Selling house - do we rent or buy another

skysky69

We have decided that we would like to move and have a couple of debts that I would like to get paid off. The main thing that I was wondering was people's opinions on whether we should rent for a little while thus enabling us to save, get our credit rating back on track or buy another house - my mom is worrying about getting off the housing ladder so to speak and not being able to get on (I just think she is quite old fashioned in her thinking).

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

bloomsberg78

I personally have sold up recently and am renting. Renting is pretty cheap now and seems to be getting cheaper.

My view (and this is my own personel view), is that even if house prices continue to rise, you're not going to see year on year 10% rises as we;ve recently seen, which would leave you left behind. I can't see how this can continue anylonger. We're coming to the end of an econmic boom and increasing any debt now can not be good. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/06/cnmerr06.xml)

The only warning about renting after selling up is that you have to be disciplined in both with any capital you have from the sale of your house and also make sure you are banking any extra cash you make from renting v mortage. Its really important that you try and get saving once your debts are clear and then that should leave you in a fairly strong position to get back on the ladder.

If you're not disciplined with your £ and would be tempted to spend any capital, I would tread carefully. Some people need the discipline of a mortgage.

bloomsberg78

Just one more point to add, if you are thinking of buying, then make sure you're buying for the long-term 10-15 years+, that way you will be protected should any housing price correction take place. That way you won't need to constantly check house prices and shouldn't be worried by any crash.

If you're buying with a view to only being in the property for 5 years, I would think long and hard before committing to anything and make sure you have a plan B should a correction take place.

hippiechick_2

bloomsberg78 wrote:

I personally have sold up recently and am renting. Renting is pretty cheap now and seems to be getting cheaper.

My view (and this is my own personel view), is that even if house prices continue to rise, you're not going to see year on year 10% rises as we;ve recently seen, which would leave you left behind. I can't see how this can continue anylonger. We're coming to the end of an econmic boom and increasing any debt now can not be good. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/06/cnmerr06.xml)

The only warning about renting after selling up is that you have to be disciplined in both with any capital you have from the sale of your house and also make sure you are banking any extra cash you make from renting v mortage. Its really important that you try and get saving once your debts are clear and then that should leave you in a fairly strong position to get back on the ladder.

If you're not disciplined with your £ and would be tempted to spend any capital, I would tread carefully. Some people need the discipline of a mortgage.

Couldn't agree more- we have just sold and are renting again (it's actually a relief not to be responsible for the building repairs etc!) and have put our funds into a 60-day notice account so we're not tempted to touch it. We're not in a position to save yet, but now have a spare £500 a month to pay towards our nasty horrible debts!

skysky69

hippiechick wrote:

Couldn't agree more- we have just sold and are renting again (it's actually a relief not to be responsible for the building repairs etc!) and have put our funds into a 60-day notice account so we're not tempted to touch it. We're not in a position to save yet, but now have a spare £500 a month to pay towards our nasty horrible debts!

Would it not be a better idea to pay the debts off instead of paying interest when you have the cash? This is what confuses me as I have debts, but just assumed the best thing to do would be to clear the lot, put the rest of the equity in a notice account and start adding to it?