Was this a terrible decision?
January 14, 2024 11:14 AM   Subscribe

I bought a small studio flat in Farnborough two years ago, and now I'm wondering if I made a big mistake. My brother had come into a lot of money and he offered to pay the deposit. I had never thought about owing a home before and I had no idea how any of it worked. The only place in the area I could afford was a 299 sq ft studio flat, and I was living in a shared house with a bad landlord at the time, so owning my own studio sounded good.

My brother is a very forceful person, and he was really enthusiastic about me owing a home, and I think I got swept up in his enthusiasm even though I was never totally sure I wanted it. I'm autistic and it can be hard for me to communicate if I have doubts about something, and I also tend to avoid thinking about things which make me anxious. I ended up buying it without fully thinking it through, and I stupidly went for a two year mortgage instead of five years, so my payments just went way up. It turned out ok, in that I like living here, and I got a pay rise so I can still afford the mortgage, but I've read that small studios are considered bad investments because they're so difficult to sell. I'd like to move away from Farnborough at some point, and I'm worried that I'll never be able to sell the flat, or that I'll have to take a big loss. I also just feel bad about making such a huge decision without fully thinking it through.
posted by Chenko to Home & Garden (21 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: I feel like you're being really hard on yourself here. Did you make the optimal decision? Literally no one can know, but it certainly doesn't sound like this was a terrible one. You got yourself out of a bad living situation into one in a place you like and can afford. When your life circumstances change and you make actual, concrete plans to move out of this town, you can worry about the resale value of your flat at that point (or maybe you will choose to let it out instead - perhaps a small studio might be more attractive to a renter?) There's no point in worrying about it now, is there? I imagine you would feel even worse if you made another rash decision at this point (like selling right now at a loss) based on your bad feelings about your previous decision to buy.

FWIW, I'm currently in a similar spot and feel your pain. I got caught up in the idea of homeownership and bought a small condo at a vastly overinflated price last year, which has fallen in value by (I would estimate) about 10% if I were to try and sell now. But I'm not trying to sell it, so that number is meaningless.
posted by btfreek at 11:35 AM on January 14, 2024 [23 favorites]


It got you out of an unpleasant situation, you like living there and you can afford it. Speaking as someone wary of home ownership who has a lot of anxiety about significant expenditures, that sounds like a good outcome to me, and beating yourself up about not having made a perfect decision in the past and worrying about what that means for the future isn't benefitting you. You learned some things about home buying and will apply them going forward.

Who knows what the future holds? Even if the market is tough, you might want to sell at the same time someone in your former position is looking to buy. Lots of things can happen between now and when you're ready to move elsewhere. Let yourself enjoy your place now.
posted by EvaDestruction at 11:37 AM on January 14, 2024 [10 favorites]


This sounds like quite a good decision if I understand you correctly. If you'll own your flat free and clear in two years, and you escaped a bad living situation, then even if you don't turn a profit when and if you sell it it seems like a net positive to me.
posted by shadygrove at 11:40 AM on January 14, 2024 [7 favorites]


(shadygrove, a "two-year mortgage" in this context refers to the length of time on the mortgage before its interest rate is recalculated, not the full length of the mortgage term)
posted by btfreek at 11:45 AM on January 14, 2024 [9 favorites]


Best answer: Hey - Past You made the best decision they were able to with the information they had at the time. Please stop torturing Present You over their decision.

No decision is ever perfect. None of us know the future. By the time you decide to sell, it could be that a dwelling like yours is super desirable - but as I often remind myself about our home, I’ll only ever need one buyer for it.

If it is useful to you, make a list of positive things you have learned here - like, perhaps, taking a step back from the enthusiasm of others to reflect on your own feelings. But there is no need to continue to bother yourself over this choice. It is ok to relax and enjoy your home.
posted by hilaryjade at 11:46 AM on January 14, 2024 [15 favorites]


Agree with others— this was not a poor decision especially if your brother covered the down payment! And even if he didn’t—you can afford it and it got you out of a bad living situation. Resale doesn’t matter for now.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:47 AM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]


It doesn’t sound like you have a specific immediate problem to solve so that’s good, right? As to a potential sale down the road.

It really doesn’t matter what “small studios” do. The only thing that matters is what the market for small studios is like in your area at the time you want to sell.

So if you find information soothing, you could start following local listings for small studios. Just set up an alert. That way you can see how long they take to sell in your area. Do sellers drop the asking price? That indicates they are having trouble selling. By gathering that kind of information when you are not actively trying to sell you can then factor it into your plans if you want to sell.

If the real estate market is bad at that point, that still doesn't mean you’re stuck where you don’t want to be or forced to realise a loss. Perhaps also set up alerts for small studio rentals in your area. Are they popular? Do they command rents that cover the mortgage, costs, tax? You may just become a landlord for a bit until the market recovers. I had to do that a few years ago. Still own the place even though the market has more than recovered by now.

