I bought my first home as a fixer-upper… here are the reasons why it has been a nightmare

A couple who renovated their first home have revealed four reasons why it was a nightmare.

Olivia and her partner Luke started their first renovation project more than three years ago, but it did not go smoothly.

The mother-of-one revealed her highs and lows in a video on TikTok, explaining that she still “wouldn’t change” her experience.

The content creator branded social media as ‘fake’ and detailed the challenges she and her partner faced in scaling their first home.

1. Duration with contractors

While delving deeper into the renovation process, Olivia confessed that she knew it would be expensive to make changes to the property.

But what the first buyer didn’t take into account was the amount of time it would take contractors to complete the job.

As a result, Olivia admitted that they had to pay a significant amount of money to redo work they were not happy with.

“We underestimated how long that would take and how much would take and how much would go wrong, so we ended up having to pay to do a lot of it,” she said.

2. Debt

The cost of real estate, let alone any additional construction work, will undoubtedly set someone back a pretty penny.

However, Olivia and her partner were left with a ‘dark hole of debt’ that they are now starting to emerge from.

Explaining how the couple took out credit and debit cards, Olivia wrote: ‘I hate to admit this but we drowned ourselves in so much debt those first eighteen months;

She revealed that the couple had spent more on their monthly expenses and had more monthly expenses than the money we both earned together.

She added, “Looking back, I don’t know how our relationship didn’t struggle more than before because we were both so overwhelmed and down.”

3. Very few house viewings

Another of Olivia’s regrets was not wanting to view the property again before making the final decision to purchase the property.

Olivia and her partner noted that they lived two hours away and the properties were quickly being looted. They wanted to get the keys.

‘We acted on it urgently [property] without realizing how much it was falling apart,” she admitted.

Discussing a previous experience in the home, she also added that one of their windows almost fell out when it turned out to be stuck by the skin of its teeth thanks to a material similar to “blue tack putty.”

Luke was tearing out the bathroom and the window almost fell out because it was held back by some kind of blue, sticky putty.

4. Poor living conditions

If Olivia could do her renovation process again, she would not live in the house during construction and living conditions.

The mother-of-one revealed they weren’t the “healthiest” and said she was between a rock and a hard place because her parents lived far away and the couple couldn’t afford a hotel.

“We ended up in the house when it didn’t even have a boiler and had only been plastered in January,” she said.

Olivia added that they didn’t buy any furniture before moving in and confirmed that she wished they had moved in when it was completely finished.

“We eventually changed our minds about how we wanted the layouts to be, but it was too late and too expensive to change,” she added.

Several users flocked to the comments section and shared how they felt similarly about their own renovation journeys.

“I really feel like social media plays a huge role in depression and anxiety. People become so materialistic and forget what really matters,” one person wrote.

“I needed this because I felt like a failure, thank you,” a second joked.

Another said: ‘So realistic. I’m so glad it worked out for you in the end.’

‘[It] can be a money pit, but also satisfying once completed,” one secondhand wrote.