Bought a house in 2020 or 2021?

[carrotsmakemefat]

Do you regret the house you chose ?

[Susie]

May 2021 here.

No, I don't regret it.  It's been more work/projects and investment than I expected, but no major surprises or repairs.  Except, I guess, that when we got to our first winter, we realized the windows were more terrible than initially appreciated, and that's a $$$$ 2022 project to replace.  We like the neighborhood, and we don't feel like we way overpaid or anything.  3 houses sold in our immediate block this year, for +$20k, +$20k, and +$30k more than we paid last year, for basically the same house model, all with smaller lots than ours, and probably higher mortgage interest rates.

Our move was a pretty conservative one.  It was 3 miles from our old house, in the same town/school district where we've lived since 2008.  We've spent years watching the market and familiarizing ourselves with what's out there in our town, what it costs, and how often it comes on the market.  We weren't going way out on any limbs.

[Gato]

My H and I bought in February 2020. No, I don't regret it, although it's not the first house I would have chosen; it was just the one we could get in an extremely competitive market.

The market has gone even more crazy since then (this house has increased in value by 50% in the past two and a half years), so I'm glad we settled, because otherwise we would have no house at all - we'd have been priced out of all but the most undesirable single-family homes in our city.

On the other hand, our old condo was in a really beautiful, converted 1905 farmhouse, with a grand old porch and the kind of woodwork you don't see anymore. It was also in a fantastic part of town, while where live now is quieter. I miss it. I will never LOVE this house, but it's super solid, and still in my kids' school district. We'll probably keep it forever as a rental. But once the kids move out, we'll probably leave for something more in keeping with our style and lifestyle.

[CrazyLucky]

We bought in March 2021. It was a move from NC to NJ, and I was glad to find something I liked so well, as the market was really crazy at the time. I don't regret it! I like the house a lot. I love having a basement and being in a neighborhood with a billion kids. I'm hoping we only move one more time - to a retirement house. This house has definitely taught me I need one story living when I get older. There are two houses in the neighborhood for sale, one for $90k over what we paid and one for $150k over. The houses are all basically the same as far as bathrooms, bedrooms, etc. I checked today to see what the difference in payment would be between the interest rate we have and the current average rate for a 30 year market. It's $800/month! That is insane! That's an extra $288k over the life of the loan.
The kids didn't love it at first, but I think they adjusted well. I'm thrilled to be back near family.

[puppylove64]

We bought in Sept 202. We don’t regret it. We got a larger house with full basement. I wish our road weren’t so busy, but we got a killler interest rate and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon! It would be hard to beat our payment anywhere else

[puppylove64]

Oops duplicate post

[purplepenguin7]

We bought at the tail end of 2021 and I don't regret at all. There are some things that I wanted in a house that we didn't get, but who knows if we ever will. This house upkeep is probably more than we bargained for but it's working out ok. I still get alerts from an old real estate agent (long story) and haven't seen a single home I like better than this come on to the market. We would have been miserable in our old house for the past 10 momths so i am thrilled we are out of there at the very least.

We bought our last house in 2008 so I am highly prepared to lose value and what that means for the next few years. I am glad we didn't wait seeing as interest rates are through the roof, prices are still high, our investments tanked and on top of all that selling our old townhouse would have been a lot harder now.

adding a little more: I just looked at what's for sale in my target area.  There are maybe 4-5 houses I would have considered if I was still looking.  2 are 100k less than I paid and and still will be about $200 or so dollars more a month.  3 are around what I paid and right now would cost $1k more a month and thus entirely out of my budget.  The one house just took a 45k price cut.  Something has to give but I am not sure what. If people who own these home refinanced in 2020/21, they may chose to stay put instead of sell. It's crazy world out there. 

[Deleted]

We bought in Spring 2022 at the peak of the market. We like the house we ended up in, and like our neighborhood, but we definitely overpaid. We HAD to move for my job, but the timing sucked, so we were kind of desperate to line up a place before interest rates went up even more. I don’t know that I “regret” it necessarily, because if we hadn’t offered what we did we wouldn’t have gotten any house (our previous 6 offers at a more comfortable price point we’re rejected). But even a few months later prices are down, and I know our house isn’t “worth” what we paid for it.

[wildrice]

No - I feel exceptionally lucky that I bought when interest rates were low and before prices skyrocketed. So maybe I'm not quite your target here - I made my offer in March 2020, the weekend after we all got sent home from work so probably around the 18th. At that point almost nothing was on the market and we didn't know if it would crash or rise, so we gambled and thankfully it worked out in our favor.

