Desp to move....what would you do?

notgotenough£

Hello everyone, I hope you can give me some advice on our situation and maybe say what you would do in our situation?

We have been living in our current house for almost 6 years. During that time we have had two children (6 and 4) and I have reduced my hours working, whilst my husband has done well and increased his salary.

If I am being honest I had gone off the house before we even moved in but was keen to move from where we were so went ahead with the move.

Our house serves us well with the room etc (would like a conservatory ideally). But I HATE the street we live in. To the point where I am completely pre-occupied with the whole thing. The street we live in is a council est. When we bought the house we thought that the majority of the houses were privately owned, but it soon became apparent that they weren't. We live directly opposite someone who has been in prison for drug dealing (and i beleive by his activity he still is). Next door but one lives a man who has social issues (often in the street drunk, shouting about gay people!) and next door but one a blokes moved in with the family whos dad has been in prison for murder! Someone down the street has been on a Jeremy Kyle DNA show, I could go on..... The kids are actually quite happy here but they are at an age where they are playing out in the street all the time now and quite honestly I dont want them mixing with a 4 year old who uses the f word. All the mums are single mothers and dont work. I have treid to fit in but actually I reallydont want to! Hope you can tell how unhappy I am. I know some of you will think I am being really snobby, but I dont really care I just want the best for my kids and want to be happy.

The problem is we have debt - we are currently on and DMP with the CCCS, so we are not in a position to sell and get another mortgage. We are thinking of either selling up and putting the money we have in the house (approx £14,000) in a savings account and saving like mad over the next few years and renting a house until we are in a position to rent. The other option is renting our house out ( got a friend who is keen to rent it and will pay a good price for it) and again renting a house somewhere else until we are in a position to sell and get a mortgage. Her rent would all but over the rent we would pay to live else where.

What would you do? I am not keen on becomming a landlord to be honest, but my friend who wants to rent our house has moved in, in her head and I really dont want to let her down. And this would be a way to stay on the property ladder.

I am applying for other jobs so I can increase my hours, not that I want to but have decided if I want to move and improve our life style then I will have to miss out on taking the kids to school and picking them up etc.

Thanks for reading until the end. Sorry for waffling on, I am desperate!

sharon xx

myhouse_2

Becoming a landlady is quite a big thing - I would avoid becoming a reluctant landlady. You would still need to think about house repair bills, legalities etc.
My own view is that prices are going down so sell up now, rent a house and concentrate on your debt and saving for a deposit. Chances are in a year or two that it'll be cheaper to buy and you won't need such a high deposit.
The advantage of renting is the flexibility - (though there are downsides like landlords forcing you to move when they decide to sell up). Find an area you might like to later buy in.

kingstreet

If it's bothering you that much, sell the house and rent somewhere new.

angelsmomma

notgotenough£ wrote: »

Hello everyone, I hope you can give me some advice on our situation and maybe say what you would do in our situation?

We have been living in our current house for almost 6 years. During that time we have had two children (6 and 4) and I have reduced my hours working, whilst my husband has done well and increased his salary.

If I am being honest I had gone off the house before we even moved in but was keen to move from where we were so went ahead with the move.

Our house serves us well with the room etc (would like a conservatory ideally). But I HATE the street we live in. To the point where I am completely pre-occupied with the whole thing. The street we live in is a council est. When we bought the house we thought that the majority of the houses were privately owned, but it soon became apparent that they weren't. We live directly opposite someone who has been in prison for drug dealing (and i beleive by his activity he still is). Next door but one lives a man who has social issues (often in the street drunk, shouting about gay people!) and next door but one a blokes moved in with the family whos dad has been in prison for murder! Someone down the street has been on a Jeremy Kyle DNA show, I could go on..... The kids are actually quite happy here but they are at an age where they are playing out in the street all the time now and quite honestly I dont want them mixing with a 4 year old who uses the f word. All the mums are single mothers and dont work. I have treid to fit in but actually I reallydont want to! Hope you can tell how unhappy I am. I know some of you will think I am being really snobby, but I dont really care I just want the best for my kids and want to be happy.

The problem is we have debt - we are currently on and DMP with the CCCS, so we are not in a position to sell and get another mortgage. We are thinking of either selling up and putting the money we have in the house (approx £14,000) in a savings account and saving like mad over the next few years and renting a house until we are in a position to rent. The other option is renting our house out ( got a friend who is keen to rent it and will pay a good price for it) and again renting a house somewhere else until we are in a position to sell and get a mortgage. Her rent would all but over the rent we would pay to live else where.

What would you do? I am not keen on becomming a landlord to be honest, but my friend who wants to rent our house has moved in, in her head and I really dont want to let her down. And this would be a way to stay on the property ladder.

I am applying for other jobs so I can increase my hours, not that I want to but have decided if I want to move and improve our life style then I will have to miss out on taking the kids to school and picking them up etc.

Thanks for reading until the end. Sorry for waffling on, I am desperate!

sharon xx

Was that necessary? You are being snobby and judgmental, I am a single mother who did not work when my son was little. I now own 2 houses and am in the process of buying a 3rd.

I do understand that you are unhappy with where you live but you are making sweeping steriotypical judgments about people that are irrelevant to your problem, which is you don't have the money to move since you are in debt.

