What Was Your Worst Investment Decision?

L

Leper

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Casting family life aside and a love of the county in which I was born without doubt the worst investment decision was to exit Dublin for a life in the south. If we stayed in Dublin our house (on average) would be worth well in excess of €600,000 as per today’s news informing us of average house prices (March 2025).

Had we stayed in Dublin, we could have sold our house for the same money in a large lotto win. Certainly, it appears our decision to leave Dublin trumps our AIB and Eircom shares.

What was your worst investment decision?
 
Selling my E30.
It ultimately led to my dream 4 bed home but my god, I loved that car.
If I had of held out it would have been worth triple what I sold her for.
 
Buying my house in 2006, then deciding 12 months later, to swap my tracker for a 5 year Fixed rate. Sounds daft, but the ECB was increasing rates, throughout 2007 and even in 2008. For the first two years I thought I had made a great call, then..well you all know what happened.

Mortgage is just about finished now, but still wincing, occasionally....
 
Putting off trading up in 2012 to get married & then start family. Was bottom of the market and could have got a much bigger/better located house or a similar one to we have now for much less (traded up in 2017).
 
Anglo Irish and AIB shares like many others. AIB were my partner’s then employers. Stuck significant proceeds of one SSIA into Anglo around 2005. Lost the lot !!!

Though, I do have a decent CGT allowance as a result to write some gains against. Every cloud …eh

g
 
Probably dilly dallying over buying a home in 2012/2013. We did get a lovely location but could have gotten way more if we had pushed ourselves to our limit. But then would have had sleepless nights in those expensive baby years so who knows.
 
Not buying an apartment in UK when worked there back in 2000, they were still very cheap then, the repercussions of 90s housing crash was still over hanging the market.
 
joe sod said:
Not buying an apartment in UK when worked there back in 2000, they were still very cheap then, the repercussions of 90s housing crash was still over hanging the market.
Click to expand...
I still remember visiting my cousin, who was in uni in Leeds in the late 90' and having to do a double take when walking by estate agents. Couldn't believe how cheap the houses were.
 
Not investing in my pension sooner. Have done very well in general, but I discounted the pension as I was tied up in companies growing and being sold - "sure this will be my retirement plan!" without considering the major tax benefits. Left a lot of tax relief on the table, without necessarily doing anything better with the cash I received in income. Mended the error of my ways and am well on the way, particularly after the government decided employer contributions wouldn't count towards age related tax relief limits (basically flashing a giant neon sign to accelerate pension contributions as a company director). But looking back I could have done a lot better had I started sooner, as I basically got into earning serious money post 2008 crash when a euro into an indexed equities fund would have had an historically good ride to present day.

Thankfully I don't have any "bought a €600k house with a 110% mortgage that became worth a €200k house and blew my savings into Anglo Irish shares" missteps to my name, but I think I got lucky on timing there as much as anything.
 
Presuming the Irish Mortgage Corporation adviser was on my side when he convinced me that an endowment mortgage was the way to go for a first time buyer circa 1997.

Costly mistake and all of my own making, the positive for me was always doing my own research before investing and avoiding that kind of chap.
 
Sorry to plagarise Leper, but

Without doubt our worst investment decision was to sell up our house when exiting Dublin for a new life in West Cork.
If we had retained our house in North County Dublin (which we could just about have afforded to do) it would now be worth well in excess of €850,000. Even more importantly, it would have been a home for our two adult kids. As it was, we sold it for a mere €340,000 in 2012.

Certainly, it appears that our decision to sell it trumps our dud investments in Dolphin Trust and Blackbee and Solar 21. (Ironically those investments were made with the proceeds of the sale of our Dublin residence, so double whammy. :( )
 
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