A home interiors specialist has discovered that as many as one in four British homeowners have gone on to regret the purchase of their home. Unexpected and expensive issues that have arisen, smaller than expected rooms and refused planning permission are all listed as reasons for this disappointment.
Britons who are unfortunate enough to discover that the home they’ve purchased has unexpected issues, need to find £4,550 in the first two years of owning their property in order to get these problems fixed.
The study was conducted by home interiors specialist www.hillarys.co.uk as part of ongoing research into British home life. 2,319 British homeowners took part in the poll, all of whom stated that they were aged 18 and over and had purchased their property in the past one to two years.
To begin with, all respondents were asked ‘What factored into your decision to buy your house?’ to which respondents stated ‘we got a fantastic deal’ (32%), ‘it was in the perfect location’ (27%) and ‘it had so much potential’ (23%). A further 13% confessed it was in their ‘ideal school catchment area’. When asked if they had ever regretted the decision to purchase their house, one quarter (26%) confessed that they had.
All respondents who confessed they regretted buying their homes were then asked to share the reasons why. When provided with a definitive list of reasons, the following five were discovered to be the most common:
- Unexpected problems in the home have been expensive to resolve – 45%
- Existing furniture didn’t fit- 36%
- Couldn’t get planning permission, as hoped – 28%
- Too close to the busy main roads/train tracks/airports, etc. – very loud – 25%
- Walls are thinner than expected, can hear a lot from the surrounding neighbour’s homes – 13%
Those who stated there had been unexpected problems in the home that had been expensive to fix were asked what they had encountered. ‘Dodgy electrics’ (21%), ‘dodgy plumbing’ (16%) and ‘poor insulation’ (14%) were cited as the most common. Furthermore, when asked how much they estimated they had spent fixing these problems within the first two years of living in their new home, the average was revealed as £4,550.
According to the poll, 26% of respondents who had issues in their home felt the correct/relevant building surveys could have helped avoid the situation.
Tara Hall, spokesperson for www.Hillarys.co.uk, made the following comments:
“Home surveys can seem expensive, especially when added to the other costs of moving home. But this survey shows it could be money well spent, helping you avoid costly fixes once you’ve moved in.”