Let Flat in London and Move: Worth It?

CheapChick

Hi All,

We are looking at moving from London to Taunton. We have £125K left on our flat in London and it's worth around £245K. We are looking at buying a property for £235K in Taunton. I would like to rent out our London property and buy in Taunton but "him indoors" is less than keen, preferring to release all equity and not have any commitments. I am thinking that long term the flat will increase in value and even though we might stretch ourselves and be more hassle it will be worth it in the long term. Any advice would be great.

Thanks

Prudent

A freind of mine let her London flat and bought elsewhere. She was able to use the equity in her London flat as security against a new mortgage and get a better deal. i f you go down this route, it might be worth negiotating the mortgage rate.

Dan29

Hi there

I rented out my flat in London when I moved to Cardiff but now I'm selling it as it's a pain living so far away when anything goes wrong, even though I'm paying an agent to manage it.

In four years I've only just covered the mortgage repayments due to having to pay for various things to be replaced (boiler, washing machine etc) and although it's gone up in value in that time, I don't think that will be the case for a few years now.

Would you have to remortgage your flat to use some of the equity as a deposit on your Taunton house? If so I'd advise you to work out how much profit you'll be making per month on the rent (allowing for service charge, agent's fees, void periods, repairs, decorating etc) and if it's not much more than the new mortgage payments would be I would seriously question whether it's worth the hassle - unless you believe house prices in London are going to rocket up in the time you'll continue to own it.

Good luck - I used to work in Taunton, it's a nice place.

Dan

nrsql

>> it's a pain living so far away when anything goes wrong, even though I'm paying an agent to manage it.

That's odd - I have a flat in London and haven't seen it for about 10 years. The agency deals with everything. Anything needs doing they call and email me for agreement - if I don't reply then they go ahead (that's just an agreement I have as sometimes I'm not very responsive).

>> although it's gone up in value in that time, I don't think that will be the case for a few years now.

Yep - is it worth selling now and buying after the long awaited crash due to interest rate rises. Or maybe the Olympics will cause a boom. Or maybe prices will stagnate due to lack of property.
I suspect one of them will happen.