Should we take the plunge??

silvercar

Marg wrote: »

FWIW - Hang on where you are if you can - I believe prices will drop even more in 2009.
Renting out can be fraught with problems - have you thoroughly investigated the rental market where you are?
If you do decide to rent I understand that it's safer in terms of getting your rents in if you rent to a group of singles rather than a family ie a family are usually relying on one income.
Good Luck!

Not sure that is true. Obligations on a landlord for houses in multiple occupancy are much higher, with the greater risk of one tenant defaulting.

Family on one income would get HB/ LHA if they had no income/ savings. And good be evicted if they didn't pay their rent.

Tassotti

And this makes a difference...It is onvious you have no clue, so please refrain from posting

rd_se3

ooknows wrote: »

Does anyone else have a view???

I was looking round at houses on Saturday (in Surrey, for what it's worth). All 3 estate agents that I spoke to were all surprised/pleased at just how many people they had booked in for viewings.

Maybe people are beginning to take a view on buying again given the lower interest rates. Interesting !

Richard

meester

ooknows wrote: »

We are keen to move house but are having no luck in selling our house.

We have paid the mortgage on our existing house and the new house is likely to be in region of 350 - 375k. We will be able to put down a deposit of at least 100k (we have some ISAs that we will not touch), are hoping to rent our house out, and each bring home about 4.5k a month so 9k in total.

No sign of our jobs being at risk - although clearly no guarantees.

The idea we are having is that we buy at what we hope is the bottom of the market and hopefully sell our existing house once the market recovers.

I'm a bit anxious about the strategy but my other half thinks I'm being silly.

What do people think???

Sounds risky to me.

Our neighbours bought a new >£1m house last year. They didn't need to sell their old one before buying (I think for convenience), and put it up to rent and for sale. The sale price was 2007 peak - £700k. I think it's worth £500k now.

It took six months to even rent it out (another £15k down the drain).

Had they sold before buying they would have saved/realised at an absolute minimum, £100,000, but more likely £200k+.

ooknows

meester wrote: »

Sounds risky to me.

Our neighbours bought a new >£1m house last year. They didn't need to sell their old one before buying (I think for convenience), and put it up to rent and for sale. The sale price was 2007 peak - £700k. I think it's worth £500k now.

It took six months to even rent it out (another £15k down the drain).

Had they sold before buying they would have saved/realised at an absolute minimum, £100,000, but more likely £200k+.

Do you think this was just the timing of the market working against them? Or did renting it out affect the sale price?

ooknows

Perhaps I should explain - we are desperate to move house which is why we are considering this as an option - but I don't want to do it if it will end up bankrupting us

meester

ooknows wrote: »

Perhaps I should explain - we are desperate to move house which is why we are considering this as an option - but I don't want to do it if it will end up bankrupting us

If you want to move, rent. There are lots of lovely houses available at substantially reduced rates.

ooknows

Thanks for this - we seriously considered this. Haven't ruled it out entirely but don't really want to be moving around too much with a little one. But appreciate that it is the least risky option financially (apart from staying put).

LandyAndy

If you do buy a new house and rent out your current house remember that if you mortgage your current house (BTL) you can offset the interest payments against the rental income.

mbga9pgf

staying put might be the most sensible option imho. Renting out house = lots of complications.

If you are that keen to sell and are upsizing, why not haggle the property down you are buying and reduce the price of yours by a similar %? Becuase of the upsizing, you wont lose any money this way. By getting 2 mortgages, you run a serious risk of coming a cropper if the tennant moves out or starts defaulting on the rental payments. You also will be waiting a very very long time for real house prices to reach the level they did (and currently, house prices are not even down to the long-term average yet) Last crash took nearly 10 years for prices to recover. Prices in Japan (what will happen here if things get BAD) havent recovered since the 1990s crash.

I personally would be looking to drop the price of my house AS LONG AS I could guarantee a corresponding drop in the hous e i was buying. If you own a house now is not the time to get greedy.