Buyer may pull out-Can i refinance existing property as a BTL to save losing property am buying?

Arps

Hi all - if anyone has any thoughts on my situation or come accross similar in the past I would be grateful for your thoughts.

Selling my existing house for £190k which has an outstanding mortgage of £88.5K so 101.5k equity.
In addition to this I have roughly 35k in cash savings.
I have put in an offer on another house for £360k all accepted.. Solicitors appointed, survey complete etc etc... applied for a 75%LTV mortgage with Santander which is going through the motions -  i paid a fee upfront which after reading the forums was probably not the best idea.
So the buyer of my house might now be pulling out which i guess means:
1. I either have to pull out of the property I want to buy, or find another buyer for mine quickly - i have spent almost 2k already 
2.Try and refinance my house as a BTL to raise the funds for the deposit - I think I should be able to go 25% deposit on both, just about.

What would others do in this situation?
Anyone know any potential pitfalls... where this may go wrong?



 

AnotherJoe

There's no way I'd get into BTL but i guess in this case you could do it for a year and then sell and if you were lucky with the tenants not too much harm done ? I note you are worried about the £2k you a,ready spent but in terms of BTL that's going to be a drop in the ocean.  

If it was me I'd only do it if I were desperate to buy the new house.
Have you talked to your EA about remarketing ? House prices seem to be rising if anything so maybe you could quickly find a new buyer at the original or slightly lower price ?

[Deleted User]

You can either switch it to BTL but another option is do buy the new property as a 2nd residential mortgage if affordability allows.  Will achieve roughly the same thing but would allow you to keep trying to sell your place and not get involved in renting out.  

If you are going down the Let to Buy route then a broker is a must.   A lot of lenders in this area dont allow direct applications 

Thrugelmir

Biggest pitfall would be to convert your existing property to a BTL without fully crunching the numbers or understanding the responsibilities of being a Landlord. Never wise to make off the cuff decisions. Very easily lead to big regrets.