To buy or not to buy

poolprouk

Hi There,

My partner and I are thinking of buying a house, nothing new there.

However it's likely that in 2-3 years we may be moving to Australia. So we are unsure if it's worth buying here or just continuing to rent.

We currently pay £600 a month in rent plus a £100 fee to renew the lease every six months.

We have a combined salary of approx 50K and live in chelmsford Essex where housing is not cheap! We are considering buying houses/flats around the 160-170K mark.

We have been approved for a homebuy scheme so we could get a 25% loan from a housing association plus approved mortgage lender. waiting to here what they think the maximum purchase price should be but we expect it will be enough to cover what we want.

Obviously it's better to be paying off a mortgage than paying rent but we are concerned about the cost and hassle of going through a house purchase and sale in a couple of years.

We have no deposit to speak of (too much time spent backpacking!), are both 30 and have no kids.

if you need any more info just ask...

Thanks!

Muz and Bee

roswell

can you buy at cheaper than £600 a month ? also if your 100% sure you will be going to australia you would probably be better off renting as it allows you flexability if you want to go at a set time or sooner or later, you wount have to worry about selling if your renting and you wont have the costs of buying / selling.

dunstonh

You do carry some risk with purchasing. If prices drop, you could find yourself in negative equity and your plans for the coming years could have to be postponed.

You need to decide if you want that risk or not.

Ian_W

Even if prices don't fall there are a lot of costs involved in buying and selling property so if you're certain you're going to Aus in a couple of years I'd have another think about it. You've legal fees and disbursements at both ends, stamp duty buying and EA's fees selling which could come to the thick end of £5-6K. Your mortgage is going to cost you about £700-£750 a month interest only, a fair bit more if you go for a repayment one.
As you've no savings to buy with - I presume you'll have no savings to emigrate with so increasing your outgoings by buying a property isn't going to help on that score either.
With a decent income between you I'd have thought it more sensible to put your mind to saving for the move. Of course if you buy and house prices go up 20% before you leave you could make a decent amount out of buying but that's by no stretch of the imagination guaranteed.