Is it worth leaving the property ladder for 2 years?

keith969

If you pull out of the sale now, will you have to pay EA fees? And what about solicitors fees? Check the small print of whatever you signed with them. If you do sell, will you be able to rent for £400/month?

Your mortgage as a % of your income is not that high - the problem, as you have identified, is that running a car is expensive. Running two is even more expensive!

My feeling would be to stay put and make some economies, and try and pay off any unsecured debts which will have a high interest rate.

Running_Horse

This isn't (or shouldn't be) about figures on a balance sheet.

Where do you and your girlfriend want to be in a few years time?

Answer that and you'll know what to do.

Oh, and I would be furious as a buyer if you dumped on me at the last minute because you can't make a simple decision. It's not a nice way to treat people.

Doozergirl

IMO this should be short term pain for long term gain. Your girlfriend will have a job at the end of this training - depending on the route it's a two or three year course at the end of which your lifestyle will be more than affordable.

Jumping off the property ladder costs money in itself. Then the cost of getting back on again - you will lose probably as much as you wil have lost in the commute by the time she's finished training. That's not even considering the money lost in selling for less than you paid - that's your deposit gone; you'll have to save up again!

It's just real life. There will be things you can do now to tighten up; by the time she is a fully fledged nurse all will be well again and you'll still own your house. House prices don't matter if you're not selling.

Stick it out. I can't see any real gain to selling up. One day you'll have babies and you'll have to tighten the belt again - it's just one of those things

92203

Hi there,

The £200 quoted for clothes is basically what the pair of us have for personal spending money. My girlfriend has £100, I have £100. She normaly spends it on clothes or university books, I tend to spend mine on techy stuff to help me develop my IT career.

Transport wise, girfriend has to drive and has a 1 litre corsa. I don't currently have to drive to work (20 miles in oppo direction) and get the train, though will have to drive for the next three months as need to be able drive a work related project.

I guess our initial reasons for accepting the low offer during November were down to a combination of factors.

I am quite unhappy in my job and would like to move roles, however in order to do this and retain the sallary I'm on I would need to look further afield, hence the rationale for considering selling up.

Running two cars is proving to be expensive and the early starts are wreaking havock wih both of us.

To further compound things, our next door neighbour (60 something year old lady) has been making our lives difficult - breaking her deeds by parking on the driveway we share with her, making getting my car in and out of the garage difficult. It may sound a small insignificant thing, but it has really badly affected me from a stress perspective. We have since sought legal advice and have been able to deal with her confidently and effectively....

I know that whatever we decide, it will be wrong. If we stay, I am very worried about what will happen if interest rates go up and how we'll cope, if we go, I'll be worrying about how we manage to buy our next house

I will feel very guilty about our buyer if we do pull out, however we accepted his offer on the 5th November on the understanding that we'd have a swift completion and was hoping to have moved by Christmas. The delay has been caused by delays in him paying his search fees.

We'll incurr legal and estate agen fees which will amount to circa £1800-£2k. Will we also be liable to incur our buyers fees? We haven't exchanged contracts yet.

I'm just thinking..... is it really worth staying? My emotive side is saying no, as we don't want to be there forever. however my common sense is saying stay and reap the rewards later....

getmore4less

Buying and selling is going to cost a fare amount and this SOA looks OK

I would look to cut the travel costs and a couple of other catagories(allready pointed out) then ride this out.


20miles *2 *5 *4 so approx 800miles a month round up to 1k for some social.

£170pm fuel at 1.10plr so about 34gal

29 mpg.

This is not good I would at getting a much better car.

car parking sounds a lot which hospital is this
Staff annual pass should be much less. my OH pays around £70py.

Is there anyone on the course that lives local where she could lodge a couple of nights and car share.


How many business trips will you be doing might be cheaper to get taxis/hire cars the days you need car.

Can the trips be preplanned so you don't eed the car every day and then go from home when needed.

92203

getmore4less wrote: »

£170pm fuel at 1.10plr so about 34gal

29 mpg.

This is not good I would at getting a much better car.

car parking sounds a lot which hospital is this
Staff annual pass should be much less. my OH pays around £70py.

Can the trips be preplanned so you don't eed the car every day and then go from home when needed.

Hi,

She's at the QMC in Nottingham. They have demolished their multi-storey car park and now encourage staff to drive to the park and ride and get a bus to the QMC. This unfortunately adds another 30-40 minutes to her journey each way, as the bus service is sporadic very early in the morning.

The route between Newark and Nottingham is also very slow and congested at times, as a result fuel consumption is very poor due to being stuck in slow moving traffic.

She does also use the car a little bit for going to see family, and drives to and from Tesco in it.

Fire_Fox

Apologies I am being a bit thick on the travel situation, but if your girlfriend only works 20 miles away that is no more than an hour each way? You note that she is in slow moving traffic so it seems she is travelling in the rush hour, so why the early starts? Public transport to most hospitals is pretty decent even for some shift patterns. Does your partner need to spend quite a bit of time reading textbooks, if so might it be better if she spends a little more time travelling via public transport but gets her study completed at the same time, hence leaving more R&R when she gets home? Alternatively is there any chance she could get accommodation close to the hospital/ on site one or two nights a week? This would cut travel times and costs, and again she could designate those nights study time so you can be together when she is home.

ETA: cross post. Is your girlfriend getting any discounted public transport tickets, either because she is a student or NHS staff? What about cycling some or part of a journey?

92203

Hi there,

She did initially try public transport, however the train and bus services she had to rely on didn't work together very well and she'd frequently be waiting at the train station for an hour because her bus was running late and she missed her train.

She also quite often has to start at 7AM or leave at 10 PM when public transport in our neck of the woods seems to either not started up or have wound down.

tomstickland

If prices rise so you can't afford a house, how will any other FTB's be affording a house?
I'd get on with selling it and enjoy the flexibility of renting if it was me. What if prices fall in the next 2 years?

Radiantsoul

I think you are hoping people on this forum will tell you that you ought not to sell. Perhaps you shouldn't at this point in time. If you stay put you might try to save a bit to make overpayments towards the mortgage or build a fund to save you for when interest rates rise.

If you have to travel for business you ought to get 40p per mile on expenses which is should be good.

If you haven't exchanged contracts you can drop out and won't be liable for the buyers costs. You will probably have to pay your agent though.