That said - is this our dream home? No. It's a basic 1980's townhouse that needed (and still needs) a decent amount of work to update it. And it's never going to be a showstopper even with updates - it's just not that kind of house. But it's functional, affordable, and it's in a good location for us. We have all the space we need and anything that it doesn't have is more of a "want". So I'm glad we live here.

I guess my only regret, which has nothing to do with the housing market, is that we didn't stay in the city. I really like where we live, but had we known we'd both end up primarily working from home (and that I'd get a job where the office is in the city when I do go in), I think we would have moved to a different neighborhood but stayed in the city. It's where most of our social life takes place and I miss a lot of things about it. However, between expenses and hassle I have no desire to actually move residences again anytime in the near future, so we are just making it work out here in the 'burbs. At least it is only 30ish minutes to get to most things and we do have a ton of great amenities and things to do right here in our town.

[bee20]

We looked but didn't buy, and I wish we had been able to find the right home for us while interest rates were low. With WFH and a new job anyway I'm no longer tied to this side of town and my partner would like to be a little more central.

Since I have a starter home with a reasonable amount of equity affordability hasn't made a big shift, but it would be harder to sell in this market, houses are sitting for over a month when they used to go in days.

[atlas]

We bought in February 2021. Don't regret it. The house had been on the market for about 4 months in a place where the average time on market was 2 days at that time. The house needs lots of love (just dated) but it is on an acre in a place where finding a brand new home on land is next to impossible.

We're super happy we sold/bought before the interest rate increased. We never would have gotten what we got for our old house and we have a 3.5 rate.

[imimahoney]

We closed in July 2021 and nope, we love it. We most likely overpaid BUT we sold crazy high so it all evened out.

[carrotsmakemefat]

To answer myself, I don’t regret it but wish I wasn’t a first time buyer during that super crazy market. My choices would have been swifter and we likely would have ended up with a different house. We needed to get something because I was due in 3 months and my lease ending. There are homes I wish I had just paid the extra 15 or 20k on at the time.

We are already looking at using equity to add on but I’m not sure how that works.

Moving to a similar house now would be out of the budget and that seems crazy !

[dove]

Same as @villainv - We bought spring 2022 at the peak out of necessity because of Hs new job. We also wanted to land on something before rates went higher. While I don’t feel we overpaid considering the market, it was still more than what we wanted to pay, especially for the work it needs. But it is in a very desirable neighborhood. I feel we still got a good “deal”. We could still sell at a profit now, despite the work it needs.
I guess I only regret it because we had just finished renovating the house we sold and now we get to do it again.

[jlt19]

We bought August 2021 and I do. But not because of the market, I just wish we hadn’t moved at all. I loved my old house and all the work and love we put into it. I thought the move would be better for our kids and our family as a whole and it hasn’t been. There’s no way to say that the things would have been better had we stayed, but of course my brain thinks it would have been.

[scout8]

We went under contract in July 2021, but it was new construction so we didn't close until April 2022. No regrets. I love our house. It's smaller than we would like, but we didn't want to spend more for something larger. We've made the size work. Prices are still increasing in my area, though, so I'm not sure I'm your target here.

[janegold]

We bought our house in 2020, but in January before the pandemic. I still love it, but we have some major renovations we need to do to make it better for us (basically redesigning most of the first floor layout).  It's a very unique property, and once we do the renovation it will be pretty much our dream house.

Plus, since we bought before the pandemic craziness, we've seen HUGE gains in what our house is worth - it's appraising for about $600k more than what we bought it for less than 3 years ago!

Oh duh - I forgot we also bought a vacation home in spring 2022, just before rates started to skyrocket.  And so we probably did pay too much for that.  It's an amazing little oceanfront cottage that we've wanted to buy for years and years, so I don't exactly regret it - but I wish we had those funds free to put toward renovating our main home now.  We did make like $10k renting it out for just last month on AirBnB though, so hopefully it will be a good investment in the long run.

[sakoro]

I closed in early 2022 but was looking during 2021.

I had been contemplating buying a condo since 2017 when I was still living in the Bay Area (Oakland/ San Leandro/Hayward/ Dublin/ Pleasanton). I went as far as talking to real estate agents and lenders to see what I could afford as a single woman on a non-profit income. I honestly didn’t like anything I could afford in my price range— mostly older, dark, dreary apartment buildings that had converted to condos—and put it off for the future. (Oh if only I had known what was about to happen!)

In 2020, I moved to San Diego and stayed with my parents for ~2 years and was able to save more money. Again, I had been stalking Redfin for a couple of years at that point, so I knew what what out there at my price point and what compromises I would need to make. I could have gone for a 3 level townhouse in a new development. But ultimately I decided on a 30 year old one-level condo that is directly above another person’s unit.