So you may not have explored all conceivable angles of the purchase at the time. You now have the luxury of time to explore all potential options for a future move down the road. I am not suggesting you have to do that. But if the lack of information worries you get the information.
posted by koahiatamadl at 11:52 AM on January 14, 2024 [3 favorites]


I've read that small studios are considered bad investments because they're so difficult to sell.

Anything you read was specific to the past at the time it was written, and (probably?) wasn't specific to your town. There's no way to know what the market will be like in your area if/when you do choose to leave. And if a buyer like you existed, there's no reason to think another one wouldn't exist later.

I'd like to move away from Farnborough at some point, and I'm worried that I'll never be able to sell the flat, or that I'll have to take a big loss

Are you calculating your brother's gift of the deposit into that theoretical loss?
Would you potentially be able to rent your place out if you wanted to?

It's normal to feel unsure about huge purchases, and real estate in particular can feel like an anchor, but it's done, right? So you might as well feel good about it and take advantage of the benefits (privacy, peace of mind, etc.) for as long as you live there.

I also have the kind of personality where I'd be second-guessing myself constantly about something like this, and I think it's kind of a life skill to learn not to do that and instead start thinking in terms of what you have, not what you potentially should or could have had if only...

I also just feel bad about making such a huge decision without fully thinking it through.

Yeah, that might be something to practice little by little, and it's an important thing to learn about yourself.

That said, there are always big decisions that can't truly be fully thought through - we always have to make them based on imperfect information, and it's always a gamble to some extent. And it's not always possible to do things in what we think is the perfectly right way. So it's also worth practicing making peace with that reality.
posted by trig at 11:54 AM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]


Also, the fact that you said you like living there is very important. My answer to you would have been different if you didn’t actually like living there.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:55 AM on January 14, 2024 [4 favorites]


If you want to calculate this from a financial position only then I think we need to know a bit more about the deposit. Do you have to pay your brother back? If not then you pretty much definitely made a great decision. Even if the flat is a little hard to sell and you need to lower the price, etc, etc, you'll likely be up financially.

If you do have to pay your brother back, then is it for the value of the initial deposit, or with inflation/interest included? Even if it's the latter you probably still made a sound financial decision as a mortgage is cheaper than rent, so you'll have saved on the way.

If you want to include quality of life in the equation too, it definitely sounds like you did the right thing.

It's hard to be conclusive without all the figures, so if you have any doubts, contact an independent financial advisor (a mortgage broker or the like).
posted by einekleine at 12:18 PM on January 14, 2024


Best answer: I wonder if the "real" source of your bad feelings about the studio is the feeling that you were pushed into making a decision. I'm autistic too and I find that I need significantly more time to make decisions than other people seem to need (and that I chronically forced myself not to take before I found out I'm autistic). Forcing myself to make decisions on other people's timelines caused me a huge amount of stress and anxiety.

It may be worthwhile to work on this aspect of granting yourself the time you need to make decisions, starting from much lower-stakes circumstances like e.g. figuring out which box of bandages to buy at the drugstore. This approach has begun to help me to actually take the time I need in higher-stakes circumstances rather than reflexively rushing to decide in order to try to appear "normal". It has also given me more time to evaluate what I actually want rather than trying to figure out what "normal" people think I ought to want and then going with that.
posted by heatherlogan at 12:24 PM on January 14, 2024 [13 favorites]


Best answer: A small flat isn't a great for investors because it has a small and risky return when compared to other investment options. Renting isn't an investment at all. As long as you end up with less in loss (between mortgage interest, selling at a loss, repairs) than you would spend in rent, then it is a good investment for you. Sure, the mortgage rates went up, but so did rental prices. Even if the numbers are vaguely close, getting out of a bad living situation is good, and something worth spending money on.
posted by Garm at 12:25 PM on January 14, 2024 [12 favorites]


Best answer: Your brother paid the down payment? Sounds like a great decision, even if don't make as big of a profit when you sell it due to it being a studio, or if it takes slightly longer to sell. Not everything has to be a wealth building investment vehicle to be a smart and sound decision!
posted by windbox at 12:50 PM on January 14, 2024 [10 favorites]


There is nothing like having a safe space to live - and it sounds like you have that. Celebrate this! Celebrate all the benefits of living on your own, and not having a bad landlord, and not having to deal with landlords or roommates at all. It is a gift. Enjoy it in this moment. If you get to a place where you want to leave or move or sell or rent it to someone...solve that when it happens. For now, find a way to enjoy what you have.
posted by lulu68 at 1:23 PM on January 14, 2024 [7 favorites]


yea, if you like living there that is definitely a win. Even if you don't end up making a profit on it when you decide to sell, or even don't make all your investment back, you 100% wouldn't have made any of the money you spent on rent back, and you wouldn't have been living in a place you like.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:25 PM on January 14, 2024


Best answer: Every single person (who does not consider themselves a wheeler-dealer future real estate billionaire) who buys a home experiences periodic angst about having done so. Or about not having done so, or having done so at the wrong time or under the wrong circumstances. It's a normal angst, and not generally based in any real truths - at least not any that were known on the day you made the agreement.

