selling to rent and pay debt-advice please?

maeeve

Any advice welcome please.. Husband and i have a difficult decision to make with regard to our debt. We live in a 2 bed flat and 2nd baby on the way, enough room for now but we are running out rapidly.
We currently have a debt of roughly £30000 and have a DMP with CCCS. If we sold the flat, next doors has just gone and they walked away with £15000 profit (obviously the market is changing all the time) but if we sold there's no way we would get another morgage so we would have to rent for a while until we paid some mre debt off and can start saving for a deposit again.
Very scared about selling to rent but just cant think of any other way to get this debt down. It such a huge heavy weight on our shoulders everyday, esp with another one on the way...

HELP!!! Any advice?

anh1904

There's still many a prediction saying property prices could fall another 20%, others say the recovery is underway.

Ultimately, if renting is cheaper, plus you get the ability to wipe a huge amount of your debt pile, then what better start for your new baby?

I think a lot of us Brits get a little too hung up about being property owners, and the full downside of that is yet to be seen, I hope I am wrong for the sake of literally millions of people. Doomsday speech over.

maeeve

Do you know what- so many people have said that to us, about its only us brits that are so hung up on owning property and i do think its true.
Thing is we are on a shared ownership scheme so we only own 50% of the flat anyway, but it does mean we pay only £560ish a month morgage and rent combined so would be looking to pay out an extra £400 a month on a rented property in this area. But we would wipe out a huge amount of interest based debt... oh what a dilema!!!

anh1904

If you post the full breakdown of debts, repayments, equity, rent, mortgage etc., you should be able to see which options give you the best return.

£1000 per month rent for a 2 bedroomed place does seem a bit steep, so I assume you are near London.

I hope you've checked you're getting all of the benefits you are entitled to.

podperson

It can seem like a big decision but as mentioned above, having your own house is not the be all and end all - as someone who has moved from having a property to renting there are plus sides, such as not having to worry about paying for repairs and you can often be entitled to at least a small amount of housing benefit which is a big help. It's not like you will never be able to buy a property again, it's just that this might be a better option for you in the short term.

maeeve

Thankyou- havent looked into getting help with rent, wasnt sure how it worked as we will be making ourselves homeless. did you get some help straight away?

podperson

They took a good few weeks to process the application but it was backdated to the start date. Not sure if they would class you as homeless since you are choosing to sell rather then being repossessed etc. but would still be able to claim. Could try your local housing department for advice though.

themull1

i think that its because once the mortgage is paid off, no more monthly payments and if you've got kids its something to leave them, thats why i like owning my house. If its rented, you have to pay rent til you die. I personally wouldn't like to pay rent because its just lining someone elses pockets.