I messed up my house move - financial mess

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MelF

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I wrote a previous post about how I was reluctant to sell my house early ahead of a new build being ready in case the wait in-between went on too long. I'm notoriously risk averse and now it seems with good reason.

Risk of sitting on the sidelines in rental with house sale proceeds

Why on earth did you agree to sell your house? If you don't need to sell your house, you should have bought the new house first and then put your own on the market. It's not fair to pull out of the sale of yours as the buyers have plans around it. So go ahead with the sale and rent somewhere...
askaboutmoney.com

Against my better judgement and taking all advice into account, I did sell up and move into rental accommodation. And as it stands am now down almost 40k on rental costs while still waiting on the new house to be ready - exactly the worst case I'd forseen.

The rent/storage costs we're paying out now is real money while my wife reckons the new house has gone up in value regardless so it's much of a muchness.
But to me that kind of thing only notional, plus if we'd stayed where we were we would've sold our house for more this year too while remaining in comfort until we were ready to move.
So all in all I think it's been a financial disaster. We're arguing a lot about it and I know I need to square it away in my head somehow but I'm not sure how. Any wise words that might be able to help me put in perspective before the niggles wear me down altogether...
 
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Is the new property still being worked on? Appreciate the timelines are no longer on track, but has work stopped completely?
 
I would say a financial disaster is betting your old house proceeds on a horse that came last. Or becoming v ill so that you can no longer earn your expected salary. So you do need some perspective on it and how you frame it in your mind.

But obviously it is not ideal, not just money wise but in terms of family disruption.

What I will say is that you and your wife made this decision together and outcomes are not always predictable. So don't shoulder the burden of this alone, even if you are more risk averse. You might not have been able to get an option to buy your new home if you hadn't sold.

How far away is house completion? Can you do anything on the storage costs, is there anything you hung onto that you thought was a short period and now you could dispose of or sell to ease that expense? Is there any leeway on rental, do you have relatives you could stay with if needed? More disruption but you could look at it on the basis of spending time with close family eg grandparents that probably wouldn't happen again.

What costs are you not paying now, eg maintenance on a house (this is the landlord's bill rn), less bills if a smaller house than before or in the future, is your commute less expensive ie can the kids walk to school so less fuel on cars etc etc. Look at it in those terms as well. Plus the interest rates might have eased off a bit by the time you complete, meaning less time on a more expensive fixed rate when you draw down. And obv no interest being paid right now on a loan.
 
And I always try to work off the principle of focusing your energies on what you can actually change...you can't go back in time and change the decisions made, but you can see what you can do about making the present situation better...try to make plans around that rather than looking back.

Hopefully this is helpful. Remember the move and the wait for the new home is a stressful thing for a family, so any arguing is probably not just on this decision. See if you can get some time alone with your wife where you don't talk house stuff - v hard to do but sounds like you could do with it as a couple - much like when kids are very young and life is all about them, you sometimes need to go somewhere and pretend not to be parents for a couple of hours!
 
If, from my understanding, you are still going to move to your new house at some point, really what can you do about it now, nothing. When we moved to a new house years ago, we decided to put our first house on sale with the view that our new house would be ready in September. September came and went, our new house was not ready and our buyer's finances were not ready either. We decided to put our house back on the market, it was sold and we moved out in January without any house, that wasn't the plan. We finally moved into our new house in May. But I know some neighbors who decided not to sell their first house because clearly, the builder wasn't reliable. It was then September 2007. Prices had begun to decrease, they waited and waited to sell and ended up selling a couple of years later at a lower price than they could have expected in 2007.
 
This thread?

Moving is very stressful, something people only do a few times in their life. It always costs more than you think it will and takes longer than anticipated. And none of us are experts as we only do it a couple of times in a lifetime.

So only focus now on the future, what is done is done. And yes it may have cost you €40K more than you budgeted but you are where you are now and the only real perspective is to pick yourself up and move on.
 
misemoi said:
How far away is house completion? Can you do anything on the storage costs, is there anything you hung onto that you thought was a short period and now you could dispose of or sell to ease that expense? Is there any leeway on rental, do you have relatives you could stay with if needed? More disruption but you could look at it on the basis of spending time with close family eg grandparents that probably wouldn't happen again.
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No timeline in sight and progress is glacial, I've no idea how long it will take. No relatives living nearby and we are restricted to where we are due to schools and work etc. Honestly feels like such a complete disaster all round, compounded by the fact that I saw it coming as a worst-case but let myself be persuaded to shrug off my negative mindset and hope for the best. Never again...
 
1) You signed contracts to buy a new build at a fixed price.
2) You knew that there was a risk that it would not be finished by the promised date.
3) You were worried that Covid might recur and you would be unable to sell your existing house. That was certainly a worry.
4) You were also worried that if you sold your existing house, the new house might not be finished in time and you would spend more time renting.

So you accepted the risk that it might not be finished on time in exchange for avoiding the risk that market would collapse and you could not sell your own house.

It was a perfectly reasonable decision to make.

If you had not sold your house and the market had subsequently collapsed, your wife would be berating you for not having sold the house. Actually, you would probably be berating yourself more.

You make a call based on the best information available at the time.

What you need to focus on now is talking to your solicitor and the builder to see if you can move in to the new house quickly.

Brendan
 
Moving house is very stressful. It involves difficult choices which in retrospect can look very wise or foolish. There were risks attached to the choice you did take but there were no doubt risks to holding on to your original house as well.

The downside now is delays and rental costs.

If you went the other way, the downsides could have been a slowdown in the property market, difficulty selling your house, difficulty getting finance to complete the new house, possibly being forced into being a landlord, overexposure to a falling property market etc etc.

