Should you sale your house in UK B4 you go

[jim&nik]

Hi

 

At the moment we are going through what most people have or are going through. The house is up for sale and not getting much interest or not the right offer.

Being asked why don't you rent the house out, but myself and Nik wanted to sell up and move with out any money ties in the UK. I was given some books about Australia for xmas and read in their that you should not sale your house for at least 2 year, just incase Australia is not for you and you have a house to come back to.

So at the moment we are looking to see what is invoved and what we need to save to take with us to live on, rent, etc for the first piriod of settling in.

We are looking to ship most of our own stuff with us, even my vw camper (which could be home for a while if needbe).

So at the moment we will keep the house on the market until Febuary. and see what we decide to do around then.

[Guest fatman]

Hello there!

We are in the exact same boat as you!! we live in Aberdeenshire, Scotland... House went up for sale few mths back, we thought our house would sell straight away as we were chosen for Monthly Beautiful Homes in newspaper and still hasn't sold yet! hopefully property market picks up in Spring!!?? We have been granted State Sponsorship & waiting to hear for Medical requests/Case Officer etc.... We also wanted to sell up and take everything with us to make a fresh start in Adelaide... very reluctant to rent our house out for several reasons : ideally having money off sale of house to buy another in Adelaide, having tennants could hold bk a potential buyer, plus tennants can ruin your house! it cld complicate a permanent move... also means a trip bk to UK to sort out house once it was sold!! ..... having said all that with the Interest rate being so low just now we would lose to much money buying in Adelaide (fingers crossed rate rises soon!?!)... we would be renting over in Adelaide first few mths anyway to make sure we have decided on best area for us... All these decisions drive you mad eh!.... perhaps its a small comfort knowing there are other families in same boat as you!! Here's to us all!!!! GOOD LUCK !!!

 

Graham & Janis Price (Aberdeenshire/Scotland)

[Guest shella_n]

well I wont give you any advice but I can tell you what happened with us.......

 

We decided to rent out house out (my mum convinced us so that we could go back if we wanted to) and on paper it was agood idea to have someone else paying off our mortgage back home.

 

It cost us about £2000 to get the first lot of tenants in - estate agent fees, ECP certificate, Gas boiler test certificate, professional clean of carpets, professional clean of house . etc etc etc. The tenants were a nightmare! They moved in before we left UK and they kept phoning and saying things like the oven didnt work, the washing machine didnt work, there was no fridge (it was intergrated - stupid people) It was so stressfull I was in tears.

 

When we got to Australia we had a nightmare with my husbands sponsored job and he was out of work and our visa conditions said we had to leave the country. Through this nightmare situation it was sooo good to know that we had our house to return to and that we could just hop on a plane and be back to normal.

 

Once we got over that hurdle and things settled down here in Australia we had the news that the tenants were moving out - after only 6 months. We had to spend another £1000 (which we didnt have as my hubby had been out of work here) paying agents for new tenants and getting invontrys done etc. More stress. The old tenants never cleaned the house and stuff so we had to retain some of their deposit - now they are threatening to sue me over it.

 

The new tenants are in now and Ive heard they have drilled large holes into my walls to accomodate their curtain poles and a plasma tv - not happy! They also say the tap in the kitchen is broken and the sink in the downstairs loo is broek - all more expense sending handymen over to fix it.

 

We have already decided if these tenants move out we will sell. Now we are reading that property prices are due to drop 10% and that intrest rates will go up to 5%.

 

So how would I sum up the rental experience? Very stressfull and very costly - weve had nothing paid off our mortage cause of all the costs weve incurred. If we had sold the house last year in the mini boom that was happening in our area we would have been fine. Now we face the prospect that if the interest rates rise to 5% that the rent wont cover the mortgage and a glut of properties wil come on the market making ours even harder to sell.

 

Plently of people have fine experiences renting out their properties - this was just our experience but I thought I would share. If I could go back I would definately have sold rather than rented (like my husband wanted to do) but hey ho - the benefit of hinsdight is wonderful thing.

