Pitfalls of breaking the chain and renting?

franklee

I don't know about your particular insurance but I doubt it will be a problem. If in doubt I'd suggest you ring and ask them.

As for selling, renting and then buying again, we did this.

A pitfall we found is that we rented for much longer than we initially thought. But then the market was flat and interest rates were higher so the interest covered the rent.

Also I didn't like the new area we'd moved to while renting so considered moving back or buying elsewhere. However when it came to counting what we'd have to give up here I changed my mind so we stayed in this area after all.

The biggest pitfall was our landlord decided to sell so gave us notice to leave. Luckily we found a short chain property to buy but still needed to delay our leaving the rental by two months. The landlord wasn't happy but given his section 21 notice was invalid there wasn't much he could do.

Some agents/landlords "insist" on a tenant signing up to a new fixed term after the initial one. There is no need to do this as in the absence of anything else you go into a statutory periodic tenancy. It may be the tenancy agreement stipulates you go into a contractual periodic tenancy instead in which case look out that it may require more than the usual one rental period's notice.  So I recommend reading up on how tenancies work so you can push back before you sign up.

On the plus side we got a fair bit off our purchase as the previous buyer has pulled out and our vendor was in a hurry. Breaking the chain is an advantage.

Thrugelmir

If you've found a suitable rental and you are happy with a short term arrangement then do it. I'd suggest putting things you've no need of into long term storage with the removal company you use. Makes moving again so much easier. Less to repack. 

PasturesNew

Sell and rent.  I'm doing it (doing it badly) right now.  I did it before (2007-2014). 

Davesnave

We sold and rented in 2008/9. We didn't need extra storage because it was a larger, more expensive house than the one we'd lived in, with things like a tandem garage and a 'spare' room 27' long above it! Pickfords lost out.

We expected to be searching for maybe 18months, as in a recession the supply of houses dries to a trickle and we wanted something specific. We also thought vendors would jump at a fair offer, but both our predictions were wrong.

Our main search area was West Wales and people there were in complete denial of the Crash. Landed  property in that area often took a few years to sell, so why would their owners worry prematurely about this Crash thing?  We got nowhere there. However, there are always people who simply must sell, so after only 6 months, much to our surprise, we found what we wanted in less-affordable Devon instead. Moved here 3 months later and never looked back.

One word of caution: the difference between 2008 and now is that interest rates are entirely different. With our house proceeds in the banks we were making a sizeable profit renting. That can't happen now.

shinytop

Davesnave said:

We sold and rented in 2008/9. We didn't need extra storage because it was a larger, more expensive house than the one we'd lived in, with things like a tandem garage and a 'spare' room 27' long above it! Pickfords lost out.

We expected to be searching for maybe 18months, as in a recession the supply of houses dries to a trickle and we wanted something specific. We also thought vendors would jump at a fair offer, but both our predictions were wrong.

Our main search area was West Wales and people there were in complete denial of the Crash. Landed  property in that area often took a few years to sell, so why would their owners worry prematurely about this Crash thing?  We got nowhere there. However, there are always people who simply must sell, so after only 6 months, much to our surprise, we found what we wanted in less-affordable Devon instead. Moved here 3 months later and never looked back.

One word of caution: the difference between 2008 and now is that interest rates are entirely different. With our house proceeds in the banks we were making a sizeable profit renting. That can't happen now.

Very true.  The only reason it just about works for us is that the rental house is worth less than half of the one we sold.  

Falafels

When I sell my property, I will be joining my partner in his (rental) house until such time as he has sold his own house. He relocated for work a couple of years ago. Once his place is sold, we'll buy something together. In the general scheme of things, the rent for a few months pales into insignificance against the value of owned property. You have the advantage of being able to move very quickly, both in physical terms and in not needing to find a mortgage. I know what you mean about it feeling weird when you haven't rented for decades, but you quickly get the hang of it!