I think the real problem here is the that the progress on the new house is slow. That was going to cause you problems either way. You can't beat yourself up about taking a decision in the past which was objectively sensible. OK events subsequent to that decision have not been great but no-one could have known that at the time.

And your wife is right. While you have incurred rental costs, the value of your next house is also higher.

In my view, give yourself a break. Some stuff in life is just outside your control.

Hope it all works out for you...
 
What your wife says about the new house going up in value - this is actually real. If you had not sold and been confident to sign for the new house, you would be buying the new house at a higher price probably with a much lower uplift in the sale price of your own house. Or to get the same price you might have been buying a house with a poorer aspect or with less floor space etc. Or maybe you would not be able to buy the new house at all if the new price took it beyond your max/max for what it is.
 
And just on an anecdotal basis...we moved as kids, looking back on it as an adult & parent the circumstances must have been extremely stressful for my parents. I recall a bit of an adventure, excitement about the new build and look back on the happy childhood we had in the new comfortable home that we had for years after and still enjoy now on visits. So try to breathe and take stock of what your future holds in your new home and not this blip, that while you might not look back on fondly, it is just a small part of your overall life. If you were able to secure a bonus or promotion by moving your energies to work eg you might be able to recoup this extra expense, or maybe don't upgrade the car or have a cheaper holiday for a couple of years.
 
The best advice I have been given is, it's not you against your wife, it's you and your wife against the problem.
And listen to misemoi. What if you had kept your house and it needed a new boiler/plumbing/storm damage in the meantime? There's 10~15 grand straight away.
 
Unlike other posters, I advise that you look at this squarely and recognise the truth in it. It's not going away and pretending that it is not real is no basis for moving forward.

MelF said:
Honestly feels like such a complete disaster all round, compounded by the fact that I saw it coming as a worst-case but let myself be persuaded to shrug off my negative mindset and hope for the best. Never again...
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It is a miserable feeling knowing that your understanding of the situation was correct but you let yourself be guided away from that.

The question is what are you going to do about it. I suggest that you shout it at the wall. "I was right, I knew it, you didn't listen and look at the mess we are in now".

But I don't think that anyone lead you into the situation intentionally, it is of no benefit now to you or anyone to dwell on the choices not taken.

Live with the delay, work on getting the new house over the line, and look forward to enjoying it eventually. Good luck.
 
We have all heard ‘Hindsight is a great thing and trying to time the market is extremely difficult’.

We bought a new house and were told our PPR would sell, no problem. Had a feeling we should have made new house purchase condition of sale of our PPR but was convinced otherwise.

Long story short, market collapsed and when PPR eventually sold, it was for over 200k less than previous market value. Recriminations did not help.

We still have the ‘new’ house but now it is rented out supplementing our retirement.

You are not alone, we found some comfort from reading AAM and realising there are a lot of people worse off than we are, but the lesson we learned... Listen to your gut feeling next time.
 
cremeegg said:
I suggest that you shout it at the wall. "I was right, I knew it, you didn't listen and look at the mess we are in now".
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Can't agree at all.

Read his post from the time:

Risk of sitting on the sidelines in rental with house sale proceeds

Would be grateful to hear other people's experiences with this, about to sign contracts to sell my house but my next one won't be ready to close or for occupation for another 3 months. Having owned property since the mid-nineties I'm getting the heebie jeebies about the idea of waiting things...
askaboutmoney.com

He was just not sure what to do. There was no right answer.

He could have held onto the house and found it difficult to sell as in Equality's answer above.

The thing is that in such cases, there is no right answer.

Each option has pros and cons and the better option will be known only in retrospect.

@ MelF

If you had welched on the sale agreed of your home or if you had decided not to put it on the market until you had moved into your new home, you would be fretting continuously now that the house market was about to collapse.

As I said earlier, focus on trying to get the builder to finish the house.

Brendan
 
In the grand scheme of things and in the context of two big transactions, €40k isn’t a king’s ransom. The new place probably has increased in value, so if it was me I wouldn’t beat myself up over it. Hindsight is great sight and in terms of bad decision making, this really isn’t that bad.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
In the grand scheme of things and in the context of two big transactions, €40k isn’t a king’s ransom. The new place probably has increased in value, so if it was me I wouldn’t beat myself up over it. Hindsight is great sight and in terms of bad decision making, this really isn’t that bad.
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It's a lot to me! Would have happily taken a price fall if we were at least still in the comfort of our own home which is why I was more inclined to stay put. And we're still not out of the woods so the tally's not even finalised, which is prob the hardest of all to stomach.

The lesson is, never give up control of your life to be dependent on someone else's timeline.
 
MelF said:
It's a lot to me! Would have happily taken a price fall if we were at least still in the comfort of our own home which is why I was more inclined to stay put. And we're still not out of the woods so the tally's not even finalised, which is prob the hardest of all to stomach.

The lesson is, never give up control of your life to be dependent on someone else's timeline.
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Each approach had its risks, if you had held on and the market collapsed in the meantime the loss could have been much greater, its a bit like shares, its very hard to buy at the very bottom and sell at the very top you just need to pick a spot you can live with.

Regardless there is nothing you can do about it now, nor will telling your wife i told you so help matters.
 
Maybe a simplistic view but if you broke it down as immediate cashflow, you might be paying rent but you assumedly are saving on your potential mortgage costs (leaving aside paying off your mortgage, I get that of course). Plus your wife obviously really wanted the move, which you assumedly wanted for her, then you only had one decision to make, which you did. So it really isn't your partners fault, you could direct your attention to the builder and those delays.

We were in exactly the same position two years back (including a sale fall through on our own home which was stressful) but we couldn't control the builders timelines but got there in the end and it was worth it.

I know its glib to say focus on the future but that's really all you can do. Otherwise you will end up spoiling the future by focusing on the past.
 
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