Renting a UK property while overseas or just sell

grumpy_codger

Bigphil1474 said:

...bear in mind any rent on a mortgage free property will give you an additional income alongside any rise in value that may occur over the next 5 years while you are overseas. ...

Not "any". To make this profitable, rise in value (minus CGT) plus rent (minus maintenance costs) have to exceed possible interest on the house value in a good savings account. 

saajan_12

splinters said:

I realise the most lucrative is to rent our owned (mortgage free) property, but we would like to help our kids get on in life.

Not necessarily. You have a certain amount of capital tied up in that house, and rent is only one form of return on it. You could sell and invest the money into stocks&shares, premium bonds, high interest savings, etc etc. The rental route CAN be more profitable in certain areas and when you have access to cheap leverage and cheap labour. But with a paid off house and living abroad, the latter two don't apply. So you're left with a gamble on whether the area is good to even compete with other investments. 

Herzlos

Not having a house to sell when you're buying the new one on the way back will make life a lot easier too.  You'll have no upper chain when selling or lower chain when buying. 

The bigger gamble is whether the house would appreciate more in value than you'd get from savings, after any associated costs (council tax, utility bills, insurance, maintenance etc).

Storage may be a problem if you have a lot of stuff, but it'll be a lot cheaper to put everything into a storage place than maintain an entire house. 

dean350

elsien said:

grumpy_codger said:

My 2 pence...
When living abroad you'll need a letting agent to manage your property. The agent will use every opportunity to fleece you when it comes to any repairs, minor or major. I don't  have any proofs, but I suspect they are all in cahoot with tradespeople and share the loot. Or tradespeople simply know that when dealing with a letting agent it's easy to take advantage of the fact that letting agents don't care.
My opinion is based on my elderly friend's experience. Most quotations I see are about 2 times overpriced compared to the price one can find if managing the property themselves. 

You are extrapolating from one person’s experience to the whole of the letting and trade industries? 

I had good prices and service from the tradesmen sent by my letting agent when I was a LL. This was in a small provincial city though. I figured the Agents would have been putting a lot of work out and the tradesmen did not to jepordise that.

splinters

Herzlos said:

Not having a house to sell when you're buying the new one on the way back will make life a lot easier too.  You'll have no upper chain when selling or lower chain when buying. 

The bigger gamble is whether the house would appreciate more in value than you'd get from savings, after any associated costs (council tax, utility bills, insurance, maintenance etc).

Storage may be a problem if you have a lot of stuff, but it'll be a lot cheaper to put everything into a storage place than maintain an entire house. 

This is my thought as well. It turns out we had a valuation a few years and the estate agent who came out last week suggested the same if not lower. This was a decent family home when we bought it 30 years ago, but we have long outgrown it. They are pitching it as ideal for a first time buyer given how its refurnished and we are willing to include many extras to get a good price. We just kept it this long as we rather spend our money on travel and experience than a fancy home. Having said that, we have worked hard and believe we deserve something a little better to retire with, or in a more scenic/rural area.
As for storage, we are shipping anything we like to the apartment in Zurich, the rest is not really important and I wouldn't want it after being in storage for four+ years, plus beds and furniture etc. were bought to fit this relatively small property.
Its a fairly easy decision given the potential costs and hassle of renting, my only real reservations are not having a UK address and a home in case things didn't work out here. The dilemma is that we need to be here 5 years or more to make enough to move back comfortably, any less and it gets more complicated. My teacher pension, albeit not great, also starts in four years. However, we do have 400k in savings and ISA’s so we wont be destitute.