Pressures of selling UK property to migrate

[Cass1e04 14]

When to market that's the big question, we placed our property on market at time of application and it has taken 18 months to sell, we are right on the wire with case officer expected mid November. Finally .found a 2nd buyer after 1st attempt fell apart after 14 weeks.

new buyer found and hopefully will make to completion this time, fingers crossed.

constantly hear from government how housing market picking up and house prices increasing, not the case in the West Country, house prices now lower than 8 years ago and average time to sell 9 - 12 months.

Upbeat politics in my view only relates to London and the South East.

only way to force quick sale once clock has run down is to slash price and give away and evaluate what is your driving force, money or quality of life.

What have you experienced with the visa being as expensive as it is.

I would expect in most cases selling property Is essential to realise fees as is the case for us, this can become tricky and progressively stressful. Whilst realising when starting out it is made clear you should have funds available I am sure we are not alone in not having that kind of money just sitting in the bank.

 

Visa type in our case 143 Contributory parental

Edited September 27, 2014 by Cass1e04
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[Que Sera Sera 6,268]

Couldn't agree more. Our house that we sold 7 years ago is currently back on the market for less than we sold it for then. We needed the equity to make the move, ours was a Skilled Visa but we needed the money to make the move.

[Nearlythere1 111]

Spot on, we sold after a positive skills assessment, to enable us to fund the rest. Luckily in one way, our daughter was living in the house while we were renting in the South West. So, we provided the deposit through part of the capital and sold to her. Still took three months without an estate agent and already having a live-in buyer.. We had a sticking point when the mortgage company valued the house at £20K under our asking price (asking price advised by estate agent), so we had to drop the price £20K to enable our daughter to buy it, as they wouldn't give her a mortgage for the higher amount (still not sure why there was such a difference in the two valuations)..After the mortgage companies share, the solicitors(both sides), the deposit, clearing UK debt, funding the other two girls trip to Asia and Aus, Migration agent fees, Visa application fees, container shipping fees, dog shipping fees (currently at £7K), flights, a small private op for OH and dog quarantine.. Doesn't leave much left in the pot... Was hoping to have a month off at the other end to do some exploring etc, but will have to hit the ground running and get a job ASAP. Luckily, we will stay with friends and family until sorted, so that takes a bit of pressure off... Only a little though.. Looking forward to being settled, this time next year maybe? Very stressful times, shippers arriving on Monday.. :chatterbox:

[Guest]

We were lucky in that we sold before prices dropped and when the exchange rate was 2.6. On moving back we could buy the same house for £26k less - in the same period in Perth we made $60k on the house we built there so I think it is much harder for people moving now.

 

You are totally right in the government and media view being London-centric - that's why I voted 'Yes' recently

 

Money isn't everything though and being able to join your family is priceless. Hope everything goes smoothly with the sale - at least house buying and selling isn't so stressful in Australia

[shellyk666 84]

We put ours on the market before we started the visa process expecting it to take 6-12 months to sell and knowing that the visa process could be done in 6 months. We didn't want to be in the position where we had to accept a silly offer because we were running out of time. It was quite a surprise when it sold within 2 weeks! We moved into a rental and will have been here an entire year by the time we fly out next month. I think the housing market can vary quite a lot even within each region of the country with small pockets of houses doing better than the surrounding areas. We were lucky I suppose and managed to achieve about the same that we bought it for in 2007 (just months before the crash!).