Can you help? We're thinking of renting out our house...

Baby_Duck

Hi everyone,

In a nutshell - my ex and I own a house together. We are currently in negative equity, but only just, according to a recent valuation. We feel that if we can hold on to the house for another few months/a year before selling we should (fingers crossed!) be able to sell without a loss, and maybe even with a small profit.

After looking into and trying different options to keep the house on without crippling ourselves financially (selling regardless, getting lodger, etc) we are now considering renting out the whole house for that time. Does anyone have any advice or information they can give us about becoming a landlord/lady?

Any help would be much appreciated

Thanks for reading

x

terryw

You really must be aware of all the pitfalls of being a landlord. It is a lion's den unless you are completely aware of all the regulations. You really really need to study many of the threads on here and landlordzone before you go any further.

One of the big problems is that is extremely difficult to sell a property when it is let. You need to be either letting or trying to sell. The two are rarely satisfactory bedfellows!

phlash

There is a wealth of information on the internet for such a generic query. Maybe when you are stuck on particular aspects of advice you have read, you could post to get something clarified. As it is, it appears somewhat lazy to a seasoned poster. As someone with only 4 posts, you may not know about the search function, so I will just gently hint at that!

Other than that, there are some great resources which can cover much more information, than people will touch on in response to your query.

Now, to address a more specific point, for which you did not ask for advice.... You said this was with your ex, is it not sometimes just to call it time and sell regardless of the slight loss? Are you not risking the potential of sharing a huge loss? You seem to think that by waiting, it will mean a cosy conclusion with a bit of profit? This seems very rosy, and negates the impact of more falls in the market. What impact would it have on you if the market dropped 10%, can your post relationship friendship take that strain?

Maybe you should consider that there has been a nice little bounce in the housing market, and getting out now is not a bad idea, not just for the house values sake, but mainly for a clean break?

NEH

There was a thread very recently on this

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2226201&highlight=

you may be able to find some answers in there....

Personally we decided against renting. Not just because we needed the money in the flat but the hassle it would have involved and the paperwork and the fact that goodness forbid anything major went wrong and my husband was away at the time and myself being ill i didn't want the added stress of gettting that phone call when things did go wrong. Even with a letting agent there seemed to be so much to sort out beforehand.

BitterAndTwisted

If one of you can remain in the property and take in a lodger or lodgers this would by far be the safest option. You can even earn x amount in rent per annum before having to pay income tax on it. Google "Rent A Room" or look on the Revenue website.

I would suggest you spend a fair amount of time on the landlordzone forum and acquaint yourself with all of the information available there before you even consider renting it out. There are a huge number of responsibilities and a lot of risks and that excludes getting consent to let from your lender which should be the very first thing you do.

mlz1413

For the sake of a small loss now compared to the possibility of a tenant trashing your place and disappearing into thin air - personally I'd take the small loss - at least you know what that sum of money will be.

If you do decide to rent after a year you will more than likely need the house to be tenant free so that you can sell it and that could be 6 months + from putting on market to completeing. Would you be prepared to move back in after the year of renting or will you have other committents to pay for?

Gwhiz

Baby_Duck wrote: »

We feel that if we can hold on to the house for another few months/a year before selling we should (fingers crossed!) be able to sell without a loss, and maybe even with a small profit.

Few months? Doubtful!

Nixer

What makes you think prices will rise in the next few months? Are you watching what similar houses have sold for recently (not what is being asked for them)? And how much is the neg equity at the moment?

In my experience reluctant landlords make poor ones. You will need to spend a bit of money to become a landlord - there's things like gas safety certificates (if it has gas), doing maintenance (my personal bugbear as a tenant). There's also consent to let, finding and financially vetting tenants (or paying an agency to do so). And there's voids, and setting the rent so that you won't be out of pocket but will attract a tenant. I'm sure I have missed many other things. And you'll need the tenant out before you do viewings.