Your opinions please...! **SEE OUR REPLIES & DECISION ON POSTS 39 & 41 **

Cheddar_2

Wow - many many thanks for all your replies - it is VERY much appreciated, and we'll read them through fully when we get home from work tonight.

In the meantime, the Rightmove links to our apartment are here:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-14192971.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy (this is our our advert via HouseNetwork - no viewings through them at all)

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-16417387.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy (this is with our latest agent who have got a first viewing for us on Monday - the other 2 agents we've been with were useless. My wife tells me we actually had 2 viewings over our time with the first agent)

We are hoping to have another baby at the end of the year, so staying here isn't really an option.

Buildings insurance is included with the management fee, as are water rates. We were intending on renting the apartment out at £625 fully furnished (believe me... getting that 3 piece suite back down the stairs will be nigh on impossible - it may have to go down 4 floors off the balcony!)

Many thanks again for all your advice - keep it coming and we'll check back in later tonight :money:

lindens

I think the photos for the first agent are better than the second!
The ones from the second make it look really dark and gloomy, and completely colourless especially the living room and bathroom.

Woby_Tide

it certainly looks like the £190k(£185k?) you paid initailly may have been over the odds which probably started the 'loss of equity' looking at similar properties in the block, including the neighbouring flat it looks like they too took around a £30k hit on the price in just 18 months from Dec 04. Is your flat substantially bigger than others in the block or offers 'extra' appeal in some way, or is this potentially what is holding people back that they can't justify the extra cost for your flat compared to others say ion the block. Is anything else up for sale currently to set your price against? As for renting it or selling it on tough one to call in the current climate, bit damned if you do, damned if you don't

barnaby-bear

I swear I've seen a discussion on that flat before. Something like the wallpaper was unfeasibly expensive. Rightmoving on the postcode there are loads of 2 bed flats in the same block - there are duplexes at £155k http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-18589598.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy. Rents seem cheap - on rightmove in the entire OL4 postcode there are only two properties for rent at that high a price

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-16459591.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=rent
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-16395373.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=rent

To be honest you overpaid on a new build flat. It's worth less - the equity has gone already. You can wait for prices to rise in any house/flat it makes no difference if you hang on to that one from the 'equity recovery'. However there are blocks of those flats and lots of people like you and BTLers - I can't really believe there's much demand for rental at that price so even a few months void or dropping the price to rent each month will set you back. I'd cut my losses.

HugoSP

Hi Chedder - I think we may have virtually met before

Can I make the following observations?

The housing market is not strong and unfortunately there is an over supply of flats on the market at the moment. You will get what you can for your flat.

Similarly, houses are not in great demand either.

My advice would be to grit your teeth and bear it - stay put.

You have 2 bedroom accomodation, unless your second child is a different sex to the first then legally it is not an issue to keep them in the same room until they leave home. If they do turn out to be different sexes then it's an issue after IIRC about 5 years.

The inconvenience of being in a small house now will outweigh the stress of running a loss making BTL (assuming you get good tenants) and trying to meet mortgage payments on a 2nd house as well.

You've done well in paying off part of the mortgage, I suggest you continue to do that.

If I were in your shoes I would even consider delaying the 2nd child if you can.

Over the years we have had to cut our cloth to suit. I truly believe that in general our generation have forgotten that this is an option.

You are extremely lucky - you have a place to live. I know of a famikly of 4 around here who were stuck in a 1 bedroom council flat for years because they couldn't afford to move or even get a council house!

Here, there are 3 of you in a nice apartment building with 2 bedrooms.

Get some money/equity behind you and stick it out.

10, or even 5 years ago my advice would have been different - I'm sure.

Hugo

sooz

Cheddar wrote: »

My wife's comments:

My thoughts are that even if the house prices drop over the next few years, they will at some point start to rise again as they have in the past. If we rent our apartment, which we should be able to do, we should be able to cover the mortgage with the rental payments. We would have to pay the management charge of £877 (yearly) but I would rather do this for the next 3/5 years or for however long it takes for the price of the apartment to rise again, rather than losing £30000 if we sell at £160000. Selling just seems to be a waste of money and house prices will not drop forever!

With the house that we have seen, it is in a really nice area with good schools on the edge of greenbelt. I am sure that if house prices drop, they will drop less in this type of area than in less desirable areas. Again, if they do, we can just stay put and be happy in our house until they rise again. The 5 year fixed rate deal we have been offered will secure peace of mind and I’m sure that the house market will be showing signs of recovery (or even already recovered) by 2013!

