To sell or not to sell

[trudimary]

My husband and l are torn with what to do with our house here in the UK. We currently have it up for sale but deep down l don't want it to sell as l would like to rent it out. Im coming from a kind of negative angle l suppose...incase we return, incase it doesn't work out in Oz, incase one of us doesn't settle, then we have something to come back too, and why not let someone pay the mortgage while we our adventure???

My husband says we need to think positive, and he doesn't want the hassle of renting and all the problems that comes with it when were on the other side of the world.

My husband and l think differently... he's from mars lm from Venus kinda thing...l like to plan and think about the future...while he lives for the here and now!!!! I just don't know what to do on this one

[Quoll]

I’m a belt and braces kinda gal. Don’t quit your job, take a career break, don’t sell your house but let it out. If you like Australia then you’ll like it regardless of whether you have a house in UK or not and if you don’t like it you will have something to return to. Some people think that if you sell up everything then you will have to like it but what a pain that would be. There’s nothing in the rule book that says either that you have to love Australia nor that you have to stay there forever. 

[trudimary]

I'm with you on this, l like to have all angles covered....the hubby calls me a stress head...and l need to chill...it will always work out he says...what will be will be is his motto. I wish sometimes l had a bit more of that attitude in me but lm a planner...for nxt week...nxt year...for when the kids finish school...and the list goes on lol.

[Guest]

I think it’s hard if you are a planner to such a level. There are some things you just cannot plan for or try to plan for others, especially years ahead as so much can change that we cannot control, as much as we might wish to. We have to relinquish or accept we cannot have total control on all the things we would like.

Having said that, I’m of the view that if you are a person who does like to plan and  feel in control of things that it is probably better to hold on to the house in the short term until you know if Aus is somewhere you want to be in the longer term. If it is then be prepared to sell up if it’s going to help things the Aus side (ie a big chunk toward the mortgage for example). Although if it were me I’d be all in and sell as I don’t hold with the safety net thing generally and sit with your husband on this. However, you both need to agree and if you can’t then one of you is going to have to be the one to compromise. It may well be him but it might be you. 

Quoll has some fair points, however not every one is in the position to be able to take a career break for their jobs and so handing in their notice is the only thing they are able to do. So in that respect, it isn’t something to get hung up on of a career break cannot be taken. 

Also I do wonder if people are perhaps going to struggle to settle more if they have kept so many ties back in the UK (as in career break, house and perhaps other things). It is migration and while it’s nice/good in some ways to have a fall back it can also end up being a negative if it means you are struggling financially to start you off or have that clock ticking down on your old job. You are perhaps going to be caught looking back more than  looking forward.

 

[Wonderingaloud]

We rented our house for 3 years mainly because before we left uk in 2011 the market crashed and our house was worth less than what we paid for it. Anyway, over the 3 years we paid a lot in maintenance and topping up our mortgage as the rent didn’t quite cover it, it also was a real PITA come tax time here in oz as it’s seen as an overseas buisness we were running and proving we were making a loss was sometimes difficult with the layout of the return. In a nutshell we dreaded tax time! In the 3 years the market didn’t much improve and we decided to cut our losses and finally sold it last year. With all the money we’d put into it we would’ve been better off just selling in the beginning for a bit less but hey, you live and learn. 

We had good tenants and not everybody is that lucky, but the whole thing was still a drag for us because we knew after 1 year (if I had to put a time on it) that oz is where we wanted to stay. Keeping it in UK to make money off it wasn’t really viable for us, and long term even if our mortgage did get paid off, the final house price was not comparitive to here and wouldn’t have been worth it. (We had a £135k house in UK and bought a $500k house here)

if you own a good amount of your house and decide to rent it be prepared for declaring that income on your tax return. Actually you have to declare it regardless. And also if you decide to sell it while overseas (the whole process was ok for us) you will have to declare that as well. If you make a gain you have the logistical nightmare of proving you have paid tax in uk to avoid it here etc but even then you might be liable for some tax.... I’m not 100% as we dodged that bullet.

 Plus the banks often mark up the interest rate when you do buy to let on uk house. Thy did with us and that realy stung.

Will you be permanent or temporary residents? I think that will help aid your decision. 

