Help! A wee poll

bobcuff

by way of a poll, if your neighbours wanted to buy your house off you now (next few months) to convert it into one large house; you knew you would be moving anyway in the next couple of years for job/family - would you take the opportunity now and bank the equity, rent for a bit until your move - or would you leave it

Also if you have any opinion on the matter - then please feel free to state it.

Bob :-/

Tim_L

Good situation to be in. No estate agents' fees, and a guaranteed committed buyer. I would look very seriously at it, provided you can keep things on a business footing and not fall out over the details. You do need to get a clear view on the value of the house so you get a decent price - it would be very easy to have problems here, especially if good friends with your neighbours. I'd get valuations from as many estate agents as possible before agreeing to anything.

Whether or not to rent depends on where you are in the country and what you think house prices are going to do locally and where you're intending to move. I'm afraid this is a personal gamble, and you'll have to make your mind up. Of course one good way to play this would be to try to make your move away sooner rather than later.

DiggingOut

The fact of moving away in a couple years takes the "this is my home, not an investment" factor off of the table somewhat. For me, though, it would depend on how much of a disruption it would be to my family to move to temporary housing for two years.

If that was not a major issue, I would be looking at the fact that my biggest asset is very likely overpriced, IMO, and I would have a low-cost opportunity to cash it in and lock in my profit.

By doing so, I run the risk of missing out on further gains. I would consider it likely that the downside risk is potentially much higher than the upside potential right now, and thus my house is a risky investment to hold -- especially if I knew I was going to have to cash it out in two years, so could not wait for a recovery if prices fall.

I would be strongly inclined to sell.

aliasojo

I agree. This seems like a heaven sent opportunity. No estate agents, no waiting/hoping for viewings and buyers. No uncertainty over how long your house may be on the market for. No future worry over hold ups with regard to selling your house and buying another. A friend of mine lost her dream house due to a hold up with the sale of her existing house.

If I was in your position and I intended to move anyway, I would without doubt give this proposition a huge amount of consideration.

Like Tim says though, make sure the fact that they are your neighbours doesn't get in the way of good business sense.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

yonk

Yep, good way to cut out estate agency fees. Only note of caution would be to echo the one above about keeping it on a business footing.

My neighbours wanted to buy my last house and I agreed to sell it and mentioned the price I had worked out to be the market value. I would have been quite happy to knock off the fees etc so they could have had a discount to the market value but they thought I had asked too much.

In fact, they came up with a list of things that were wrong with my house that I didn't even know about and then things went a bit quiet for a few months. So I don't think they forgave me for asking for the market value. I sold it for the figure I mentioned to them a couple of months later but had to pay the fees so it would have worked out ok for both of us if it had gone ahead and I would have been happy to knock a bit more off if they had negotiated instead of going quiet.

bobcuff

Thanks for the replies and advice. I was a first time buyer three years ago so this is all still a minefield - even though sites like this help.

I'm away to start a one year teaching postgrad (PGCE) this month, so next July/August I'll need to be socially mobile in order to give myself the best possible chance of securing a job. So selling now, and renting doesn't seem like a preposterous thing to do in the broad scheme of things. The only problem, is that in selling the house, whatever equity I have, I will need to have self discipline not to use to wipe off student debt - all be it mature student debt!

My neighbours - albeit it lovely - are neighbours and as such I will take your suggestions and may put it on the open market for a bit to see what competition offers...
Bob

yonk

My beloved put it into perspective when I thinking about this a few years ago....do you love your neighbours enough to give them a cash lump sum? In our case, 5k - err, no, much as I really like them.

That tends to be why the open market works best, if they want the house, they can be in like a shot if it does go on the market.

Hide the equity somewhere. Going though cash is like putting on weight, it happens very slowly but the diet needed after is far more painful.