Cons: I have to be careful with making noise / walking heavy during evening hours. Neighbors are quick to report people to the HOA for minor infractions. Thankfully my downstairs neighbor is grumpy but not inclined to go to the HOA about everything.
The condo appeared to be in good condition but needed some repairs (and of course I couldn’t ask for those from the seller in a competitive market). So my first year costs are higher than anticipated.

Pros: I love not having to go up and down 2 flights of stairs. Also, the setting is more park like with trees and space between buildings, rather than tight rows of townhouses where you are essentially staring into a neighbor’s window.
Also it has appreciated $30k since February even though the market overall has stabilized. In my complex, the same layout has sold for $60k and $30k more than I paid even with interest rates almost doubling?!? I don’t understand why but I’ll take the equity, I guess!

[heygrey]

Bough in September 2020 and have zero regrets. At the time we offered I was a little uncertain about some aspects, but we had to move and this house was good enough. In the 2 years we've lived here we have fallen in love with the location and neighbourhood. The house is small and there are some projects we want to do, but we plan to live here indefinitely.

Finance-wise, we really really lucked out. We negotiated down in a time when houses were selling in bidding wars. At the peak of the market, it had appreciated $200k over what we paid. Comparable rentals are $1200+ more than our mortgage. At this point we couldn't afford to live in our city if we hadn't bought this house.

[macmars45]

We went under contract in Sept 2020 but didn't close until Nov 30th 2020. It was new construction.

Overall I'm happy with it. It's 2388 sq ft 3br 2.5 ba. We got a great interest rate on our mortgage. I wish it was smaller with one more bedroom and that we didn't have to turn left across a busy 4 lane road to get most places. Other than that it's been good. H LOVES our house. He was sold the moment we walked in the door before it even had a kitchen.

[notsopicky]

Bought a second property in Oct 2020 and so we're coming up on 2 years of ownership. We overpaid a little, but the rates were so low at that time, we were ok with it. It was a unicorn property, and we wanted it, so we were aggressive in our offer.

We have had to put what feels like a million dollars to repair/improve it, but it's our retirement property, so we are doing what we can a little bit at a time. My parents also are in love with it (it's on a river w/ a pool), so they throw us a couple of bills on occasion to help us work on it, lol.

No regrets. None. It's my happy place.

[ohgillian]

We bought a 2nd house in April 2022. We had been looking for maybe 6 months in a small market where it was hard to find houses that met our criteria within our price range.

I know we "overpaid" to some extent, but we intend to keep this house for 20-ish years. We also put 50% down, so we don't anticipate ever ending up upside down (although, no one ever expects that).

I don't regret it, but as the money person I have more heartburn over the purchase price than H does. I am pleased with the house. In that market, given what we wanted, there weren't going to be a lot of choices. We looked at a fair amount of homes and this is our favorite out of all we saw.

I will say that we bought high when we purchased our primary residence, mid 2008. Our realtor told us "if you wanted to stay here 5 years, I'd be worried about this purchase price. As a 20 year home, I'm not concerned." That ultimately played out. We were one of the highest purchases prices in the neighborhood (total $ and per sqft) for quite awhile, but now almost 15 years later, it's fine, and has appreciated quite a bit.

Tl;dr: No regret, but I'm more angsty about the purchase price than H is.

[Pibs]

We bought our dream home and forever home in July 2021. Am I ever so slightly bummed that the market has slowed enough that we *might* not have had to pay over asking if we were to buy it now? Yes. Would I love it even more if I could pick it up, and move it 5 minutes west to where a new winery popped up that has incredible valley views in a county with better taxes? Yes. Do I have any real regrets? No fucking way.

[expectantsteelerfan]

We bought in June 2021. I don't regret it at all. The buying experience wasn't as fun as I was hoping (dh had finished his medical training, experienced a MAJOR salary increase, and we had been saving aggressively for a downpayment to move out of our starter home into our forever home, and had just started looking when the market went insane). So the inventory wasn't what we had expected and the looking experience wasn't what we were hoping for, but the house we found was everything we were looking for. The ONLY thing we didn't love about it was the location (and by location, I mean the specific location within our school district that we weren't leaving, so basically it was about 5 miles away from where we wanted to be). So we compromised on location, and honestly, doing so, we knew it would be a compromise that would come with some annoyances, and it has. I had to drive dd to/from school for all of last year, and that sucked, but at least it was only for a year. I also drive her to dance 2-3 times a week, and that used to be a 5 minute drive and it's now a 15 minute drive. But dh's commute to work (when he goes in) is shorter, and a few other things are closer now too, and we do love our actual neighborhood, so that helps.
But the house itself is our actual dream house. We knew that if we had waited, a dream house in a dream location may have eventually come up (and I've watched the market and in the past year there have been 2 houses that from the listings at least would have fit that). But I was miserable in our old house, and I seriously could not have imagined waiting another year before moving when I felt like it had already taken us so long to get to that point. Plus there was so much unknown at that point...we got a great interest rate and sold our old house for much more than we thought we would because of the crazy market.

