move to france

shiredeon

I've not posted for a bit due to my girlfriends illness and things have changed since my previous posts, originally i was selling everything and trying to invest either here or in france, my business partner has now convinced me to stay untill i'm 55 giving me another 3 years to work,
When i go i will take a wage cut to fund someone to do my job, when my collegue retires we will share the burden, hopefully even though the company will not run as slick it should still give us a reasonable income to retire on.
Obviously i will pay tax in the uk so i see little advantage in investing in france as it will get very complicated,
My question is that now i do not need to sell my uk property to live on i can lett it when i go, the problem is that our house is a large converted mill in a picturesque if not remote village, i am worried that such a property although attractive would prove a bit pricey to lett, it's worth about 500k, should i sell and try to buy a couple of appartments in town, this would not only give me a bit of income but also somewhere to live in my old age.
The other advantage would be that if my old company failed i could sell them to live on, i also have 90k from my executive pention to either invest or use to purchase the propertys, any advice greatfully recieved from you clever chaps out there, nick

justpaper

dont know if this is any help to you,. but my good pal (who i dont see much) has just completed on some land in Romania, as they are on course for joining the EU in jan 2007, he said hes going to hold on to it for 3 years and then check the price on it,. then he'll either build on it or sell it on,.

maybe something u wanna look into maybe not

EdInvestor

If you aren't moving to France for another 3 years, there doesn't seem to be any reason to do anything now. You could however check the letting potential (and valuation) of the house, plus the outlook for the local property market by asking local estate agents.

shiredeon

have done so ed, can't say i believe them mind you, i'm just a bit worried about a house price crash and wondered if the money could be better invested, or even downsize to something i could let after i go. i suppose there's no great panic but i do believe property is overvalued and will be corrected, it's just a matter of when i suppose, cheers.

EdInvestor

Not a worry unless you plan to cash out of the market entirely or want to downsize to raise funds for income investment. If you are remaining in the same area, a crash would affect both the property you are selling and the one(s) you would buy.

cheerfulcat

have done so ed, can't say i believe them mind you, i'm just a bit worried about a house price crash and wondered if the money could be better invested, or even downsize to something i could let after i go. i suppose there's no great panic but i do believe property is overvalued and will be corrected, it's just a matter of when i suppose, cheers.

If you are worrying about it and you think that you will need the money you can get for the house now, I would be inclined to consider selling now and either buying a smaller place which you can let when you move to France, or renting, and banking all of the rest of the money. I would bank rather than invest because as previously discussed it would be mad to have your income being generated in £ sterling when your outgoings will be in Euros.

BTW if you are worried about a possible drop in house prices it doesn't seem to make sense to sell one big house to buy two small ones...and do you really want all that hassle while your girlfriend is so ill? Perhaps this is not the best time to be making big decisions.

Cheerfulcat

shiredeon

I know what you mean, i do need to hang on to the money if i can, i thought that two small property's would command a greater income than one large one, i think i will sell and buy something small to live in and bank the rest, thanks for the info.