House selling quandary

Eels100

We have a small 2 bed house which we bought a couple of years ago, on which the fixed rate is about to expire and which we have put on the market. Since buying it we have had a baby (unplanned but not unwanted!) and my partner has stayed home to care for him. So we've lost his annual earnings of around £15k. I currently earn £24k.

We decided to sell the house because we knew the monthly mortgage repayments would increase above the £630 we currently pay and because we're on a much tighter budget now. It's not our dream home and we felt renting would be OK. However, my current lender has just offered to fix us at 5.99% for another 2, 3 or 5 years if we wish, making our monthly repayments only £664, which we could just about manage.

But, if we sold the house, we could pocket aound £10k from the sale and use that as a deposit towards our next, hopefully bigger house at some point in the future. Moving and renting would obviously have its headaches to consider, and obviously without a crystal ball there's no way to know for sure, but what are people's general opinions on whether to stay put after all?

Having a baby pretty much wrecked my already feeble decision-making abilities!

beer_tins

It sounds like you know about the pros and cons, so you need to make the decision! I would say if you're happy where you are and can afford the repayments at a fixed rate, why not stay? Moving is always expensive, especially if it involves selling or buying.

Only you can decide though!

oneandonlyboy

Hi,

Not sure where you live but if you did sell your house and cleared 10K and your partner didnt go back to work that would only leave you with an income. 3.5 times your income is 84K and then add your 10K might not buy you anything. I know where i live(southcoast) that wouldn't buy you a 1 bedroom flat.

If you can afford to stay at your house i would, maybe drop down to just interest only for a couple of years until your child is old and maybe your partner will be back at work and then can go back to repayment mortgage when that fix term ends.

Gonzo

I would have thought that, if you're in an affordable house already, why not stay there?
Renting and ownership both have pros and cons, but would renting be that much cheaper? I'd rather have my own place if I could afford it. Plus, solicitors/EA fees etc can mount up when you sell, and you'd probably end up buying something similar in a few years anyway, with lots more fees?

Cheaper (ish) to stay. Nicer to own. MUCH Less hassle to stay (wait until you have to spend all tidying for a no-show viewer!).

But what do I know, I don't live there, lol. Write the pros and cons down and pick which looks best. Financially, I'm not sure you'd gain or lose particularly much either way. Probably.

neas

This is assuming you can sell the house and make a 10k profit... house prices are dropping at the moment .

Hope it works out for you though... the days of buying a house then selling it for +10-20k profit in 2 years are over now... thank god.. for all involved.

Eels100

Thanks for all the advice. We have two fairly interested parties just now, although one is a FTB so not sure how or if things will pan out well there with finance just now. The 10k is fairly conservative, we're in Scotland where things have remained reasonably buoyant. I'm thinking the points about moving costs and hassle are good ones though ...! Thanks again.

sparky23

Hi, Im also in Scotland (Glasgow) and in a similar situation. We are just fixing the place up to sell. We will have about 40k profit and were going to save it for a few years, rent for a while and we will be able to add a little each month to the lump sum - hopefully about £200pm.

I know renting can have its ups and downs but im willing to risk it for a bit as there is more to life than struggling to keep our heads above water.

I hope it all works out for you. x