Thanks to our savings over 2007, we have a deposit of £10000 for the new house. We were also able to pay £8500 off the mortgage on our apartment last year. I hope that over the coming years we will be able to pay chunks off our mortgage to help reduce our debt. If things become a bit tight then we will just have to cut down on our spending!

My husband is quite rightly worried with everything that’s being said on the news and the internet. He is definitely a ‘head’ person who likes to gather lots of information to the point that he confuses and overwhelms himself, hence the sleepless nights!

However, life is short and if you spent all your time worrying about everything, you would never do anything! This could be a bad decision or it could be a great decision. I’m not naive, I will be prepared to wait to see what happens with the BoE rates and mortgage deals over the coming weeks but I really don’t think looking at the long term that it’s a bad idea. Our Stocks and Shares ISA has probably took a battering but my husband hasn’t even mentioned it! People accept falls in stocks and shares and that investment in this field should be for the long term but isn’t that true of the houses we buy too?

Cheddar - why bother asking? It seems your wife has already decided for you :rolleyes:

Coupon-mad

Just to say that we were in a similar situation a few years ago when we bought our current house. We also had a young child and had to move from our flat really due to lack of space and it being unsuitable to raise a family in, there was a subsidence issue so we couldn't sell it at the time.

I would NOT recommend a young family taking on 2 properties when you are also planning another baby. It's too stressful IMHO even if the rental goes fairly smoothly.

Just as you are planning, once we had moved to our new house I went on to have our second child. It was a nightmare for a Mum-of-two, with OH at work, knowing that if there was an issue at the flat I would have to get involved. We would get phone calls at the most inconvenient times - problems with drains, electrics, the toilet not flushing and other such 'annoyances' (as far as I was concerned) which a young Mum would struggle to sort out in her own home, let alone in a second property too.

We used a rental agent so it may seem that any tenant's problems would be handled by them - yes, they took the calls but then they had to call us to check how we wanted to proceed, did we want to get our own quotes/sort out the toilet ourselves, etc. etc. We found if we relied on the rental agent appointing a repairer it was not the cheapest person by far!

We also paid the agents to find us new tenants etc so we weren't renting it out ourselves, but there were 'voids' between tenants when we still had to pay 2 mortgages with only 1 proper income (I was on maternity leave).

We also went on to a higher interest rate as we didn't occupy the flat - BTW you MUST investigate this with your lender as it may well be a non-starter anyway due to your lack of equity. :eek:

We found it much more hassle than it was worth for a young family. Very stressful, and we were renting it unfurnished. In a furnished flat you would also get calls about any repairs/replacements needed due to wear & tear of the furniture.

Tenants often expect landlords to repair things almost immediately, they would see you as a professional Landlord and complain if you didn't act quickly enough. And our tenants were perfectly nice people BTW, not problem tenants at all - that would have been a nightmare.

I found it so stressful that when we were offered a lowish price by a developer who was buying the flats for long-term rental we took it. We even paid £5,000 negative equity to get rid of it, that's how much of a burden it felt like, TBH.

pinkshoes

Personally I would stay put. You have a decent sized living space and 2 bedrooms, which should be fine for the next 5 years.

Ok, so the best schools aren't in the area, but when the kids are so young, that's not the most important thing. You can take them to extra activities outside of school (horseriding, gymnastics, swimming, music clubs etc...) which will no doubt benefit your kids the most.

If you can afford a bigger mortgage on another property, why not change your current mortgage and up the payments so you can reduce the mortgage size. In 5 years time, this would make renting it out far more feasible, so if you couldn't (or didn't want to) sell it, you'd get a decent return from letting it.

It may not be ideal, but it could be far worse!!

littlesos

barnaby-bear wrote: »

I swear I've seen a discussion on that flat before. Something like the wallpaper was unfeasibly expensive.

me too, I remember seeing this before, quite a long time ago.

Catblue

A friend of mine lives in Oldham, and he says (like you do) that the area is awash with new flats.

Are you sure that you could even get £625 per month for the flat if you rent it out? What made you think of that figure? He seems to think that 2-bed flats seem to go for between £450 - £550 in that area.

At £625 per month, yours would be the most expensive 2-bed flat to rent in the whole of Oldham, according to Rightmove - by quite a margin.

This friend is looking for a flat and was thinking of paying no more than £500 per month, but he says he will probably wait as he thinks the rents will get even cheaper soon. The supply of flats just keeps coming, but there are no more tenants for them.