 

Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

Michelle

[Guest The Dimmocks]

We left our house up for sale and empty when we left UK in Feb 2010. It sold "STC" in April 2010 and completed in June/July 2010. We didnt want to rent as didnt want the hassle.

 

Lots of people do rent but for us it wasnt want we wanted.

[Guest Guest75]

If the economic climate was right I'd be saying YES! - sell everything!!

 

The exchange rate has changed now so not as much urgency that way.

 

Talking to the lovely Elaine (Team W) on here - they are so glad to have sold their house now after 2 years here - a real weight off their shoulders!!!

 

If you let the house out you run the risk of a bad tenant. I don't care what any agent tells you,bad tenants are out there.Can you cope both emotionally and financially.

We ended up with a court case for 47,000 GBP and high stress from tenants in a commercial property.

 

 

Unless your house is really special to you in some way I'd not hang onto it too long,cut the ties and worries. Looks like it might be a few years before the exhange rae improves dramatically now.

The "Keeping your house for 2 years / just in case" is not really good advice I reckon - it leaves you tied to the UK emotionally and financially.

It also makes it "easier" to return "home". Often during the process of settling you have crappy times when you could just hop on a plane - making it too easy may lose you a fantastic life here in the long run:err:

[Guest shella_n]

Definately agree with what Tyke says about being able to run home. This was my hubbys theory when we were deciding whether to rent or sell. It defo proved to be true - when we were having hard times here It would have been so easy to get on a plane and head for home - if we didnt have the house back there would have made any descision to go home much harder.

 

Now things are settled here I actually have nightmares about being back in England! he he

[Sallyh]

I reckon we've had it about as good as we could have, moving here (half the family already here, haven't exactly had to set up alone from scratch) but even so there have still been times when I have been glad we don't have the choice of returning back to the UK. Because it has still been tempting.

 

I am not expecting to have any more wobbles of a serious nature for various reasons but have said so many times (during what I call my "Australia tantrums" (!!!!!!) that if we had any money to go back with / to, then that is what I'd want to do).

 

But either way - I think that renting a house out is a big responsibility (and possibly headache) and won't possibly let you get yourself fully emotionally involved here... unless you have an amazing opportunity cross your doorstep and you think it's bombproof for renting, then you may well find its a long distance stress you can live without. So sorry to hear about the bad experiences some have had renting your houses out - I suppose if you could secure some sort of MoD contract, or Aviva, or some other big company that rents houses for executives / employees - now that would be really worth considering as long as you can do it here without the capital.

[Guest Nicky&Andy]

we managed to sale after our house was on for approx 2 yrs, we did drop the price, but so glad we sold it, as i think andrew would have gone back by now, he's found it really hard, no local pubs with mates in ect very different reasons , not only that , if its not your dream house, then if you sale , it gives your more choices even if you do go back to uk

[Lazy Cow]

One thing about keeping your house is that if you do decide to return - and heaps of very committed people do cos IMHO you can't know how you will feel living here until you have regardless of how much research you have done. Emotions don't work logically- anyway, if prices have gone up, I reckon it would be nice to be able to reclaim your old life/ house etc.

 

I know of people who went back, but couldn't afford the same type of property which must make it harder to resettle? It's a pretty pricey process.

 

I think it's probably a darned if you do, darned if you don't situation! Good luck on whatever you decide.

