Owning and renting vs owning and living in

Samsonite1

This is probably a strange question and I am partly asking in case it is a crazy idea and I have not thought about some obvious pitfalls (quite likely!).
The background is that before the pandemic, me and my partner were working remotely pretty much 100% of the time and now it is unlikely we will ever need to go into the offices (and due to the nature of our work and globally dispersed teams).
We currently live in London, but as we never go into central London, it is appealing to move elsewhere and we would like to be near family (for many reasons and it would even help with childcare as both sets of parents/grandparents live in the same area).
What I thought of was the fact that we could potentially buy a property without needing a mortgage (due to the price difference between London and where we would move).
The main issue is that all of the good schools (target location) are in an area where there are no good houses to buy (mostly flats, little to no garden, no parking, etc.).
So to the question!  Would it make any sense at all to buy a house without a mortgage to rent out, then rent a nice flat near the schools - in the long term, as we would not have a mortgage, we could consider buying another property or moving into the house we were renting out - the kids are too young to send on the bus by themselves and so being near the school would matter for a few years.

Anyway, not sure if I am just having crazy ideas, but it almost makes sense (until someone talks more sense into me).  Otherwise, I am looking to buy a house as close as possible with all the things we want and as I say, there is nothing ideal at any price and you simply have to live at least 2 miles away from the schools.

Comms69

Why would you want to be landlords? 

I dont understand why renting a flat you dont want to live in is somehow better than buying a flat you dont want to live in?

seradane

Doesn't sound like you're needing to move ASAP. Are there no houses in the school catchment areas that would suit you at all, or just no houses on the market at the moment? If you're in no hurry, I'd just try to keep an eye on the market and be in a position so if something suitable does come up, you can snap it up straight away.

The brigade will be along in a moment to berate you for ever thinking of becoming a landlord, anyway. 

Comms69

seradane said:

Doesn't sound like you're needing to move ASAP. Are there no houses in the school catchment areas that would suit you at all, or just no houses on the market at the moment? If you're in no hurry, I'd just try to keep an eye on the market and be in a position so if something suitable does come up, you can snap it up straight away.

The brigade will be along in a moment to berate you for ever thinking of becoming a landlord, anyway. 

Most posters here are landlords, no-one gets berated for wanting to do it; generally it's those that have done it, without a clue that get lambasted. 

Marvel1

Do you understand business of a landlord involves?

Marvel1

seradane said:

The brigade will be along in a moment to berate you for ever thinking of becoming a landlord, anyway. 

Wrong, it's those who no clue and it's the poor tenant who end up in the mess.

Samsonite1

Comms69 said:

Why would you want to be landlords? 

I dont understand why renting a flat you dont want to live in is somehow better than buying a flat you dont want to live in?

I don't want to buy a flat/leasehold, but happy to rent one.  There are lovely, large flats available to rent.  Don't want to own one and we would look to live in one for 3-4 years max.  But we would obviously want to buy a property with the money from selling the current London house.  Hopefully that makes some kind of sense?  If not, I apologise!

Samsonite1

Marvel1 said:

Do you understand business of a landlord involves?

I actually rented out my house when I had to work abroad for a year, why?

Comms69

Samsonite1 said:

Comms69 said:

Why would you want to be landlords? 

I dont understand why renting a flat you dont want to live in is somehow better than buying a flat you dont want to live in?

I don't want to buy a flat/leasehold, but happy to rent one.  There are lovely, large flats available to rent.  Don't want to own one and we would look to live in one for 3-4 years max.  But we would obviously want to buy a property with the money from selling the current London house.  Hopefully that makes some kind of sense?  If not, I apologise!

Why? Just stick it in other investments until your ready to buy surely?

Comms69

Samsonite1 said:

Marvel1 said:

Do you understand business of a landlord involves?

I actually rented out my house when I had to work abroad for a year, why?

Politely lots of people do that badly.

Samsonite1

Comms69 said:

Samsonite1 said:

Comms69 said:

Why would you want to be landlords? 

I dont understand why renting a flat you dont want to live in is somehow better than buying a flat you dont want to live in?

I don't want to buy a flat/leasehold, but happy to rent one.  There are lovely, large flats available to rent.  Don't want to own one and we would look to live in one for 3-4 years max.  But we would obviously want to buy a property with the money from selling the current London house.  Hopefully that makes some kind of sense?  If not, I apologise!

Why? Just stick it in other investments until your ready to buy surely?

The honest answer to that is that I have even less of a clue about what to stick several hundred thousand into from an investments point of view and I doubt I would get my OH on board with it, so that makes it a lot trickier.  We are still thinking that we may just buy a house that is not so close to school, but mortgage free and where we want to live (near family members).  We would just have to potentially work out a painful school run for a few years - not impossible by any means, but has the potential to be a daily stress point, which of course would be nice not to have.