S&S ISA, Property, Help to Buy

infinityx

Hello all

So my situation is this, I am 40 with a family 2 kids on is a baby and the other is 6 years old. My wife who looks after kids so isn't working. Single income of 90k including benefits. When i first came to the UK with my wife 10 years ago we didn't have much savings but have since been saving regularly whilst keeping expenses at a minimum. I have been contributing to my pension but my wife who was initially studying and later looking after kids does not have any pension savings. So far in total I have about 170k saved in my pension.

On the side I was also adding to my and my wife's ISA  and although I made a big mistake of not investing properly (tried to invest in uk dividend stocks that ultimately lost me money), over the last 3 years i reevaluated and learnt about value investing and during the 2022/23 dip i bought a lot of US stocks in my ISA which have since doubled (the bull run helped). I continue to value invest and pay a lot of attention to reading company financials etc i'm not perfect but i would like to say im doing much better. i invest for the long term but I am am no longer so attached that if i see an opportunity i will sell to buy something better. I have grown both mine and my wife's isa to about 200k with the bull run last few years I think returns have been >80%. i expect this to be far lower longer term and budget for next 10 years to grow at between 8-10% CAGR. 

I do have a credit card that i take advantage of for paying for majority of my purchases and i has an interest free period and then do a balance transfer at 3-4% to my other credit card when needed or to a new 0% card. My income would cover any debt payment obligation. . 

If worse comes to worse i do have some savings overseas in my home country or I can borrow from family to pay of debts but I am not all to worried since I always have a % of my portfolio in very stable investments. 

When i first came to the UK I opened a Help to Buy ISA and was saving to it until it got to about 12 or 13k. it has been sitting at about 13k and only now growing at 3.1%. tbh i made a mistake not moving it into my S&S as I could have returned greater than the 25% but hindsight is 20/20. I had kept it as it was safe and incase i bought a property. 

I had every intention of wanting to buy a house and live in UK permanently, but circumstances has it that there is a 60-70% chance I might have to return to my original country but it could be end of the year or couple be next year or never (uncertain). whole family is UK citizens.

I did want to buy something for my children to return to if they ever decided in the future but given the prices and the fact the Help to buy cant be used if you plan to rent out nor would anyone give me a loan if the intent was to eventually rent out the property makes me reconsider keeping the Help to buy and just transferring it into my stocks and shares if its possible. or set up a junior ISA for my children and depositing half and add it to a global tracking fund.

we are currently renting and its about 40% of my take home pay (thesis is after paying for my benefits and pension). the rest of my take home pay is sufficient for daily living needs and i still manage to invest about 10%-15% into our ISA. I expect rent to go up but buying a property if there is a possibility of having to leave the UK leaves me in a difficult position. the problem is we might have to leave end of this year or could be next or could be it doesn't happen. 

I Could use some guidance on whether to just pay the extra and keep renting or buy a property short term assuming i can get a loan and rent it out if and when i leave. this way i could use the help 2 buy isa for the purchase. 

I live in London and plan to stay here. I wouldn't want a property more than 450k and would look for something that's 2 bedroom that's easy to rent out but also live in with young children. 

Alexland

You are right with the HTB ISA you are required to be buying the property with the intent of living in it however after living in it for a while there is nothing stopping you later renting the property out (you would likely need to get the mortgage lender's permission) however it's not easy being a landlord especially when you live in another country.

Honestly I wouldn't let the £3k bonus opportunity of the HTB ISA influence your decision either way as it's a small amount of money relative to the costs of buying and maintaining a property.

infinityx

Yea I am leaning that way too. Thanks. Its a real shame there is so much uncertainty as i would have loved to buy a property i really hate renting. kicking my self for not doing it years ago.