Sell, buy, rent?

CarpetMonster_2

A long time lurker now needs advice or reassurance. My situation is that my wife and I live in a house owned by my brother and me which is currently on the market. We have an offer that is 20k under the asking price, but I think we should accept as it's probably the last chance to sell.

Should we decide to sell then I will make a profit of around £55k but I'm not quite sure what to do next. I think that renting for the next 1 to 2 years would make most financial sense. The deposit can grow in a high interest account, the rent would be cheaper than a mortgage (of which the 'excess' will be put in the same account) and everything I read say that prices are falling, and due to fall quite a bit more. I'm not against buying. I would buy tomorrow if we found 'the' house and it was affordable. My wife is currently temping so we would be relying on my salary (approx. £33k pa) to apply for a mortgage, up to £170k - which I think would be stretching it a bit, if we would get one at all.

So what would you do in my situation? Look and buy now, or rent for the short term - our deposit will be bigger, prices will be lower and my wife should hopefully be in permanat employment meaning her salary is taken into account when applying for a mortgage.

Premier_2

Why are you even considering selling?

You need somewhere to live, right.

Renting may be cheaper than buying but that house will never be yours. You will have a number of restrictions imposed and may find yourself thown out at 2 months notice. Are those advantages not worth something extra? I know a place I can't be evicted from is worth a small fortune to me.

Surely owning your own home is better than renting one, one you can work on and love - building in more value possibly.

After 25 years of renting, what will you have?

After 25 years of paying a mortgage, you'll probably own outright that valuable asset.

boinging_2

But the OP's house is already on the market so I'm guessing they already have decided to sell a while ago...

I would suggest that selling, renting and then buying in 12 months time would save you a lot of money.

pinkshoes

If you're going to rent, do as much research as possible on the property, and TRY to rent somewhere where the landlord isn't going to sell up and kick you out in 6 months.

There are so many "my landlord is selling up and I've been issued my S21" threads on here, it's quite depressing!

How desperate are you to sell? Could you not buy your brother out, or is it over your budget?

CarpetMonster_2

Thanks for the replies. We decided to sell a while ago because we want to go our seperate ways. My wife and I want our own place and my brother plans to emigrate.
I have thought about buying out my brother, but I would still need a heftyish mortgage - something I'm loathed to do if I know the house will be worth a lot less in a years or two time. I'm prepared to put up with renting for a year or two if it'll save us tens of thousands of pounds. In that time we could afford a nicer, bigger house with a bigger deposit and a smaller mortgage.