Everybodys experience is different but we wished we’d just sold and avoided countless hours of overseas payments and stress.

If the only reason you are keeping it this to have a place to return to, would it be so bad to find another house? You won’t know if you want to stay in oz for at least a year I’d say, so you’ll have to be prepared for what it could potentially cost you in that time and if you have the money to pay for it. I.e. will you be finding work once here or have you got jobs lined up. Would it be worth it to return to that same house?

Sorry not normally a negative nelly!! Our whole house renting experience was a nightmare so I’m approaching it with not so rose tinted glasses. 

good luck with your decision! X

[Guest]

I think i'm in agreement with you and Quoll. Personally i'd hang it to the house ( particularly if it's in a growth are).  At least until i was sure Australia was for me. I'm bit like you in being a planner and i'd like to think i had a safety net in terms of a place to go back to if it all went wrong in Australia. You just never know how you will both feel living in Australia. Good luck with the move and everything else. x

[ali]

I think it's a personal choice - we were like your husband deciding to have no ties to anchor us back in the UK felt the right thing for us to do.  A friend decided not to sell their house right away (due to the poor market and wanting to wait until that improved), which she said was fine until one of her tenants stopped paying the rent and then trying to sort it out with solicitors whilst here in Aus for her was a nightmare.

[NicF]

How attached are you to your house emotionally?  I loved our house in the UK - we had put an extension on and done a lot of work to the rest of it to make it right for us.  There is no way I would have been happy letting someone live in it for a while while thinking it was still my home.  And if they had damaged anything I would have been devestated.  Once sold though it stopped being our home and became someone else's so I could let go.  I would much rather have sold our house and bought an investment property if we had wanted to keep a house in the UK.  As it happens the money from the sale of our UK house helped us buy what we wanted here.  

I know someone has mentioned above that you will either like Australia or not, but my OH had awful trouble settling here while we were living in a rented house.  It wasn't until we moved in to our own home that he felt right.  And he is from Adelaide so was returning 'home' not moving somewhere strange.

[DukeNinja]

Just my two cents-is now the right time to buy in Australia? I'm aware the RBA has hiked up the base rate on a few occasions.

[calNgary]

You could look at it from a financial point of view,,, If you wanted to, could you rent the house and with the proceeds of the rent go and set up home elsewhere in the UK ,have an expensive overseas holiday and still manage ok?  If the answer is No, you probably wouldnt be able to do it migrating, flights and shipping costs are as much as a 4 star expensive foreign holiday (depeding on what you ship)and living costs can be similar although set up costs (driving licence, filling empty kitchen cupboards, buying a car, insurance policys etc) can seem never ending the first year here, your constantly handing cash over to someone for something.

I have read of people moving here who have rented their uk home then complain they cant set up house here and renting is expensive,so they are always skint, hence if you couldnt run 2 homes in the UK ,it wont work moving here and trying to do the same.

On the flip side a family i know have been here over 6 years, have bought an Aussie home and still rent their UK house and it works well for them. Work out the figures and go with your heart, if it's do able for your family and you settle here ,you can always sell from here in a few years time if you wanted too.

 

Cal x

[trudimary]

I think it’s hard if you are a planner to such a level. There are some things you just cannot plan for or try to plan for others, especially years ahead as so much can change that we cannot control, as much as we might wish to. We have to relinquish or accept we cannot have total control on all the things we would like.
Having said that, I’m of the view that if you are a person who does like to plan and  feel in control of things that it is probably better to hold on to the house in the short term until you know if Aus is somewhere you want to be in the longer term. If it is then be prepared to sell up if it’s going to help things the Aus side (ie a big chunk toward the mortgage for example). Although if it were me I’d be all in and sell as I don’t hold with the safety net thing generally and sit with your husband on this. However, you both need to agree and if you can’t then one of you is going to have to be the one to compromise. It may well be him but it might be you. 
Quoll has some fair points, however not every one is in the position to be able to take a career break for their jobs and so handing in their notice is the only thing they are able to do. So in that respect, it isn’t something to get hung up on of a career break cannot be taken. 
Also I do wonder if people are perhaps going to struggle to settle more if they have kept so many ties back in the UK (as in career break, house and perhaps other things). It is migration and while it’s nice/good in some ways to have a fall back it can also end up being a negative if it means you are struggling financially to start you off or have that clock ticking down on your old job. You are perhaps going to be caught looking back more than  looking forward.
 

