We’ve had it for six weeks and most of the boxes are outside the living room. The picture frame is still leaning against the wall, though, because while we will definitely paint the room green, or maybe just blue, all the patches we’ve put on the chimney chest so far look like toothpaste.
Thankfully, this problem may resolve itself. Whenever my wife thinks of a new job to do in the house, we write it on a sticky note and stick it on the wall: Fix the baseboards, shoot! Buy a kitchen table, bam! At this rate, the little yellow squares will cover two reception room tablecloths by Christmas.
The problem with our house – and I think any house – is that the closer you look, the more problems you find. This is demoralizing.
It definitely felt more dramatic when we bought the place. Back in June, the mortgage market was in turmoil, but we managed to submit an application before lenders withdrew their products and repriced them. At first, we felt like Indiana Jones, rolling around under the closed door and looking back to grab our hats. Now, with five-year fixed-rate mortgage rates sitting at just under 6% and house prices falling at their fastest pace in 14 years, we’re starting to feel like Jack Dawson, jumping off the pier and boarding The departing Titanic.
Which reminds me: Unclog the sink, bam!
Then I suddenly realized – Do I have homebuyer’s remorse?
Post-purchase dissonance is thought to result from having two psychologically inconsistent thoughts at the same time: I thought this thing would make me happy, but I’m not. It can cause feelings of shame, guilt, or even make you feel like you were deceived by the seller or salesperson. A 2000 study described a 22-item scale measuring buyer’s remorse, including “I wonder if I made the right choice?” for me, and “I feel pain after buying it.” ”, that doesn’t apply to me. — though, if I had to assemble one more piece of flat-pack furniture, I might literally fall apart.
Fix the crack in the ceiling, bam!
In clinical psychologist Dr. Stephen Blumenthal’s clinic in central London, he sees many people – many of them very successful in business – experiencing buyer’s remorse. He said it was all the fault of the competitive mentality. “It’s part of the illusion that goods or things will increase our happiness. The hedonic hit of having something we desire (to have) only lasts for a short period of time, and then you’re left with the feeling of empty pockets. anxiety.”
What’s daunting is how much money you could potentially lose. An Aviva report in July 2021 found that half of UK homeowners who bought a home since the start of the pandemic believed they had overpaid – at a time when the Bank of England’s base interest rate was 0.1%. With interest rates currently at 5.25%, and financial markets expecting rates to remain higher for longer – with the base rate not expected to be cut for the first time until mid-2024 – what exactly are buyers thinking now?
“We’re seeing a significant slowdown in the market but only a small decline in prices,” said Richard Donnell, head of research at property website Zoopla. He believes our house price growth will continue to be very low for several years. Only when real incomes start rising again will he expect the market to pick up in any meaningful way.
Personally, I’ve seen a slight increase in the number of homes listed in my neighborhood. I know this because I still get notifications when homes in my area sell. Every now and then they knock on my phone.
When my wife discovered this, her jaw dropped. “Why?!” she asked. “Continuing to subscribe to property alerts is like continuing to use a dating app after getting married.”
I was going to joke that I still use them – but I thought about it anyway.
“No, you have to leave Rightmove,” said Roarie Scarisbrick, a purchasing agent with Property Vision. But other than that, I shouldn’t blame myself for it. “On any given day, even the experts who write about (the market) don’t know what’s going to happen in three months or six months,” he said. “If you do find yourself in a situation where the market is down . . . as long as you can afford the mortgage, what can you do? You have a roof over your head; you just have to live under it.”
Of course I should be grateful. I realize that for Londoners caught up in the worsening rent crisis, my situation must evoke the most schadenfreude.
It doesn’t matter whether you think you’re getting a good deal (I really do) or a bad deal, Blumenthal says, it can still leave you feeling guilty, lost, and alone. What if you do feel this way? “Once you invest in basic material security, invest in your relationships,” he said. “Good relationships are the antidote to loneliness.”
Of course, he’s right. Our children quickly outgrew our previous apartment. Even though the new house was expensive, I think he liked it: the space and the little garden.
Last weekend, out of love for my new place, I tried carving his height into the kitchen door frame for the first time.
I stood back and smiled as I thought: The door frame was peeling away from the wall at the bottom.
Call the handyman, bam!
Nathan Brooker is editor of House & Home magazine
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