Still regret not putting an offer in a great property 5 years ago

[Linda T.]

I’m writing less about investing and more to get your thoughts about how to get over not making an offer five years ago on what turned out to be a great property.

Story: I'm not an investor, but I accidentally became a house hacker. It happened because we realized we couldn't afford a SFH, so we went the route of a duplex.

Looked in zones that allowed two units, but were still in the mindset that we would renovate what we bought.

Saw House That Got Away (HTGA), priced about $150k higher than our budget, lot was 35% larger. Didn’t even make an offer. Didn’t share the info about the site with our coinvestors (big mistake), since it was already out of the range we all agreed on. Location was quiet and not a lot of development there yet.

Saw another duplex in a less-than-ideal location (by alley and underused commercial, adjacent to big thoroughfare). Was within budget. Put an offer on it, and managed to get a discount from seller. Ended up being roughly $130k less than what the HTGA final price was (final price for HTGA was $20k less asking).

What we bought: Duplex, but turned out renovations weren’t worth it. Was able to get cash out to do ground-up on two units. Live in one, rent one. Rental in one covers construction loan and prop tax. We pay about half of market price for a comparable rental for our unit, which goes to pay the remainder of the mortgage. After land value and construction, appraised for about $400k more than we spent (lot of sweat equity went in). Quality of life is meh, it’s a little loud and there is nuisance from alley+commercial.

HGTA today: Land alone is worth about $1 million more than purchase price. The person who bought it did ground-up too, nearly same project as ours. I learned they plan to rent both. The area is BOOMING, about 10k new high-paying jobs moving in, tons of new and expensive restaurants within walking distance, lots of wealthier people moving in.

What we bought is only 1.5 mile from the HGTA, but seems like a world away. I can’t help but hear the noise from the street and think that it would be so different if we lived in HGTA. I regret not sharing with the coinvestors who turned out to be able to finagle extra income to pay for ground-up two units. If I knew that was the case, we would’ve snatched it up.

Thing is, I need to get over this. Regret doesn’t do anyone good. Even coinvestors told me to get over it. I need help/advice from others who’ve had similar situations. How did you move on?