That last sentence has totally hit hard there and makes a lot of sense. Thank you my husband has raised many of your points but when we talk we seem to get into a power struggle and don't properly listen to each other. Thanks

[trudimary]

I think i'm in agreement with you and Quoll. Personally i'd hang it to the house ( particularly if it's in a growth are).  At least until i was sure Australia was for me. I'm bit like you in being a planner and i'd like to think i had a safety net in terms of a place to go back to if it all went wrong in Australia. You just never know how you will both feel living in Australia. Good luck with the move and everything else. x

Sometimes it's hard being the grounded one all the time. I like to tell myself lm the get up and go kinda girl but in reality although lm most def the doer in our family lm also the worrier about what might happen if we do and what it goes wrong. Mrs Negative Is me [emoji23]

[trudimary]

We rented our house for 3 years mainly because before we left uk in 2011 the market crashed and our house was worth less than what we paid for it. Anyway, over the 3 years we paid a lot in maintenance and topping up our mortgage as the rent didn’t quite cover it, it also was a real PITA come tax time here in oz as it’s seen as an overseas buisness we were running and proving we were making a loss was sometimes difficult with the layout of the return. In a nutshell we dreaded tax time! In the 3 years the market didn’t much improve and we decided to cut our losses and finally sold it last year. With all the money we’d put into it we would’ve been better off just selling in the beginning for a bit less but hey, you live and learn. 
We had good tenants and not everybody is that lucky, but the whole thing was still a drag for us because we knew after 1 year (if I had to put a time on it) that oz is where we wanted to stay. Keeping it in UK to make money off it wasn’t really viable for us, and long term even if our mortgage did get paid off, the final house price was not comparitive to here and wouldn’t have been worth it. (We had a £135k house in UK and bought a $500k house here)
if you own a good amount of your house and decide to rent it be prepared for declaring that income on your tax return. Actually you have to declare it regardless. And also if you decide to sell it while overseas (the whole process was ok for us) you will have to declare that as well. If you make a gain you have the logistical nightmare of proving you have paid tax in uk to avoid it here etc but even then you might be liable for some tax.... I’m not 100% as we dodged that bullet.
 Plus the banks often mark up the interest rate when you do buy to let on uk house. Thy did with us and that realy stung.
Will you be permanent or temporary residents? I think that will help aid your decision. 
Everybodys experience is different but we wished we’d just sold and avoided countless hours of overseas payments and stress.
If the only reason you are keeping it this to have a place to return to, would it be so bad to find another house? You won’t know if you want to stay in oz for at least a year I’d say, so you’ll have to be prepared for what it could potentially cost you in that time and if you have the money to pay for it. I.e. will you be finding work once here or have you got jobs lined up. Would it be worth it to return to that same house?
Sorry not normally a negative nelly!! Our whole house renting experience was a nightmare so I’m approaching it with not so rose tinted glasses. 
good luck with your decision! X

Wonderingaloud this is the response l have read over 3 or 4 times since wakening up. You have prob turned my decision round as l was looking at renting it out through rose tinted glasses
..having a great tenant...paying off the mortgage...having a safety net etc but l haven't even considered se of your points. Thank you, when l prob do a big u turn with my husband however l prob won't tell him that a person whom lve nvr met before helped change my decision and just tell him lve listened to all his valid points and agree with him on this occasion [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]. Thanks again for highlighting your experience x

[trudimary]

You could look at it from a financial point of view,,, If you wanted to, could you rent the house and with the proceeds of the rent go and set up home elsewhere in the UK ,have an expensive overseas holiday and still manage ok?  If the answer is No, you probably wouldnt be able to do it migrating, flights and shipping costs are as much as a 4 star expensive foreign holiday (depeding on what you ship)and living costs can be similar although set up costs (driving licence, filling empty kitchen cupboards, buying a car, insurance policys etc) can seem never ending the first year here, your constantly handing cash over to someone for something.
I have read of people moving here who have rented their uk home then complain they cant set up house here and renting is expensive,so they are always skint, hence if you couldnt run 2 homes in the UK ,it wont work moving here and trying to do the same.
On the flip side a family i know have been here over 6 years, have bought an Aussie home and still rent their UK house and it works well for them. Work out the figures and go with your heart, if it's do able for your family and you settle here ,you can always sell from here in a few years time if you wanted too.
 