 

:notworthy:LC

[Guest guest3462]

I would definately sell!! We had such a nightmare with our tennants and our agents were more than useless in dealing with it all. My poor dad ended up dealing with everything which included recieving phone calls in the middle of the night for ridiculous things that weren't even wrong, they wanted a new cooker, dishwasher and central heating system!!! The house was only 2 years old so nothing wrong with any of them!!! They moved in on the same day we moved out and they started complaining that things werent working from day one, I never had any trouble with any of the appliances while we lived there so goodness knows how they managed to break 3 big things in one day!! we rented out to a group of contractor architects who were in the area working away from home, on the viewings they had they were all suited and booted, promised they would look after it and vowed to get a cleaner. They even asked if we could leave everything which we did down to knives and forks and sheets on the bed. When they moved out (on our request 5 months into the contract) they stole everything and damaged 2 double glazed windows, a kitchen cupboard door and stone tiles in the kitchen floor. There was also excremement on the living room carpet and the washing machine had to be replaced, my mum said it smelled like something dead had been stored in it and she couldnt get it out!!!

In the end it cost us thousands of pounds to replace all the damaged goods and get the place cleaned up to a standard worthy of putting it on the market, all while we were still in oz, my brilliant parents sorted it all out for us. The rental agency did nothing to support us and actually sided with the tenants when we evicted them so we had to go to court with the ombudsman to reclaim our bond. We recieved no other compensation.

we had the house on the market for sale for a year and we were getting to a point financially here where we couldnt afford to pay mortgage here and in the UK, we also couldnt afford to put another tenant in!! So when we eventually recieved an offer (which was £90,000 below the asking price) we took it and ran. We had a large deficit on our UK mortgage but paying that off was still cheaper than paying 2 full mortgages and the team at the Halifax bank were great in helping us to sort repayments for that out, in fact they did it interest free!

We immediately began to feel more settled here and even though we lost out big time finacially we are so glad we sold the house in the UK. The tie to a house provides such an enormous strain both financially and emotionally that I could never go through that again. We had some really tough times deciding whether or not to go back and leave oz (other factors played a huge part in that too) but having our beautiful 5 bed house in the country being destroyed by complete strangers while we struggled on the other side of the world to cope with everything almost drove me to the asylum (literally, ask Tyke!! lol)

Our lives now are the best they have ever been and we are well and truly at home here in Adelaide, we went back this month and we realised that we could never go back and live there anyway so in the end we would have sold 2 years down the line and with property prices as they are we would still have been in a pretty dire financial boat with it all.

 

It all really depends on your personal circumstances on whether or not you should sell your home. It's a hard one, I know many people here who still have properties in the UK with lovely tenants who love their home like their own and who manage to keep their assets in good order. Perhaps due to every other circumstance we went through (still are with some) we felt more compelled to cut the ties and relieve the stress and heartache of it all.

I wish you all the very best of luck.....spring is a good time to sell!!! :-)

[Sallyh]

((((((Julia)))))) That is a truly terrible experience. CAn't imagine the strain it put your entire family through.

[Guest Jo&Phil]

I held onto my house for 3 years. I had fabulous tenants with my Dad looking after repairs and managing gas checks etc. There was a hiatus in the middle when the (turned out to be pretty useless) rental agent couldn't find a tenant for some time when I was paying the mortgage from here on an unattractive exchange rate.

 

In the end I wanted to sell the house as for me it was becoming a hassle to hold onto but this took longer than I envisaged so I removed it from the market, re-tenanted and then sold it later. The main reasons for me doing this were the fact that I felt it was too much work for Dad ......and I was very settled here with Australian husband.

 

If your own house isn't selling easily and given the grotty exchange rate ... it may be worth hanging onto it in the medium term. It is a safety net of sorts but can be a bit of a millstone if you're not able to budget for non-tenancy times ... although you may be able to take a 'mortgage holiday' for a short period should that situation occur.

[sueoc]

I don't think i could cope with some of the experiences i am reading on this thread,it really must be awful to have bad tenants destroying your home on the other side of the world,whilst trying to settle here,not to mention the huge expense.Just goes to show,when you think you have problems there is always someone with bigger problems.Well done to you all who have gotten through all that stress.We still have our home in the UK and at present all is well with good long term tenants in,who look after the place,and never bother us,so it can be good as well,but of course it is down to luck,which is not ideal.Anyway,Happy New Year to you all on PIA.