DVardysShadow

angelsmomma wrote: »

Was that necessary? You are being snobby and judgmental, I am a single mother who did not work when my son was little. I now own 2 houses and am in the process of buying a 3rd.

I do understand that you are unhappy with where you live but you are making sweeping steriotypical judgments about people that are irrelevant to your problem, which is you don't have the money to move since you are in debt.

The bit you highlighted was

The kids are actually quite happy here but they are at an age where they are playing out in the street all the time now and quite honestly I dont want them mixing with a 4 year old who uses the f word.
All the mums are single mothers and dont work. I have treid to fit in but actually I reallydont want to!

I don't think that there is anything judgemental about

• calling them single, if they don't have partners
• calling them mothers if they have children
• and saying they don't work if they don't actually work

She says she has tried to fit it but does not really want to. You could just about criticise her for not wanting to, but as I see it, if she does not share the same outlook and values, it is a legitimate choice for her to make for which she should not be criticized.

If you were suddenly transported to Chelsea I could imagine you saying "All the mums have partners and spend their time at the gym and having facials. They all drive around in Chelsea tractors and have live in nannys for their kids and my kids don't get to play with the other kids because not being foreign, I can't get into the nannys' circle. I have tried to fit in but I don't really want to". It would be fair comment, I would say and I would not criticize you for wanting to move out.

sonastin

Just to throw in a little perspective, your neighbours could be saying "and there is this family in our street who think they are so much better than us but they owe money everywhere. they borrowed so much with no thought of how to pay it back and now they're in all sorts of financial mess". You are judging according to your value system but to other people, debt is infinitely worse than single-parenthood.

If you are really unhappy with the area you live in, you should sell up and move on. If you keep the house and rent it out, you will always be tied to that area and it will always be an emotional drain, let alone an economic one. If you have equity in the property, you could use that towards getting yourself out of debt so that this could be a clean start in more ways than one. And if you go into a rented property, you buy yourself more flexibility in where you live - you jumped into this house because you were unhappy with the place before that. If the next place is equally the wrong choice, you'll be able to move on again in 6 months without the same sort of hassle if it is a rental.

moneysaver

angelsmomma wrote: »

You are being snobby and judgmental, I am a single mother who did not work when my son was little.

Chip on shoulder.


The OP was just stating facts not being judgemental at all.



Moneysaver

PasturesNew

If you're not happy with where your house is, then don't hang onto it. If you rent it out to somebody who is as keen as mustard right now, you have to look to the time when they want out - and think about the type of tenants your house would attract at that point ... and the potential void and security issues it'd cause having it sitting empty in such a bad area.

Sell up, bank the cash, don't have the house following you round like a bad smell - and a bad smell with responsibilities.

Right now is the best time for you to sell it as [a] you're living in it and can control how tidy/clean/presentable it is for buyers you're not having to try to balance selling it -v- it being empty as you can't rent it while it's on the market and paying the mortgage AND rent.

motherofstudents

I don't think you are being snobby, who on earth would want to live in a place like that (why is your friend so keen to live there ?) Anyway that is irrelevant. Ideally if you can sell your house that would be the best solution but you may have to take a very low price for it. Where is the 14K from ? Is that the amount you would have left after you have sold for an amount you have in your head ? I think if you break even or lose a bit it would be worth it for your peace of mind. As others have said, definitely rent and take your time to find a place you would really like to live. As you have kids who play out in the street, I would look for somewhere like that so that you don't annoy your new neighbours and end up hating living there too. I would only rent your house out as a last resort, try marketing it at a price which is a bit lower than similar properties and you might be lucky. I hope it works out for you.

poppysarah

notgotenough£ wrote: »

We have been living in our current house for almost 6 years.

I have treid to fit in but actually I reallydont want to! Hope you can tell how unhappy I am. I know some of you will think I am being really snobby, but I dont really care I just want the best for my kids and want to be happy.

What's changed in your life recently to make you feel so depressed about your street?

You don't have to "fit in" with your street. Keep yourself to yourself and just nod and smile at people.

Whilst there may be "bad" people on your street then you don't have to sit and drink tea with them.

If debt is a big issue have you addressed the causes of this?


You also say you didn't like where you were before you moved here. As you have a long history of not being happy where you live I would seriously address this as an issue before you make decisions about moving.

The current housing market is slow. You might not have any cash left after you've sold and moved. You might even end up with negative equity.
If your street is full of "bad" people how well will it sell?

IMO you sound depressed. Your debt worries are probably affecting how you handle the rest of your life.

If you feel you might be depressed then go and get some help from your GP. And don't make any rash decisions about moving.

phoebe1989seb

I don't think you're being snobbish or blame you for how you feel, but having previously owned a house in a very 'posh' area in Hampshire in a road where the houses sold for anything between £500k and £1m, yet our next door neighbour was a very wealthy drug dealing property developer, I don't think you can guarantee that in any area you won't have 'undesirable' neighbours. This person sent his children to the same highly regarded independent school as we did and yet regularly had police raids on his property. When we sold the house (not because of any of this and indeed both DH and I would go back there tomorrow if we could) we sold to a guy (cash-buyer at £600k) who had been in prison for murder...........although he was later acquitted. So the best of areas can and indeed do, attract their own fair share of what some might term 'problem' neighbours