UK Property

[Addy]

Just milling an idea over and wondering what other people's take is on our dilemma.

 

We are living in Australia in a rented house and renting our UK house out. We make a few hundred pounds a year profit on the rent after expenses.

 

We were planning on selling our UK house to buy an Aus house. Our dilemma is that as the Aus property market is very uncertain, the UK property market is very bad and the exchange rate terrible..... Would it be more sensible to decide to work towards paying off our UK mortgage as soon as possible and decide that renting is our long term lifestyle?

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Guest The Ropey HOFF]

If i was you i would carry on renting your house out for the foreseeable future, until the exchange rate goes up and the housing market picks up as well, but there seems no end to the uk's 3 year recession, so you might have to sit tight for 2 or 3 years more, before things pick up and it is something we are considering, our house was worth just over £200k and when the exchange rate was 2.5 it was worth $500k, but ............ now we would be lucky to get £160k for our house and with the exchange rate currently being below $1.5 it means we would only get about $250k ............... thats a massive reduction and its too big a hit for us to consider, so ............ we are looking long term and eventually it must go in our favour and we would be happy to get back to about $400k but not any less, so renting is best in my opinion. Best of luck.

[Addy]

If i was you i would carry on renting your house out for the foreseeable future, until the exchange rate goes up and the housing market picks up as well, but there seems no end to the uk's 3 year recession, so you might have to sit tight for 2 or 3 years more, before things pick up and it is something we are considering, our house was worth just over £200k and when the exchange rate was 2.5 it was worth $500k, but ............ now we would be lucky to get £160k for our house and with the exchange rate currently being below $1.5 it means we would only get about $250k ............... thats a massive reduction and its too big a hit for us to consider, so ............ we are looking long term and eventually it must go in our favour and we would be happy to get back to about $400k but not any less, so renting is best in my opinion. Best of luck.

 

Thanks Hoff. We have been here over 2 years with exactly that plan in mind and as you say the UK has not improved. In fact things seem to have got worse on the property front. The only 'good' thing is that the Aus property market now seems to be falling too. Believe me have watched it like a hawk! We changed our mortgage to interest only in the UK so haven't been reducing the debt. With the exchange rate the way it is, our Aussie dollar would pay off the loan faster than an Aussie loan.

 

That all said we like owning our home and hate renting. We just have to change our mindset and enjoy the advantages we have. For example we have flexibility of movement for jobs etc.

 

Would you consider doing the same? We had to come over when we did without the house sold due to visa restrictions and it has worked for us as we are happy here. I am in recruitment and can tell you that there is plenty of prison and security work here in Adelaide.

[boganbear]

I am in recruitment and can tell you that there is plenty of prison and security work here in Adelaide.

 

Oh the irony of being in the only State not founded as a penal settlement but by free settlers now has lots of work in prisons! I think I'll pass on those 'opportunities'.

[Addy]

Oh the irony of being in the only State not founded as a penal settlement but by free settlers now has lots of work in prisons! I think I'll pass on those 'opportunities'.

:biglaugh: I know - I reckon there are plenty of those opportunities in other states too mind you. :wacko:

[belaroy]

One thing worth considering is the tax implications. Will it still be treated as your home after a certain period ?? Would you get taxed in the UK and Oz too?? I don't know but the tax man liketh money from hard workers and it would't surprise me in the slightest. It wolud be well worth finding that out

[Guest The Ropey HOFF]

Thanks Hoff. We have been here over 2 years with exactly that plan in mind and as you say the UK has not improved. In fact things seem to have got worse on the property front. The only 'good' thing is that the Aus property market now seems to be falling too. Believe me have watched it like a hawk! We changed our mortgage to interest only in the UK so haven't been reducing the debt. With the exchange rate the way it is, our Aussie dollar would pay off the loan faster than an Aussie loan.

 

That all said we like owning our home and hate renting. We just have to change our mindset and enjoy the advantages we have. For example we have flexibility of movement for jobs etc.

 

Would you consider doing the same? We had to come over when we did without the house sold due to visa restrictions and it has worked for us as we are happy here. I am in recruitment and can tell you that there is plenty of prison and security work here in Adelaide.

 

Cheers for this for this information, my problem is my age, i'm 51 and i would like to try something with less stress and aggro, but i would still consider it, do you know any company who would hire someone who is currently in the uk, but who has a validated 175 visa? I am a current serving uk prison officer with 23 years service.

 

Being 51 is great in one sense, because of my age, we have paid off our mortgage, which i can tell you is a fantastic feeling, after paying it for 28 years, but i don't want to start again and we could have bought our dream home when we started the visa process, outright but now we are 150 to 200k short, all because of the exchange rate. So we would rent until the exchange returned to some normality and the uk housing market picks up, but to me its gonna be at least 3 to 4 years before this happens.

[pablo]

Just milling an idea over and wondering what other people's take is on our dilemma.

 

We are living in Australia in a rented house and renting our UK house out. We make a few hundred pounds a year profit on the rent after expenses.

 

We were planning on selling our UK house to buy an Aus house. Our dilemma is that as the Aus property market is very uncertain, the UK property market is very bad and the exchange rate terrible..... Would it be more sensible to decide to work towards paying off our UK mortgage as soon as possible and decide that renting is our long term lifestyle?

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

Alrite Addy

Personally i cba with the hassles of renting our hse out here,maybe not the most sensible thing to do, but were selling IF we can,nothing much moving round here tho:arghh:,were just taking the reduced price on the chin and cutting ties.

The way im looking at it is IF im working every day in SA as opposed to the 2 or 3 days work a week im getting in the uk then the £loss on our hse will be compensated by the fact im earning more than i would in the uk,if that makes sense:goofy:.

