((A bit of a novice I posted in General Discussion before seeing this specific topic area...))
We bought our home in 2008, bad plan, and are now wanting to move. We have a three-storey terraced house (townhouse?) which cost us £125k at 100% mortgage when we bought it. Our only saving grace has been that we didn’t buy anywhere near the top of what we could ‘afford’ ( read what the bank would lend…) and so haven’t struggled to pay the mortgage once we’ve come down from the fixed rate to a variable.
However (and potentially face-punch ready here…) we really want to move as we have no garden for my now 2 children to play in and I hate the way the house is laid out as it doesn’t work very well for family living.
The house is no longer worth what we paid and we have sunk at least £15k into renovations and upkeep. The house has been on the market for an age and is currently getting some interest at £105k but no offers. The mortgage is at around £95k left to pay and obviously there would be moving costs.
Our original plan was to sell and rent in the short term while I try to get a new job to relocate closer to family (family health and kids growing up near extended family are the reasons for this – there may also be childcare cost reductions in this as we pay full-time childcare for 1 child at the moment and if we moved there would be two sets of grandparents nearby to help with some of the strain).
As the house isn’t selling, I’ve started to reconsider, although the overall plan to move away from the area stands, but the timing of this is very dependent on my job hunt as main breadwinner and as my area is a niche market the jobs at my level are few and far between.
So the options on the table are:
1 – Leave the house on the market as is and hope for more interest over the summer.
2 – Reduce the sale price to prompt more interest in the house and swallow the fact that this will likely mean dipping into the emergency fund to move (my SO is not keen on this as he’s stuck with the sunk costs in mind and hates that we’re selling at a loss) but will allow us to start over without the house tying us down.
3 – Sink every available £ into the mortgage til we can pay it down to a level where renting the house out becomes a viable option – i.e. rent would cover mortgage + maintenance + fees.
We’re basically just getting to understand and manage our finances better and it feels like the house is a sticking point. We have an emergency fund of £10k, my final salary pension through work and my SO has practically no retirement savings to speak of. I’m 33 and my SO will be 40 this year!
We’re focussing on expenses and bearing down to increase our monthly savings rate, so may well be back with a full case study at a later date to see what we might have missed. So really the house is the dragging point at the moment and we really unsure where to go from here.
Any advice welcome (and any necessary face-punches well prepared for!).
