Recovering from a real estate mistake

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’re in this situation, or close to it. Overpaid at the PEAK of the market including interest rates. House ended up having significant issues we discovered after the sale that will legally require us to sell as-is unless we spend $200K+ to fix them.

However, we LOVE our location and the lot we’re on is surrounded by new builds. So we’re debating selling at a loss to a developer and move on, teardown + rebuild, or stay for 5-8 years and spruce it up via an interior designer.

Nothing legally requires you to sell as-is but you would need to disclose anything major.

Again also confused about why if you overpaid the move would be to lock in your losses by selling???

[Anonymous]

There will probably be a lot of people in this situation due to the inflated, over list price sales that happened in the past five years or so combined with the economic slow down I think is coming.

[Anonymous]

I'm very sorry that this happened to you. It's very common that agents encourage people to get into bidding wars that are not based on comps but instead just based on fear of missing out, and it's mostly worked out for buyers because prices have continued to go up (I'm sorry that has not been your experience). But the never-ending price increases will stop at some point, and many more buyers will be in your situation.

[Anonymous]

Blaming the realtor is a big red flag about you. They’re nearly irrelevant at this point. There’s nothing they know that you can’t find out even from far away.

Also buying the house and immediately regretting it and being “miserable” in it. That says more about you than the house. It doesn’t sound like you have six kids in two bedrooms. It sounds like you’re doing pretty well and yet still miserable, which is a flag that whatever your problem is, a kitchen can’t and won’t fix it.

I’m fine with people moving, selling, buying, renovating etc whenever they want and nobody wins on every investment. But your blaming the realtor, flip flopping on the house, and blaming the house for your unhappiness suggest you should stay put and spend the money on therapy.

A renovation or a move will never make you happy unless you were already pretty happy, can afford it, and aren’t counting on it to change your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Blaming the realtor is a big red flag about you. They’re nearly irrelevant at this point. There’s nothing they know that you can’t find out even from far away.

Also buying the house and immediately regretting it and being “miserable” in it. That says more about you than the house. It doesn’t sound like you have six kids in two bedrooms. It sounds like you’re doing pretty well and yet still miserable, which is a flag that whatever your problem is, a kitchen can’t and won’t fix it.

I’m fine with people moving, selling, buying, renovating etc whenever they want and nobody wins on every investment. But your blaming the realtor, flip flopping on the house, and blaming the house for your unhappiness suggest you should stay put and spend the money on therapy.

A renovation or a move will never make you happy unless you were already pretty happy, can afford it, and aren’t counting on it to change your life.

+1000. OP needs to solve her own problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe hire a really good decorator/space planner to make the most of the space. Would be much cheaper and might help you hate the place less

This.

Back when we thought our city apartment wasn't working for us, we started looking for a house in the suburbs. In the end, we decided to commit to making the apartment work better for us . . . I hired a decorator and was willing make big decor changes and let go of furniture, rugs, window treatments, and lighting fixtures that we held on to over the years because they were "perfectly nice." We essentially went to square one . . . the results were transformative, and here we are ten years later and still in love with the place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’re in this situation, or close to it. Overpaid at the PEAK of the market including interest rates. House ended up having significant issues we discovered after the sale that will legally require us to sell as-is unless we spend $200K+ to fix them.

However, we LOVE our location and the lot we’re on is surrounded by new builds. So we’re debating selling at a loss to a developer and move on, teardown + rebuild, or stay for 5-8 years and spruce it up via an interior designer.

We are in this situation. How much would you lose if you sell? It could be a wash if you thinking about how much it would cost to fix vs. locking in your loss by selling now.

We are just sucking it up and fixing the problems. 1) the loss, 2) we'd have to pay more for something else in our area, 3) there really isn't anything we like more than our house, which we love everything about except the issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Blaming the realtor is a big red flag about you. They’re nearly irrelevant at this point. There’s nothing they know that you can’t find out even from far away.

Also buying the house and immediately regretting it and being “miserable” in it. That says more about you than the house. It doesn’t sound like you have six kids in two bedrooms. It sounds like you’re doing pretty well and yet still miserable, which is a flag that whatever your problem is, a kitchen can’t and won’t fix it.

I’m fine with people moving, selling, buying, renovating etc whenever they want and nobody wins on every investment. But your blaming the realtor, flip flopping on the house, and blaming the house for your unhappiness suggest you should stay put and spend the money on therapy.

A renovation or a move will never make you happy unless you were already pretty happy, can afford it, and aren’t counting on it to change your life.

+2

Find a way to like the house. Buy furniture and storage that fits well. Purge so it doesn't feel overcrowded. Save up for a reno if there are bigger problems with layout. At some point you thought this house was suitable. Find a way to like it.

[Anonymous]

We had friends who were super unhappy with their condo. They hated how dark if felt and wanted to sell and move, but couldn't afford it. It turns out they didn't know you could buy different wattages of light bulbs. We cleared that up for them and they spent a few hundred on lightbulbs. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is totally normal.for this area. It typically takes 10 years to not be under water on a house in this area. Renovate and deal with it.

Wrong, this is totally uheard of. We have never had a problem selling a house, we always chose inside the beltway with great school ratings of 9s or better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm very sorry that this happened to you. It's very common that agents encourage people to get into bidding wars that are not based on comps but instead just based on fear of missing out, and it's mostly worked out for buyers because prices have continued to go up (I'm sorry that has not been your experience). But the never-ending price increases will stop at some point, and many more buyers will be in your situation.

+2000. Agents definitely prey on buyers and encourage them to do things so that they get their commission check as quickly as possible. After all, if the buyers continue to lose bidding wars, the agent gets nothing.

[Anonymous]

OP, it really depends on how you feel about your location. Renovate if you like it, rent out if you don’t.

[Anonymous]

We have never had this issue and could sell within a year for profit or break even , the best rule is to first select only areas inside the beltway with too schools like McLean or langley high zones in Virginia or W schools in Bethesda. Then choose a single family home, then start from there , if you can't do it don't buy . Remember to stretch as far as possible because those areas insulate all loses

[Anonymous]

OP missing in action...not answering any questions...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have never had this issue and could sell within a year for profit or break even , the best rule is to first select only areas inside the beltway with too schools like McLean or langley high zones in Virginia or W schools in Bethesda. Then choose a single family home, then start from there , if you can't do it don't buy . Remember to stretch as far as possible because those areas insulate all loses

It really depends on your goals. We bought in an area that is often mocked on this board, but our house is walkable to everything (including metro) and would have cost at least double in the areas you mentioned. It's gone up about 50% in the 12 years that we've owned. With the money we saved, we've taken lots of nice vacations and invested a lot in the stock market, which has done very well. And even though the public schools might not be as prestigious, both of our kids were accepted to top 25 colleges. I'm glad we didn't sink a lot of money into a more expensive house, because it really would have limited us financially. And housing appreciation is always deceptive because just looking at the increase masks how much you've spent wasted along the way in property taxes and interest (most of which you don't get back through tax deductions).

If we had tried to sell within a few years of owning (like OP), we would have likely lost money also. It really helps to have a long time horizon when buying.