Sold but pulled out of purchase - should we rent?

giantkatie

We've recently had to withdraw from a house purchase - long, sad story involving a machiavellian vendor and dry rot. We were due to move in 2 days having also sold our house. Understandably, our buyer is not prepared to wait while we begin searching again (to be fair, took us two years to find the one we've walked away from) but has asked if we would be prepared to rent. Any rental properties we have looked at locally cost significantly more than we currently pay for our mortgage and are not nearly as nice as our place.

Would appreciate thoughts on renting while looking for a house.

McKneff

Renting neednt be a problem, at least it will give you some breathing space

PasturesNew

Rent. Rent less than you'd like - you're not there to live well and to get comfortable, it's a stopgap and you need to keep focussed on looking for something to buy.

I sold six weeks ago, never found anything to buy ... so am currently in temporary renting.

You decided to sell, so sell.

giantkatie

PasturesNew wrote: »

Rent. Rent less than you'd like - you're not there to live well and to get comfortable, it's a stopgap and you need to keep focussed on looking for something to buy.

I sold six weeks ago, never found anything to buy ... so am currently in temporary renting.

You decided to sell, so sell.

This is very true although I do worry that we end up renting for longer than anticipated thus throwing away money that could be reducing our mortgage.

lookstraightahead

You will be in a much better buying position with no chain and will probably be able to negotiate better. What is your alternative? And the market is stagnant you could be paying off more of your mortgage by having to stay there for years.

I don't understand the throwing away money by renting bit when house prices are so fickle anyway. By staying another two years in your house you could be throwing away tens of thousands.

diggingdude

Are you likely to find a new buyer easily if yours pulls out due to delay? That should be the main question

p00hsticks

What was the motivation for wanting to move in the first place ? Presumably there must be some reason that the house you're selling is not meeting your needs...


My answer to your question would depend on if your reason is something substantial like no longer being able to manage stairs or too cramped with the arrival of multiple children than if you just fancied a bot of a change...

giantkatie

We sold in 3 weeks before with another outstanding viewing - I don't see finding a new buyer an issue although things can change.

We have just outgrown our current place. We love it here - very desirable location which is hard to beat. Would hate to rent an even smaller place and end up there for a year or more.

lees80

We rented for a year whilst we looked for somewhere, worked out well in the end. We also hired a storage unit to keep surplus furniture in which I would do again, too.

Your current buyer has waited 2 years for you to find something?

giantkatie

That's good to hear. No, we found our dream home after 2 years then put our house on the market. It sold within a few weeks.

GDB2222

Can I ask whether you are the sort of person who likes to gamble a lot? Because what you are proposing is a really big gamble.

We are in a turbulent time, not just with Brexit but with the world economy rather close to recession. House prices could move a lot in the next year or two. Up or down, and I think it’s very hard to tell which way.

So, you could start renting, see house prices drop, and your new place could cost a lot less in a year. You’d be laughing. Or vice versa, and you’d see house prices rising whilst you are out of the market.

As an example, if your present house is worth £200k and prices move 20%, you’d be £40k better off or worse off, depending which way the market moves. Even if the market only moves 5%, that’s still £10k.

It’s a tremendous gamble voluntarily stepping off the housing ladder. You must have nerves of steel.