Short term renting options

rosie383

We have sold our home and had to sadly pull out of the one we were buying. Our buyers were slow but now apparently are moving quickly and probably will want in before school starts here or soon after. We are thinking maybe a couple of weeks. As we have not found another house yet and will view some this week, what are our options? Even if we find a house to buy it will be a minmum of 3 weeks before we could move. Most landlords seem to want a minimum let of 6 months.

Hotel for a few weeks and stuff into storage?

Rent for the 6 months and keep looking? But prices are still climbing and it would be thousands of pounds in rent which seems such a waste.

Are there any good sites we can look at that do short lets? Any tips from others who have been in the same situation?

Oh, and if people are selling privately and not going on zoopla etc, where do we find their houses advertised?

CKhalvashi

It may be worth asking on Gumtree, although it will be furnished if only for weeks/few months at max.

Several pubs in the town I live offer rooms available by the week (although I am near an airport, which may affect whether this happens outside the area), but again doesn't solve the storage issue.

Can't help any more, but good luck.

questionss

If you haven't found somewhere I'd rent for 6mths but rent as small/cheap as you can get away with. Better to spend on rent than rush into the wrong purchase. Also realistically a purchase will take minimum 6weeks and more likely at least 12. Short term lets are always comparatively more expensive so even if you don't use the full 6mth you'd probably save.

davisc02

Hi,

Sorry to hear you lost out the property you are buying. We are going to be renovating our house in the future and started looking at the same sort of thing and I came to the conclusion it would be cheaper to build a liveable log cabin in the garden. I would have a look or post an advert on gumtree, there are also short term let flats but they seem to come at a premium. The house we bought we got by doing a letter stating we were in a proceedable position and if they wanted to sell and save thousands on estate agents fees then contact us. We did about 50 copies and posted through all the houses which we loved and one of the owners came running out and basically wanted to downsize and the rest is history.

3 weeks to find another place and complete!! I think you are kidding yourself. To be honest if I was you I would just sit tight, just because your buyers have suddenly decided they want to move quickly that's not your problem. As you said it's still a rising/sellers market. What if you move into rented accommodation and you can't find anywhere and property prices go up another 10%? If they have come this far I doubt they will back out and just because they want to be settled before little Johnny starts his new school isn't a reason for you to go through all that stress and expense.

Good luck

rosie383

Good advice about short term being a lot more expensive. We really dont want to have to do that though. We still don't have exchange or completion dates yet.
Say we find the perfect house this week and get things moving quickly, we were thinking it would be cheaper to store our things and even have a family room in a hotel for a few weeks rather than 6 months rent. But maybe that just isn't practical.

pinkshoes

rosie383 wrote: »

Good advice about short term being a lot more expensive. We really dont want to have to do that though. We still don't have exchange or completion dates yet.
Say we find the perfect house this week and get things moving quickly, we were thinking it would be cheaper to store our things and even have a family room in a hotel for a few weeks rather than 6 months rent. But maybe that just isn't practical.

We're in the same position,but moving in with family temporarily until we find a house to buy.

Storage is around £12 per container per week. A typical 3 bed semi would need 5 containers, so you are looking at £250 ish a month for storage.

Have you considered negotiating a holiday let for say 3 months?

rosie383

Good idea pinkshoes. I juat looked at holiday lets around here though and there are only a few places in villages which are coming up at around a grand a week!!!!!!
We use lok n store while we were showing the house to sell and they were reasonably priced and very handy for us. So I'm not overly concerned about storage.

snowscreamer

Slightly different as this was in America, but some friends of ours found a nearby short term let cottage to stay in (cheaper than a hotel but probably more expensive than 6 month tenancy) on airbnb. Possibly something similar in your area? They put their stuff into storage as it was only a small 600 sq ft cottage.

Joanthebone

It might be worth looking at spareroom, I have found a 'granny annexe' for the same price as a single room in a house-share, you would be a lodger rather than a tenant, and I pay monthly, with one months notice on either side. OK it might be a squash for two of you (I have a sitting room, a bedroom, kitchen and wet room) but if its just short term something like that might do you? Good luck.!

rosie383

Thanks.There are 4 of us, 2 adults and 2 kids. Probably would be easier if we lived in a holiday type place but unfortunately we don't and this time if the year most of the letting is to students. If it was the summer holidays there probably would have been more empty places but as it's a university town it's busier come September.

pmlindyloo

Have you exchanged yet?

If you haven't then when you need to have written into the agreement that you need 2/4 weeks between exchange and completion. Make sure your buyers know your plans as solicitors do not always pass on this type of information.

You cannot find anywhere to rent until you have exchanged as you could end up paying your mortgage and your rent!

A six months tenancy agreement is the norm which in your situation is a reasonable time to find somewhere to buy and go through the process. if you don't find somewhere then you can go onto a periodic tenancy (month by month) so that you are not tied into a fixed contract.

The only thing that you need to concern yourself with is if you have a mortgage offer which expires after a certain time so do look into this.

You are panicking and really there is no need. You are not going to be able to buy another house in time and do not want to be in danger of losing your buyer.

Keep calm and just arrange to rent for 6 months. This will give you lots of time to find your perfect house.

We rented after selling our house and took our time. We actually ended up buying the place we rented (but that's another story).

These things shouldn't be rushed - it is a huge commitment.

As for paying rent it may be a little more than your current mortgage repayments but if you have any cash from the sale, stick it in a savings account and get the interest monthly. If this isn't possible because you need it for the future house payment then cut down your expenditure drastically for the 6 months and 'make do'. At least you don't have to worry about maintenance of the rented property.

Good luck!