Buy to let/sell advice

mjtomo

Hi all, I would like to pick your brains about a potential buy to let/sell deal myself and my fiancee have.
We are currently renting a property in Cheshire and have £35000 in savings. We earn a combined income of £30,000 per year. We are always looking to buy ourselves but the area we live in has extremely high asking prices making most of the properties we view realistically out of our budget. We will continue to look.
Now for the conundrum we have at the moment. My fiancee's mum lives in a pleasant two bed end of terraced house in Cumbria, she tried to sell for £102,000 last year but would not drop her price to £95,000 (a price the estate agents where confident it would sell for).
As she is in debt and wanting to move, we are extremely confident she would let us buy her property for £80,000, which would give us mortgage repayments of around £360 per month. We could then either rent out or sell on. The house doesn't need any structural work, just needs a lick of paint and sprucing up a bit (no major cost or work).
Is this a no brainer? Would we even get the mortgage? What other things would we need to look out for etc

Thanks all.

quotememiserable

Wait, she wouldn't sell for £95k but she will sell for £80k? You then plan to sell it on for a quick profit, and this is your partner's mother. Wouldn't it be decent to let her sell for £95k?

mjtomo

I appreciate it sounds bad. But going back we have loaned her money in the past for cars and loans. She wants out of the house so she can go and rent, get the mortgage off her neck and make a fresh start. She would much rather us buy it and either sell it on or rent than go back to putting it up for sale, dealing with estate agents and viewings etc.

Thrugelmir

Doesn't make sense. Given she's in debt and wouldn't lower the price previously.

mjtomo

Right ok it doesnt matter. Was just wanting some advice maybe shouldn't have been so thorough with my question. Just to be clear, she had it for sale for £102,000 - no offers in 18 months. The estate agent advised her to drop to £95,000 just under a year ago, she refused and took it off the market. It is not currently on the market, so all we were thinking was buying it off her to get her out of the mortgage and out of debt. She bought the property for £32,000 in 2000. As I said, we have loaned her money in the past so she would be happy for us to buy for a quick sale.
If it doesn't make any sense then thats fine

Foxy-Stoat_3

Forgetting about buying from a family member for a minute, you will struggle getting a BTL mortgage without a having a residential mortgage as well and you wont be able to apply for consent to let unless you have lived in the property for 6-12 months first with a new mortgage.

Back to the family sale thing, you could pay for her rent for a few months, do the work yourself and put it back on the market, empty, for £95,000 and split the difference once its sold. She will get more than the £80K you would of given her, you would also of done her a favour by allowing her to move out now and make a fresh start and you would of done the right thing !