So long as nobody took you aside and said, "look, don't buy that place, it's got haunted bedbugs and it's built on a "former" toxic waste dump" and you ignored that, you have at best made a decision you may slightly regret at some point but probably not permanently or to the total ruin of your life. Also, you could have been totally enthusiastic about buying at the time and still feel periodic regret about all the ones you didn't buy, the timing, the unpredictableness of the economy and so on, and also about spending the money on a home instead of traveling around the world etc.

It's fine. The decision was fine. Most things in life work out more or less okay.

Do you think you could do some research to see how often properties "never" sell, to ease your concerns some? Studios are viable living spaces to a smaller portion of the public than bigger flashier properties and are harder to flip or rent for significantly higher than they're worth, but they DO serve exactly their place in the market you used it for: to get on the property ladder. You are unlikely to run completely out of studio buyers, and there's probably other studios of around the same age/quality/location for sale you can keep an eye on to get a feel for the market (in the US these are called "comps", for "comparable properties", and our realtor had to provide comps to our mortgage lender to prove we were not asking for some kind of "unreasonable" loan for what we were getting). It's not a bad idea for any property owner who thinks they might sell in the next 5ish years, and it's a good way to tell if some aspect of your place is falling out of fashion or code and might need updates to sell for the best possible price when the time comes. Also, this way you'll notice if the market gets extra hot for some reason, and you might decide to ride that wave.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:31 PM on January 14, 2024 [8 favorites]


I just want to nth that I think it’s totally normal to get these occasional panics once you’ve bought property, especially your first property. It’s the biggest thing you’ll ever buy, after all. I had a bout of this recently and my 80-something mum told me when they’d first bought their house back in the 1960s, she had something similar and got inordinately worried about the light switches for some reason that she couldn’t recall. They’re still in the house and very happy there nearly 60 years later and the light switches never did whatever it was she was worried about.

Sounds like you made a pretty decent decision at the time, albeit with a degree of discomfort about feeling railroaded, and none of us can predict the future.

For me, my recent bout was definitely connected to wider anxiety issues so if you have those and have any good ways of taking care of yourself when that happens, maybe lean on them just now, and keep enjoying the flat and appreciating it.

And congratulations on your payrise, even if interest rates have swallowed it up for now!
posted by penguin pie at 2:28 PM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]


Rushing into a move is so common! Jobs and circumstances change making moves necessary even when timing and finances suck.
It sounds like you were very lucky and made the right choice at the right time and have no reason to second guess or beat yourself up.
Enjoy your new place, that's all your own, that nobody can take away or mess with.
posted by Enid Lareg at 2:31 PM on January 14, 2024


My wife and I bought our first property, an apartment, at the start of 2008 -- right as the real estate market in the U.S. was about to crash. For a number of years afterward, if we had tried to sell it, we probably would have gotten less than we paid for it.

But we enjoyed living there, for the most part, and when we finally did sell it, many years later, we ended up making a tidy profit.

Ultimately, there is a conflict between viewing a home that you've bought as a place to live, and viewing it as an investment. Both may be meaningful, but I tend to think that the former is more important.

If your studio is serving you well as a place to live, that's what matters most. Its investment value will only become a material issue for you if and when you decide to sell it. And even if you don't get what might subjectively be considered a "great price" for it at that time, if it served you well as a residence while you owned it, that's the most important thing.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:50 PM on January 14, 2024 [4 favorites]


Sounds like you have what's known as "buyer's remorse" which is 100% natural and common. I felt this way after buying our current home — a little. It's not "rational" but humans are not always rational. So don't beat yourself up for feeling this way! Just about everyone I know had some feelings like this after buying their houses/condos, or even cars.

From what you write in this post, it doesn't seem like you made a bad decision. Don't focus on the negatives! You should maybe think of small projects, small steps to make the home more comfortable or cozy for yourself. Painting, arranging furniture. Maybe buying artwork or a mirror for the walls. New sheets for your bed to feel more comfortable. Or just plain tidying up, getting things where you want them to be. Have a small housewarming party. Or just a couple friends or family over. Make a nice meal, bake a cake. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money. Focus on those.

As others have mentioned and I will second: your home is where you live. Sure it's an investment, but the most important thing is to have a good place to live. Making money back on it should not even be your concern at this point. You are living there now, try to live there now in the best way for yourself.
posted by SoberHighland at 6:01 PM on January 14, 2024 [1 favorite]


Best answer: It's fine. Farnborough is near to many excellent jobs and the market value of a small flat means that it is within reach of a first time buyer and any kind of investor. It's never going to be unsellable. It is true that studios are not as attractive to couples as a larger flat, but there are plenty of single people (and investors that want to rent to single people) who want to buy something they can afford.
posted by plonkee at 5:42 AM on January 15, 2024 [1 favorite]


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