I dont know the ins and outs of a ducks arse when it comes to exchange rates or hse prices,but i do know im not prepared to waste valuable living time waiting for rises/falls etc in the exchange rate and hse prices,cba with all that,lifes for living,not waiting,thats my choice anyway,theres no right or wrong way,each to their own:wubclub:

[Guest marco88]

Hi,

English towns and suburbs vary vastly from one to the other. You definitely want to go there and check it out yourself.

 

Since you leave abroad and cannot visit every single little agent I would suggest upmystreet(dot)com and maps.google(dot)co(dot)uk to check the place from your desktop. On top of RightMove I would also suggest Zoopla: zoopla(dot)co(dot)uk

 

I hope this is useful and the search goes If you decide that you like a property or area beware that the market is a little funny right now in the UK.

 

On one side buyers struggle to get mortgage (bigger deposit required/affordability criteria stricter than a few years ago) and on the other side sellers don't want to lower their price.

 

However if you can find someone that want to sell his house quickly you may be able to negotiate a bargain.

 

Marc

[KIRK AND CO]

If i was you i would carry on renting your house out for the foreseeable future, until the exchange rate goes up and the housing market picks up as well, but there seems no end to the uk's 3 year recession, so you might have to sit tight for 2 or 3 years more, before things pick up and it is something we are considering, our house was worth just over £200k and when the exchange rate was 2.5 it was worth $500k, but ............ now we would be lucky to get £160k for our house and with the exchange rate currently being below $1.5 it means we would only get about $250k ............... thats a massive reduction and its too big a hit for us to consider, so ............ we are looking long term and eventually it must go in our favour and we would be happy to get back to about $400k but not any less, so renting is best in my opinion. Best of luck.

No need to post as you say what I want to say but more ellegantly.

[rockola57]

 

One thing worth considering is the tax implications. Will it still be treated as your home after a certain period ?? Would you get taxed in the UK and Oz too?? I don't know but the tax man liketh money from hard workers and it would't surprise me in the slightest. It wolud be well worth finding that out

Yay indeed.He doth verily liketh money from hard workers!:yes:

[rockola57]

Hiya Addy,

We too are in Adelaide and have just bought a house,after deliberating for almost 3 years.We too have our house rented out in the UK,and have always,since being here,thought about paying it off,as i don't want to sell,and wouldn't give it away for next to nowt anyway.The prospect of having our own house here finally became too strong last month,cant be doing with renting here in OZ.paying some tight arse 400 bucks a week for very little in the way of comfort.Then i was thinking,if we did pay off our house in the UK,then surely we would be overseas investors,making money renting out our house whilst living in another Country,same as if we were Chinese,or Uruguayan or any one else.The UK Taxman would be very interested!!!!:yes:

The lure was too strong in the end,gotta have my own place,answerable to no one(except the Bank).And as Pabs says,lifes too short and all that!Moving in in 2 weeks,cant wait.

[Addy]

Thanks all for your thoughts.

 

We are still mulling things over. :arghh:

 

Rockola, I know exactly how you felt as we are the same. However I can see the house prices falling here in Adelaide and that scares me too. I guess we will just know when the time is right. :goofy:

[rockola57]

Thanks all for your thoughts.

 

We are still mulling things over. :arghh:

 

Rockola, I know exactly how you felt as we are the same. However I can see the house prices falling here in Adelaide and that scares me too. I guess we will just know when the time is right. :goofy:

 

Dead right Bro.You'll know.:yes::wink:

[fleabo]

If it is of any help, we sold in the UK, forexed and bought a place in Sydney around September last year. We have never had a second thought since. Financially, it felt that it was entirely against my better judgement - nonetheless, had we gone with my better judgement we would still be waiting for the exchange rate to improve (it has got worse since), we would probably still be waiting to sell our house (market where we lived in the UK has since deteriorated further), though the property market where we live in Sydney has softened a little. So that's one good outcome, two bad outcomes in a 12 month period. And in the meantime we would have spend in excess of $39k on rent.

 

The other thing to keep in mind is that you need to make three major decisions: when to sell, when to forex, and when to buy and these may well have to occur sequentially. You probably can't buy until you have forexed, and you probably can't forex until you have sold. So you have to work out which factor is weighted the greatest - currency value, UK house prices or Adelaide house prices. If you are in luck 2 of these may start to move in your favour. You also have to factor in the none-monetary aspects - how settled are you, are you happy renting, etc. etc.

 

It is a dilemma! Good luck to you.

[Guest BRISSYBOUND]

We are in a similar position to you and have recently been told we have to declare our rental income in the UK on our Aus tax returns even though we don't bring that income into Aus, does anyone know if this is right and could we be in for a big tax bill

[Pombrom]

Hi All, I quite agree with the Ropey Hoff we are in a similar situation, been in Oz for 18 mths house still empty and for sale in the uk for nearly 2 years now and losing hope of ever selling at a decent price anyway ! Reduced it a few times , one sale fell through and wondering why we were so relucatant to rent out as just pouring money into it with council tax active again when it could be earming us money. COnfused about the tax situation too but think we are in the clear as on a 457 temp visa. Gonna see if I can get a buy to let mortgage as cannot rent on our current one and take the plunge I think. Any more advice welcome please re tax situation etc. We were just scared renters would trash it and value decrease even more but with a proper agent vetting and managing it should be ok ?

[smokyflipps74]

Thanks to the OP. We are in a similar dilemma. Thinking about selling in the UK and buying a smaller place to rent out with no emotional attachment (so won't be as bothered if it gets worn in a little by rental), but keep thinking if we move to Australia would prefer to buy. Decisions, decisions.......