get the moving itch but I know we will not make much on the house now so I think we will probably live here for probably 10 years and then hope that we can upgrade.

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

Re: Has anyone regretted their real estate purchase?

Yes and no. No, because we purchased from my MIL and she gave us a bit of a break on it. Also because I love the location. We are on a dead end dirt road in the woods with no thru traffic, very private. We have a nice pool area with an above gound pool but the grounds are all grass and weeds, needs landscaping badly! DH & I both work, and he does all the work himself on the house. He just put in a wood floor in my kitchen and as we speak is putting our new fence up. But, I hate to sound so ungrateful, but i just don't LOVE my house. It is the house DH grew up in, his grandfather built it. But it is just not what I would have picked , but my DH had his heart set on it and there were alot of positives. The house is a 3 br ranch, with a den, beautiful handbuilt stone fireplace, nice sized kitchen, but the way the house is laid out just irks me. The bedrooms are kinda like right there when you walk in right by the living room, so there really is no privacy. There is 1 bathroom right in the middle of everything, nice big bathroom with a cathedral ceiling, (Needs to be doen over tho) but I would have liked a separate one. The basement is fully finished and my BIL and cousin live down there, (they hooked up at my wedding!). My MIL was widowed so the house needs some updating which DH is doing, but I have yet to say I love my house and it makes me sad alot. I am very grateful for what I have,dont get me wrong, but I wanna love my house!