Buying a place to live can be stressful, especially if it’s your first time. Whether it’s finding proper insurance, getting much-needed maintenance done, or planning for future upgrades, there are so many unknowns and things to worry about.

To figure out the biggest and most common complaints about the whole process, Reddit user Californiabred made a post on the platform, asking: “Homeowners who bought recently, what’s your biggest regret?” Immediately, people from all over the world started sending in their answers.

#1

Don’t bother childproofing your home. They still get in.

Image credits: Blueblackzinc

#2

Not recent, but I still regret not refinishing the floors before I moved in. I’ll never do it now.

Image credits: WinterFilmAwards

A survey of 2,000 recent homebuyers – 44% of whom purchased their current property in 2021 and 56% of whom bought in 2022 – might help us to put these stories into context.

The most common repairs these people had to get were related to plumbing (35%), HVAC (34%), and electrical wiring (33%) issues. Luckily, when asked if they feel prepared to take on unexpected home repair costs up to $1,000, approximately four in five (81%) respondents answered yes, while just 19% said no.

#3

Not knowing enough about the area/town.
I hate where we live ☹️ hoping we can move by the time my oldest starts kindergarten

Image credits: MP1087

#4

Bought about 3 years ago.

Biggest regret was rushing to buy Furniture.

Wish I took my time and bought pieces when I could afford something nice.

Now I have s****y couches I despise.

Image credits: JohnDoee94

Still, buying a home is one of the biggest investments most people make, so it’s no wonder that many new homeowners report feeling stressed at some point.

In fact, 83% of those surveyed have experienced homeowner anxiety, and 69% also admitted that they’ve had buyer’s remorse, while 33% revealed they experience such feelings regularly.

#5

I bought a house from a contractor that flips homes. Never again.

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#6

Hiring the wrong home inspector they missed so much,I really have to wonder if all those reviews were bought and paid for.

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Even if they feel financially stable after purchasing a home, many new owners say they are worried about the safety and security of their property:

• 59% worry about home break-ins;
• 52% worry about home fires;
• 49% worry about home flooding;
• 37% worry about earthquake damage.

So I guess the added freedom of having your own place comes with new worries in one form or the other.

#7

I’m in awe of anybody that was recently able to buy a house.

Image credits: forevertheyo

#8

Not planting the fruit trees sooner. It’s a long wait 🙂

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#9

The situation when you bought a house where it was possible and a month later they sell a house in the area where you wanted

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#10

Not being born in the 50s

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#11

Be shameless enough to perform your own base level of inspection of a house so you don’t have to rely on what an inspector finds or get in a situation where you have to make an offer regardless of what the inspection finds.

Turn all the faucets on and run the dishwasher. Start the washer machine for a second. Figure out if there is any water pressure issue.

Bring a multi line laser and a tape measure. Check for any significant changes in slope on the foundation for some settling issues.

Pay attention to the downspouts. Do they terminate right at the house or do they have longer pipes that lead the water away?

Pay attention to the flooring and create a rough estimate of what it will cost to immediately replace the flooring. Way easier to do when you don’t have a house full of furniture and can do it right before you move in.

On the financial side you need to talk with multiple lenders at all times and make sure they continue to give you the most up to date closing costs. There were a lot of sneaky numbers that made there way in that I was unaware of as a first time home buyer.

Until that mortgage lender gives you the locked in rate don’t trust them as to what number they are currently telling you.

Discover your maximum mortgage rate + escrow and work backwards as to the maximum house you can afford. Don’t buy based on the pipe dream of refinancing.

#12

Not buying 4 years ago.

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#13

Not doing a walk through before closing and not having the sellers fix the electric before I signed the contract. My two biggest regrets.

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#14

I sat on my a*s for too long and missed out on the lower price and incredible interest. The house I bought for 465k was 350k in 2019.

Image credits: Yo_2T

#15

The inspector told us the main drain in the basement was clogged. We thought it was clogged with something normal. It was, in fact, “clogged” with cement from when our basement floor was redone. So now our basement regularly gets standing water on one side.

Image credits: doctorpotterhead

#16

I regret not having the inside painted and the carpet replaced before we moved in. Been here two years and it never felt like “my home” until I got rid of the stains of those who came before.

#17

Buying and then four months later getting divorced.

Image credits: q1ung

#18

I bought a lemon of a house. Turned out that it needed new wiring, plumbing, and structural support. The inspector (friends with the real estate agent I found out) didn’t have any concerns about the house.

I ended up short selling it for a $15,000 loss.

#19

I bought a few years ago. So many things have gone sideways. One thing I regret is not being educated about permits. Contractors/handymen/ anyone who works on your house really, never mentions a permit may be needed.

Learned that it’s up to me and me alone to do the research and phone calls. Currently have a job on hold because they needed a permit. The company blamed me and now I’m not sure they’re even going to do the work.

Watch the movie The Money Pit. It’s not that far off. Some days I wish I’d just be a renter.

