Sell up or wait it out

Marvel1

Do you want to go into business and be a landlord? Do you know what is involved running the business?

As you are in Scotland the law is different than G_M's sticky post.

Me personally sell.

Jonbvn

OP,

Given that your partner works in the O&G industry, I assume he commuted to/from Aberdeen. 5 years ago the oil price was $100 plus. I remember being in Aberdeen at the time and they were advertising for engineers on the radio.

How times have changed! With oil now at around $60/bbl there have being swaging cuts in rates/salaries, with huge job losses. This obviously has had a massive impact on the local housing market. Therefore, your 50k price drop is far from ridiculous. Remember, there is no law stating that house prices always go up.

Given the above, you have to decide whether there will be a rebound in the O&G job market. Interestingly, I saw this article recently.

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-scotland-scotland-business-46947628

Personally, I think it will take some to to recover to pre-2015 levels, if it ever does.

Pixie5740

ProDave wrote: »

What hosing boom 5 years ago?

I am not far from you and house prices in most of Scotland have been virtually static since the crash in 2008. Aberdeen perhaps is a bit more volatile and it is hard to sell there due to the oil industry slump.

The threat of Indyref #2 is doing little to persuade incomers to move up here and buy our houses either.

We are letting our old house as we could not sell it when we tried 3 years ago.

Sadly imho for prices to go back to "normal" would require the SNP to lose control at Holyrood.

I live in Aberdeen and not the back of beyond of the Highlands and Islands and there was very much a housing boom in the North East due to the oil industry. The Independence Referendum in 2014 did nothing to house prices in this neck of the woods.

incantota

Thanks for all your comments, most of you are saying what we've been thinking, one morning we are like "lets just do"...next we are "maybe it will get better". Its just hard making such decisions, probably as we've never really been faced with such a decision.
To answer your questions;
No, I dont know much about what being a landlord entails, not really interested in being property business either, was only hoping to rent it for long enough for the market to at least pick up abit.
Yes, we are close to the bypass about 10mins off the A90 and most people here commute to Aberdeen for work.
The price tag is what estate agents have given us, we havent done the home report yet but looking at prices in the area generally, we don't see the surveyor giving us much higher than those figures.
Will be having a good chat about all your comments with partner this weekend, as we need to make a decision sooner than later.

Pixie5740

incantota wrote: »

Moved to NE Scotland about 5yrs ago at the peak of the housing boom, bought a 5 bed house (which needed renovating) for about 340k, Trying to sell up now as we have decided to move back to England as work hasn't been the same for us since the oil price crash and DH has found work down south. Spent over 30k renovating the house; new kitchen, new bathrooms, carpets, driveway ...the works. Had estate agents come value the house last week, they are quoting 310 - 320k saying the downturn has affected the housing market causing about 15% reduction in house values. This would mean a loss of over 50k for us, which is just ridiculous. We would like to settle where we are moving to so would ideally like to buy. Question is, should we just cut our losses and sell or hold on and see if the market will pick up and prices go back to normal? We really can't afford to continue paying mortgage in Scotland and also be renting in England at the same time. We have considered renting it out, but it is a large house and not many people look for such large rentals.
What to do?

You've answered your own question. If you can't afford to pay both the mortgage and rent then you'll need to cut your losses and sell. I think you'll struggle to let the property because there isn't the same volume of people moving into Aberdeen as there was before the oil price crash. Lots of landlords are struggling to let properties at the moment.

incantota

We also think we bought at the peak of that boom really, houses were going for 450 - 500 ...which was why we went further out and got a refurb job. Thot doing it up and all that would count for something, but hasn't worked out like the plan..

Crashy_Time

I`m pretty sure there used to be a poster who said that prices in Aberdeen would never ever crash...

AnotherJoe

ANother vote for selling. Will also enable you to buy a better place witha lower mortage and better LTV so better rate, which over time will make some headway towards making up the difference.plus the extra 3% SDLT ona new house which if it's say £500k is a very real £15,000 you'll never recoup if you don't sell this one.

Not to mention beinga LL in Scotland is even more onerous than in England and beinga remote LL is worse as you'll have to pay someone to manage it which means more expense because you'll have little or no ability to manage costs of repair.

Sibz

MovingForwards wrote: »

Have they valued it at 310k to 320k or said to market it at offers over the above figures?

Have you had quotes from 3 different EAs to see what they all come up with?

Have you checked to see what local similar properties have sold for recently?

Exactly as stated above... especially about other quotes from other EA's. Have any properties near you sold fairly recently?

Crashy_Time

incantota wrote: »

We also think we bought at the peak of that boom really, houses were going for 450 - 500 ...which was why we went further out and got a refurb job. Thot doing it up and all that would count for something, but hasn't worked out like the plan..

What sort of houses were going for that price?