Cal x

Thank you Can for another great response that's got me thinking. Thanks again...lm thinking my hubby might be right on this one...only this one mind [emoji2]x

[Perthbum]

Dont sell, the rent you get will pay the mortgage and you will always have a home in the UK, with house prices going up and up you would be mad to sell IMO. plus if you dont like oz.

[evets]

I left the UK mid 2009, not long after the property crash. I bought the place near the top, so became the accidental landlord, phrase at the time. I have been lucky and fortunate , possibly due to location as not had too many expense's and the property has always been rented out. I was lucky decent deposit so did not hit negative equity but did not make sense at the time to sell.

The Melbourne property market since 2009 has been crazy, probably the worst time to move to the city. Not saying now is any better, if not worse!

The market in Melbourne is still insane and if you can rent out your property in UK while you transition, probably the best bet. Give you some breathing space. Downside you get hit with CGT when you sell.

As it stands I am now making a a slight profit and paying no tax and have very little to worry about, at the moment.

 

[evets]

19 minutes ago, Perthbum said:

Dont sell, the rent you get will pay the mortgage and you will always have a home in the UK, with house prices going up and up you would be mad to sell IMO. plus if you dont like oz.

Prices going up is subjective. Who can tell what will happen in the next year or two!

[Wonderingaloud]

58 minutes ago, Perthbum said:

Dont sell, the rent you get will pay the mortgage and you will always have a home in the UK, with house prices going up and up you would be mad to sell IMO. plus if you dont like oz.

The rent they get may not cover the mortgage, and even if it does, don’t forget to factor in increased rates on a buy to let mortgage and paying someone to ‘manage’ the property which realistically you’d have to consider being this far away. Arranging someone to come and fix the boiler from halfway round the world is not easy. 

Thats not including any repairs or maintenance there will inevitably be.

Uk house prices going up? Yes that’s what we were told, but there’s no guarantees in that game, which we learned to our detriment. 

[Wonderingaloud]

1 hour ago, trudimary said:

Wonderingaloud this is the response l have read over 3 or 4 times since wakening up. You have prob turned my decision round as l was looking at renting it out through rose tinted glasses
..having a great tenant...paying off the mortgage...having a safety net etc but l haven't even considered se of your points. Thank you, when l prob do a big u turn with my husband however l prob won't tell him that a person whom lve nvr met before helped change my decision and just tell him lve listened to all his valid points and agree with him on this occasion . Thanks again for highlighting your experience x

Your very welcome. 

I wish someone had told me about tax returns and the fact that it’s like running a business in the ATOs eyes (I honesty didn’t realise that until we had our first tax return to do).

Its a really hard decision!! In some cases your damned if you do and damned if you don’t!

Everyones circumstances are different. I guess takes the snippets of info everyone has provided that’s relevant to your situation and then do a good old fashioned list of positives and negatives.

My husband always says I am the negative one, but I like to look at that a different way. If I consider all the worst outcomes to a situation, if they happen a) it’s not a total surprise and b) because I’ve considered it I’ve most likely got a solution because I’ve prepared for that eventuality. If none of the worst happen, then even better. 

Its being realistic, not so much ‘negative’.

[Perthbum]

1 hour ago, Wonderingaloud said:

The rent they get may not cover the mortgage, and even if it does, don’t forget to factor in increased rates on a buy to let mortgage and paying someone to ‘manage’ the property which realistically you’d have to consider being this far away. Arranging someone to come and fix the boiler from halfway round the world is not easy. 

Thats not including any repairs or maintenance there will inevitably be.

Uk house prices going up? Yes that’s what we were told, but there’s no guarantees in that game, which we learned to our detriment. 

good bet though, I know inflation plays a part but at least you dont lose....sell a house now and in 10 years you will be paying a lot more for the same house

Edited October 29, 2017 by Perthbum