can't really be bothered with arguing the 'actualities' of the meaning behind the 'meaning' of the OP intentions but read his/hers post steve, as they are talking about the overall lose that they 'may' (deffinatley) encounter and not neg equity......and maybe if you lived in the UK of recent, any 'lose' is relative to us 'recent immigrants' as it hurts the pocket......it'll happen here soon enough, alberta is boom and bust all through history.....feel like saying grow-up but you're older than me......

Profit or loss is most certainly not a relative term it can't any clearer than if you sold for less than you paid then you lost money if you sold for more than you paid then you made money.

How much clearer do you want it to be?

I am sorry if this question has come across as confusing... it probably is because I am confused about the whole subject...What I meant in my original question was negative equity, because that seems to be the problem for most people in this economic situation, but as the discussion is evolving I realize that my case is probably more about not realized profit as well... in numbers> I am looking at $180.000 not realized profits, but at the price that I have been offered ,I would come out of the deal without negative equity (after 15 years) - which means I get the same amount I put into it back then - so it still somehow feels like a loss to me...

Not-realised profits does seem to be the contentious issue here, but surely Steve_P isn't to blame for that, more likely the blame should go to those who gave rise to the sense of entitlement.

Exactly - since when did less profit ever mean a loss. You sold more than you bought = profit, so stop complaining. And 'unrealized profit' is a stupid meaningless term which says nothing - those profits were never there in the first place so you've not lost them.

10 years of rampant house inflation in the UK has destroyed peoples perspective on what wealth creation actually is (and it's not sitting on your arse between 4 walls and a roof!!)

Quite right, you cannot lose what you never had. All you can do is get less than hoped for, the nearest is an opportunity loss.

I lost $48m on the lottery last week. I had a ticket on Tuesday that was up for the $48m, was worth nothing the next day because they got the numbers wrong!

That's definitely a real terms loss unless you already adjusted for inflation (which is going to be significant in 15 years)

Matter of perspective.

Prices are also down in Canada. Had you moved here a year or so ago, you would have been paying top dollar. House prices on the west side of Vancouver for instance are down close to 20 percent since the peak last May.

Not only that there are better deals on mortgages - seen 3.65 on a 5 year closed term!

Swings and round-a-bouts really.

Not only that, prices are expected to come down further. It may be predunt to wait. In short, you may be able to off set losses on this side of the pond:

http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/corp/n...02-19-0815.cfm

I guess not......until now. Just imagine how much you would have received and how easy it would have been to have sold your house 3 years ago?

True enough - it's better to take the 'loss' of imaginary profits and be happy that prices are also dropping in the market you want to buy into. There is then the small matter of exchange risk to worry about - a rate move could wipe out any reduction on this side or make it even bigger.

Nervous times for new people planning the move in the coming months I think - so good luck to them.

at the last reckoning our flat in the uk was advertised as 30% lower than we bought it 3 years previously. in the end we rented it out, i suspect we may be able to sell it in 10 years

to balance that out we sold our main house for 3x what we paid for it 5 years earlier.

unfortunately our capital is in a sterling bank account that used to yield 7% and now does not, when we put it in there the you could buy 2.30 CAD for a pound

It may have already been suggested but would the OP not be better off using the UK property as collateral on a loan rather than sell it at a loss?

purcased aug '03 £222500.
sold dec '08 £207000

Glad to be rid of it so we can make the move

did well off some rental properties so that eased the pain.