Thinking of selling home to go into renting...

BitterAndTwisted

Three grand to get away from druggies and low-life scum sounds like a bargain to me. I think you need to squirrel away enough money to pay for between three months (minimum) and six months (preferable) of living and rent expenses just to be on the safe-side.

Tuscan

i agree, piece of mind and being happy is most important in my book. not always about what you own but more were you want to be..


to be honest im going to be happy to step off the ladder for few years, we have our own buisness and its been a struggle this year with the crunch and next years not looking like it will be any better, with a young daughter in tow we have had some pretty bad stress and worry this year.

for us it will mean being 100 percent debt free and to have a few years with no worrys and some real money in the bank to fall back on if needed, plus like you we will be in the area we want to live in and more able to find the home we want to buy when the times right again and we are settled and sure we want to put our roots down there. we are looking at a very rural village rather than a town..

SnowBunny

Thanks Bitter and Twisted. It's wise advice. And yes, we plan to put lots of money away. It's hard work I tell you!

Tuscan - that sounds great. Living in a rural village. But it might not be what you like in the end. So wise to rent for a while anyway.

I think life is too short. I know my parents might worry but - at the end of the day - this area wasn't really affected by the housing market slump. It's so awful that our house is worth £155,000 yet in a nicer area it'd be more like... £250,000. Crazy I know.

But we just thought at the time - brilliant.. we can live in a big house now!
But then the location became more and more important... Go figure

VKay

Good luck with it all.
Where are you moving to/ Sounds really lovely!

surreybased

Hi,

We did osimilar recently - moved to a new area and rented whilst we got to know it. Best thing we've ever done. I've always owned a house so it felt very odd renting but you do get use to it. Only thing to consider is the viability of getting a mortgage especially if you're both self employed - banks often want 3 years of accounts.

Why not get estate agents views on the price you'd achieve on your place, speak to a mortgage broker who may advise you to wait for a few years to buy and check out what rental properties are actually available.

A good area makes such a difference - you make friends, enjoy feeling safe, much better quality of life.

Nixer

We did this in 2005 because we wanted to move to a nicer area and rents in that area were way way less than the mortgage on something there would have been. We are still in rented and have a reasonable deposit, however house prices remain fairly astronomical here (rural area) so we may be in rented for some while longer.

The only real drawback for us was that our experience of renting has not been terribly positive. There are a lot of amateur landlords out there who don't know their responsibilities and some houses are in poor condition. My partner is very competent at electrics, carpentry, plumbing, even minor brickwork and he finds it frustrating to not be able to put things right when the landlord won't.

You'll be in a good position if you sell quickly, as I think it's better to view a rental house in winter - you may get a better idea of whether there's a condensation problem and how cold it might be.

Fire_Fox

SnowBunny wrote: »

Ok... Early repayment charge is nearly £3,000.... !!!!!!. And we'd barely get anything from the sale of the house. But we'd still just about break even.

Is it worth it still? We've pumped a little money into improving this house.. I'm so confused now. Torn!!!

Budget plan for if you stay and save, budget plan for if you sell up and rent. Which means you can save the biggest deposit? How do all the costs of moving affect that? As I already asked, can you take in a lodger to speed the process up?
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

new_home_owner_3

Its all great if it works we tried it in 2006 and we was still on the market 2 and a half years on with over a 40,000 pound reduction and we bought our house in 1999.

If you bought your house in 2006 and you say your on a interest only mortgage and the house price as not dropped very much you will be in a very good position if you can sell at asking price, but i think you may find that a big if......

good luck

sarah_elton

Just one note of caution; you mention that you'll have nothing from the sale so I assume you'll be starting from scratch when it comes to saving the deposit?

You need 10% to get a mortgage these days (unless any 95% deals have crept back in?) and more than 20% to get a decent interest rate. Just worth working out how much you need to save and how long that will take you, so you're realistic about how long you'll be renting for.