Yes, they are! People seem to forget to factor in the cost of owning their home in their calculations, and it can come back to bite them very hard in the arse.

I've thought of property as having a 50-year lifespan, meaning they depreciate in value by about 2% every year. If you're buying a house for a million quid (not wholly unreasonable in England, I'm guessing), that's about 20 grand a year in upkeep alone.

My parents did not think of their house this way so they've neglected to do the repairs over the 2-3 decades they owned their home. Now that my dad has passed on, the house is finally falling apart, and now my mum is worried about the costs of fixing the roof and attic, rewiring the whole place, redoing the plumbing, etc.