Just completed on my sale!

pawpurrs

Congratulations Sarah :j

Jealous moi

That went through smoothly

sarah_elton

Thanks pawpurrs, I just got very lucky.

flissh

Congratulations. Hope you celebrated _party_

dopester

Nice Sarah.

I think I read on another thread about you hoping to exchange/complete, and having to go to the solicitors with a cheque to kickup £12K to clear the "negative equity" bit - or at least I think that was you..

On that thread you didn't mention what your plans were, so good to see you're firmly minded in the STR camp, freedom of renting, and having sold without too much damage, compared to what some believe could be ahead for house prices.

sarah_elton

dopester wrote: »

Nice Sarah.

I think I read on another thread about you hoping to exchange/complete, and having to go to the solicitors with a cheque to kickup £12K to clear the "negative equity" bit - or at least I think that was you..

On that thread you didn't mention what your plans were, so good to see you're firmly minded in the STR camp, freedom of renting, and having sold without too much damage, compared to what some believe could be ahead for house prices.

Aye that was me. In short, OH and I want to move to a new town around the end of this year, rent there to check we like it, then buy - so buy Spring-Summer 2010. We put my flat on the market now because (1) it could have taken all year to sell in this market and (2) I believe the market will keep falling this year (I might be wrong but no one knows) and was concerned that my negative equity would be even higher come year-end when we actually wanted to move. So, we put it on the market figuring if it sold fast we'd have to do a 6 month rent in our current town. We got lucky that an investor bought it so we can stay put till the end of the year!

Town we're going to will be where we look for a long-term family home. So this is the first major step towards that corny image of picket fences and people carriers.

flissh - a little too much lol, at work feeling a bit wobbly and hoping the heart-attack-on-a-plate sausage and cheese bagel I just ate does the trick soon

pinkshoes

I don't get it.

If you were having no problem paying the mortgage, and liked where you were living, then why sell? It's a home, not a lump of cash!

Or were you selling because you didn't like the flat any more and wanted to move?

To me, the idea of ever living in rented accomodation again is torture (!), so I guess you've had a better experience of renting that I have!

At the moment, it's just coming across that you bought at the top of the market, then sold at what could be near the bottom!

Cissi

pinkshoes wrote: »

I don't get it.

If you were having no problem paying the mortgage, and liked where you were living, then why sell? It's a home, not a lump of cash!

Or were you selling because you didn't like the flat any more and wanted to move?

To me, the idea of ever living in rented accomodation again is torture (!), so I guess you've had a better experience of renting that I have!

At the moment, it's just coming across that you bought at the top of the market, then sold at what could be near the bottom!

I think she's come out of it very well! If you've read her posts on this thread, she did say that she was planning to move at the end of the year, for very good reasons. She's also renting her old flat, which is hardly likely to be "torture" for the sake of a few months. As for selling near the bottom of the market, most people would disagree with you there - I certainly do. I'm pretty sure that at the end of the year her negative equity situation would have been worse.

Congratulations Sarah, well done!

sarah_elton

pinkshoes - as above, we want to move out of the flat at the end of this year (approx Nov/Dec at a guess). So therefore that was the latest I wanted to sell it.

In my view (and it is only my view), the flat will be worth less in November than it is now. I sold based on this view, as I didn't want to lose any more money in negative equity than I have done already. If I'm wrong and the market goes up before November, then I did the wrong thing. But I sold based on my view of the market. Also, if I waited until say September to put it on the market and it then sat on the market for months, we'd have got really fed up.

You're right it's a home, and it's been a lovely home which is why I'm less bothered than you'd think I would be that I've lost so much money on it. I knew I was buying high but I wanted to buy, and I've spent money turning it into a nice place for me. Things change though and next year OH and I want to buy a family home - if I hadn't met him I'd have stayed in the flat for the forseeable future. What I'm over the moon about is the fact I've sold but get to stay there until we leave our town. And having done loads of work, I know there's very little left to go wrong with the place and therefore renting it should be no hassle at all. My new landlord is a really nice guy so I think it's going to work out well.

Fingers crossed anyway.

I rented for 18 months before buying my flat and it was no hassle at all, so luckily I've never had a bad renting experience and therefore at this stage don't mind doing it!