Image credits: MissPeppingtosh

#20

I have no regrets. Buying property is never a bad idea unless you can’t afford the monthly payment. It beats paying rent that increases every year and you get nothing in return for it. You can always refinance, but you can never change the purchase price, so you win some you lose some at either end of things.

I guess I wish I had more money to hire people to fix things so I didn’t have to do it myself. But that’s just how it is sometimes.

#21

Not looking in the attic, they built a new roof over the old one.
Gonna make remodeling hard.

Image credits: SleepyCountingSheep

#22

I should have bought a smaller house with money left to renovate instead of a larger one with nothing left over. There are so many weird quirks with this place that I would love to change but I’ll probably have to wait 10 years. I’m doing all the changes that I can do myself but there’s just so many to do and some are way outside my knowledge base.

Image credits: alltherobots

#23

Not particularly recent, but we did not pull out cars in the driveway or attempt to park them. So we didn’t realize that my car could only enter the driveway from one direction, so I had to turn around half a block up every time I needed to park. And we just BARELY got two cars in the driveway.

So my regret is that I took for granted that the driveway met our needs.

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#24

Interest rates

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#25

Not making it secure enough earlier.

#26

That I didn’t borrow a bit extra to have a buffer for things like house repairs and rates. We literally borrowed the minimum we needed for the house and put every cent of savings into it. I’m definitely regretting doing that, now with cost of living and rate rises we no longer have the ability to save anything significant by the end of each month so any repairs and extras are going to take forever to save for

#27

Buying a house we weren’t super psyched about but we needed a house due to moving for a job.

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#28

I absolutely LOVE my new house…. However, somebody just built a HUGE McMansion not far and they can see into my entire backyard from their back porch. I knew there was a new subdivision going in next door, but didn’t realize how close the houses would be to mine or that they would block my mountain view.

#29

Buying in an area where my house is the most expensive one.

Everyone else’s prices are driving mine down. It’s making it harder to sell for what it’s worth.

Image credits: two_slow_joe

#30

I bought awhile back. But if I spent $100 to $150k more I could have bought a much better house and would be $1 million more now.

#31

Getting a homestead exemption the month we moved in.

#32

Not learning more about home maintenance before buying and moving in. Nothing major has happened thankfully but after a few years I’ve realized how little I actually know about taking care of a house and how it’s affecting my utilities and comfort. Not to a degree where I regret buying the house, but if I could go back and do it all again I’d take care of some things sooner/differently and would probably have better results.

Image credits: linkman0596

#33

Bought literally last week. Wish i had more bathrooms but its fine. I plan on building one in basement.

Image credits: Apprehensive-Crow-96

#34

They won’t regret anything other than the higher monthly payment due to interest rates unless the market crashes.

My current neighbor bought just before the 2008 crash and it took them until 2020 for their home value to get back to what they paid.

#35

Recently meaning what? I purchased 5 years ago; however, the recent property valuation was an absolute crock-of-s**t that doubled my tax-burden. NOW my monthly payment is about 30% higher than it was before and I can BARELY make it every month…but in my market, it’s still SLIGHTLY cheaper than renting an apartment.

#36

Bought at the peeeeeeeak

#37

I wouldn’t say we have any regrets. Was everything ideal? No. We had to buy in a neighborhood that we’re not excited about and obviously prices and interest rates are what they are. But it’s hard to say I regret that because we bought when we could. I can’t really regret having not done it sooner because… we couldn’t have. And we got most of what we wanted in terms of space.

So, none, I guess.

#38

Not buying sooner before the interest rates jumped so fast. When we put the offer in on our house in April 2022, the rate was 3.2%. By the time we closed in June 2022, we closed at 5.25%.

EDIT: Correcting myself here, we started looking in March 2022 and the rates then were around 3.2-3.5%. By the time we locked our rate in with all the paperwork, it was up to 5.125%. We closed with 3 days to spare on the rate lock because the owners were being annoying with the closing date.

#39

Not too recently (3 years ago) but I regret buying my parents house. Everything needs to be replaced now. We replaced very expensive custom windows and found that the frames were all rotted and we had to redo a ton of stucco. That was the tip of the iceberg we have yet to tackle. It was a no-brainer for the price and equity but now we’re stuck with how s****y the market is and all the things we need to fix in order to sell.

#40

I should have gone down to the city office and asked to pull all of the permits for the house for the prior 5 years and done a better job of investigating if there were any known permit violations. It turns out that there were a few from a feud with a neighbor where they were each calling the city to report anything and everything that was a problem. The seller did not disclose this, which is fraud and absolutely makes them liable. However, it’s also a situation where I can resolve the permit issues for about $3,000, or I can fight them in court for ten times that with absolutely no hope that I would ever be able to recover the money. I’ve bought and sold homes before and never had this issue. Live, learn, and chalk it up to $3k in tuition to the school of hard knocks.
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