New location- buy or rent?

fulhamsam87

I'm a first time buyer with a healthy deposit. I can afford a property around 250k on my own. I'm looking at possibly moving away from London to somewhere in the north, likely Sheffield (where i went to uni). However i'm still not 100% sure on location, therefore my initial thinking was to rent for a bit and see if i liked the city still, then either buy or try somewhere else. However a lot of people are telling me this would be wasting money and I should just buy straight away and can always sell later. 
I just wondered if there was any views on this? Any potential pitfalls with the different approaches etc? 

DE_612183

Well if you buy you'd incur costs - stamp duty & solicitors - which you wouldn't if you rent.

If you bought, and sell at a later date the price may go up - IF you can sell.

It's swings and roundabouts, but in your position I'd rent and make sure I had a 6 month break clause - you could also tell agents you're ultimately looking to buy - some landlords may offload a property if you really like it.

Rentals also give you the freedom to try different areas of a city as well.

El_Torro

I'd be inclined to go with your idea of renting before you buy. 

I imagine that being a student in Sheffield is very different to relocating there. Do you know many people who still live there from the time you were a student? Either way I'd still feel more comfortable renting for a year or two before buying.

lika_86

Unless you have a job secured up there and start remotely, you're unlikely to get a lender to lend to you to allow you to buy off the bat anyway. Rent first. Even if you found a place you like tomorrow, conveyancing will take at least two months absolute minimum.

fulhamsam87

I'm a civil servant so i can move anywhere there's an office basically. I don't know many people up there now, so it is a  a risk, but a lot of friends are still in other northern cities but i've never really taken to liverpool/manchester much. 
Renting first instinctively feels right, but when various people were like 'you're basically wasting 4k+ on rent', it made me question it

MikeJXE

It's probably easier to buy than rent but also easier to make a big mistake.

You won't know the area or the neighbours, renting will cost you the rent 

Buying will cost you stamp duty solicitor fees of perhaps £3,000 agent fees to sell maybe £7/800 then all over again if you don't like the second place 

IMO renting is the way to go until you are sure where to settle 

Cisco001

Are you on your own on with families?

If you are on your own, you may consider renting a room for couple of months as temporary measure.
You will waste a lot more than £4k if you bought a house at wrong location.
Also, it is difficult to house hunt if you are miles away.

lookstraightahead

Rent, hands down 

jj_43

Buy when your sure of location 

Mstty

Just don't take over a year, the market can move so much in a year. 

gelato_cat

fulhamsam87 said:

I'm a first time buyer with a healthy deposit. I can afford a property around 250k on my own. I'm looking at possibly moving away from London to somewhere in the north, likely Sheffield (where i went to uni). However i'm still not 100% sure on location, therefore my initial thinking was to rent for a bit and see if i liked the city still, then either buy or try somewhere else. However a lot of people are telling me this would be wasting money and I should just buy straight away and can always sell later. 
I just wondered if there was any views on this? Any potential pitfalls with the different approaches etc? 

I think you should rent at first.  I did a similar thing - left London via the M1 and haven't looked back   We are renting in another big city now, and want to buy here next year.

My bf is from here so has some knowledge of the local area, but it's out-of-date.  When we were looking for places to rent, I showed him the listing for our current home, and he said the area had a bad rep.  However, we came and drove past the house to do a recce, and the place looked really cosy, street looked good too.  So we booked a viewing and really liked the house and immediate area - turns out the place is on one of a couple of roads which are really nice.  Bf agrees that he would like us to buy here if a house came up for sale after originally thinking the area was properly bad.

In the past few weeks we've been viewing houses for sale, again to get a feel for not only the areas, but also what's available at different price points.  Again, we went in with preconceived ideas, and have been pleasantly surprised when we've tried areas or types of houses that we previously didn't think were suitable.  Eg bf hates 1970s houses, but of all the ones we've seen, his favourite is a 1970s cuboid, lol.

As for the areas, it hasn't taken us long at all to figure out where we like, which areas have good amenities, what kinds of houses you find in which areas, which areas you're going to get good off-street parking etc etc.  We like walking and geocaching so we just went out and explored every few weeks.

There are always people who will tell you that renting is "dead money" or whatever - at the end of the day, you're paying to use something and renting gives you flexibility.  They're not in the same situation as you, so they can't state that it's a waste of your money.

The other thing is, if you rent in Sheffield say for 12 months and quickly decide you don't like it, you're close enough to a lot of other places that you could also explore while you're renting in Yorkshire, esp if you have a car.