[icedcoffee]

Probably too recent to tell but we recently bought a vacation rental/2nd home. Like others we may have overpaid but we intend to keep it for a long time so hopefully it will be moot.

You can’t predict the market. We’ve been considering the purchase for 10 years. We’ve kicked the can down the road because prices seemed high for so long. We finally decided life is too short and just did it. And now in hindsight had we done it when we first had the idea it would have been worth more than twice as much.

Oh well—we intend to love it and make memories there so 🤷‍♀️

[bdubs419]

Oct 2, 2022 9:43:23 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Probably too recent to tell but we recently bought a vacation rental/2nd home. Like others we may have overpaid but we intend to keep it for a long time so hopefully it will be moot.

You can’t predict the market. We’ve been considering the purchase for 10 years. We’ve kicked the can down the road because prices seemed high for so long. We finally decided life is too short and just did it. And now in hindsight had we done it when we first had the idea it would have been worth more than twice as much.

Oh well—we intend to love it and make memories there so 🤷‍♀️

I could have written this all myself. We just recently bought a beach house mainly for rental purposes. We will use a bit but only in the off season here and there. It was still a HOT market when we were buying AND interest rates skyrocketed. I wish we bought years ago. The problem is we didn’t want to wait until it was the “right” time because who knows when that would be!!! And didn’t want to miss out. But man we had to like double our budget and ended up with an insane mortgage rate. Working the numbers now makes me realize it’s next to impossible to make it profitable. We will be lucky if we can rent it out and maybe make 75% of ours costs. Hoping over time that can get better. UGH. Praying in a few years we don’t have major regret. We also both have insanely busy jobs so taking on this is yet another job… and I’m thinking how the hell is this even worth it right now?

[mommin]

We bought in summer 2021 because we needed to move for a new job. I don’t regret it. I wish I had more time and more options but that’s about the only things I wish I could have changed. There we no rentals available and we only had three houses to choose from so it made it a pretty easy choice. We toured on FaceTime and everything was complete before we ever saw the house in person. Such a crazy time to buy!
We’ve made a number of changes and have a long list still to do but I love this house. If we move again we will likely keep it as an investment property since our rate is so low and it’s a good option for a rental (good neighborhood, low maintenance, good schools).

[neonpink]

We bought a house in Nov 2021, we owned a townhome before and needed more space for hobbies. We had talked about moving but never seriously. The day we saw our current home we were meh it’s awesome, needs some changes but overall do we want to spend the money. The next day a woman stopped my h outside our townhome and said “do you know anyone selling? We missed out on the last sale.” She gave an offer the highest for our community so we said yes and moved.

I love having a bigger home and space. Having a yard is a lot more to deal with than I expected.

[wise_rita]

Left Country A and sold a SFH, moved to Country B and bought a townhouse.

I don't regret the purchase, but I do regret the sale.

I wish we would have held onto it as a rental, even if it meant we couldn't buy in the new place. Even with interest rates skyrocketing we would have had amazing equity. It would've been a PITA with non-resident tax stuff, but in the long run it would have been a slam dunk asset to have. I knew all this as the sale was happening. I wish I would've worked harder to convince H to keep a foot in Country A!

[lessel]

Bought in June 2019 and regret it.

We moved for extra space and schools and the school part has totally blown up in our faces. Kid 1 has dyslexia and it's been a year and a half fight with his school to get him services. Our county's reading curriculum sucks for kids like him, so here we are looking at schools 45-minutes away now. And, even though we have a bigger house the space is not quite where we need it and the parts of the house we live in the most--kitchen/family room aren't super-functional... just kind of narrow spaces and we're always on top of each other. And we have a whole basement I can go months without going down to, and our formal living room is useless. Our neighborhood and the area is nice, but we ended up on the side of the neighborhood that is like 80% retirees, so all of the kids who run and play out in the streets together just aren't super-accessible and we miss that whole vibe the other section of the neighborhood has.

These are all kind of things that we can only see in hindsight though... hard to know or predict these sorts of things back when we bought.