Carl B

Have any of you done this? We've had ours on the market since mid-January and have had one viewer and someone who my wife practically dragged in off the street. Since it went up for sale, we've changed agents and dropped it by £20K, and will probably drop it again soon. Originally we'd hoped to be packed up and ready to go by July. Given the state of the housing market and the endless rows of For Sale signs I pass on the way home, I know this aint going to happen. Although we don't have to validate until October, I'm thinking about booking the flights for August and going whether the house is sold or not. One thing I'm definitely not doing is dragging my wife and four year old on a 36,000 mile trip (return flight to validate and a one way) just for the sake of leaving after the house is sold. Any info or advice would be much appreciated.

TheRossers

The question you need to answer is "do you need the money from the sale of the house before you go?". Mrs. R and I have saved up a few bob so we could go and manage for a while and at the same time still pay the mortgage. We also have the advantage of having someone to handle the sale for us at this end and our good neighbours will pop in every now and again to look after the house if we want.

funkybuddah

Hi carl.I really sympathise with you. We're in the same boat and its so frustrating. Had ours on the market since Dec04 had about 10viewers, Visas have to be validated by Aug05, now to make things worse my partners now tied up with work until Nov05, so we have now got flights booked for June to go over for 3 weeks and validate visas with a 13yr old and a 2yr old who can't even sit on my lap for 5 mins Then do it all again in Nov05 :scared: The house still isn't sold , so we've put it up for rent and for sale, and whatever comes along first, is what we will do. Sell or remorgage and rent it out. We've only had it up for rent just over a week and already had 5 viewers, 1 very keen, so fingers crossed we'lln see some action soon. Best of Luck whatever you do, and hope all works out well in the end.

Carl B

Thanks for your replies. I'm in the fortunate position of being able to pay the mortgage and still have money left over for rent, furnishings etc in Australia. I just wasn't sure about leaving the place stood empty until it sells as I don't really want to burden our relatives with having to sort out the sale. Although renting the place out is an option, I've heard some horror stories from a friend of mine, whose Dad had endless hassle with complaints from tenants and neighbours, and I don't really want this hassle when I'm 12,000 miles away. Also, I'm led to believe that the market for rented accommodation is saturated at the moment.
Funkybuddah, I can sympathise with you. I remember taking our little one to Lanzarote when he was two, and the flight wasn't a nice experience, never mind a 36,000 mile journey. Hope everything goes well.

jjj

Hi
I haven't looked into it but I hear there company's that will buy you house for 20% below market value - if you have already dropped £20k and are going to drop again might it be worth looking into it?

JJJ

Joanne

My parents moved to Tenerife. The house hadnt sold before they left, so they kept it on the market. It was a complete nightmare for them, paying the mortgage, and all the other bills to do with the house, as well as paying rent in Tenerife. The house took nearly 10 months to sell and fell through 5 times, before it finally completed. They also had to make numerous trips back to UK each time they thought it was sold, to sign documents, sort furniture, etc and each time a couple of days later the sale fell through. It was a complete nightmare for them and they wish they had sold it before going out.

Dont wish to be doom and gloom, but just thought it was worth knowing. Atleast you can afford the mortgage and rental, they couldnt and really, really struggled to pay both for such a long time and ended up using their savings.

Dont know what I would do in your position, its hard to know whats the right decision.

Good luck.

Jo

DagBoy

Yes. I did. I left UK April 2001 having put the house on the market a month earlier. Lived here and paid UK mortgage from Aussie wage - thankfully a very good Aussie wage otherwise I would have been stuffed. Went through about 7,000 GBP of savings and 6,000 GBP of TESSA as well as sending money over there regularly (ouch!).

Did not rent because it came nowhere close to the mortgage and stuff and I thought it would be easier to sell an empty house (ha ha). I did have a very good agent, my solicitor had power of attorney and my neighbours kept an eye on the place. I also got a friend in the village to pop round and cut the grass and my family had a little day trip down there and gave the garden a major workover about a year after I left.

Finally sold (price dropped by 8%) in October 2002.

Lessons learnt? Put the house on the market sooner, look into renting in detail, mine was a 1/2 bedroom so not so very rentable but many would be,
find someone local you trust to keep an eye on things, be prepared for some late night phone calls to the UK and number on lesson - make sure you do not have a total bitch of a neighbour who is trying to take you to court over a wall dispute and tells all your prospective buyers that there is an ongoing court case and they will end up liable for thousands of pounds of expense.

Bitter? Twisted? Me?

Cheers,

DagBoy

nanci

I'm not sure whether my reply will depress you further, but at least I can offer some advice about moving to Aus before selling your property.

We've had our house on the market for a year, and had a sale proceeding when it fell through last September, a week before exchange.

A few pointers to bear in mind:-

You can leave power of attorney with a solicitor, so dealing with the sale isn't too much of a hassle, when it eventually happens.

Your house probably will not appeal to buyers so much when it has been vacant for a while, as ours has.

Dealing with services such as gas and electric isn't a problem as you can do this through the internet.

Consider draining down the water and heating systems, we are so pleased we did that given how cold this winter was at times.

We communicate with our estate agent through email, although it is really hard to keep tabs on how well your property is being marketed in your absence.

If you have a garden who will look after that, we have a gardener who goes in once a month.

We took the plunge and flew here before selling, the 100 dollar question is would we do that again, yes, but we are fortunate enough to be able to manage, manage being the operative word to keep both places running (we rent here in Sydney).

You can only make the decision based on your own circumstances, but believe me when the day comes that we have sold our property, we will be celebrating big time.

Good luck to you all,

Nanci

peppi

Im sort of glad to have read this...Im in the same situation. Wanted to go end of July but no movement on the house has meant Im now giving notice at work for the end of August. We have decided to go and leave the house unsold if need be. I just want to get on with it now. I wasnt sure of the implications of doing this but it appears the main problem is paying mortgage and rent in Oz. Luckily we own outright so no mortgage worry and as far as I can see/have read,I can leave it with the solicitor to deal with/sign over etc. Which is good news. I wasnt sure if I had to drag back or appoint some one to do the signing for me

binbird

Aah - so it is you that put the idea in my husband's head that we should leave for Australia before the house sells! It's causing a bit of friction at the moment but nothing that we can't handle!

The house has been on the market since end of October 2004 and we will need to validate by 1st Octobet 2005 if we can't secure a sale before then. Validating with 3 kids (aged 3, 5 and 7) is not going to come cheap!

I'm just worried about who will pay the mortgage in our absence. . . . . any offers?!

Binbird

J+J

Hi,
We have decided that we couldn't wait any longer. We leave in 51 days, house still on the market, people looking all say it's a lovely house and will make an offer when they've sold the house.......sounds promising but as time passes by I am getting stressed knowing that we have a mortgage over here and rent to pay over there. I just hope it's all worth it!!! The problem is not knowing when it's going to sell so you can't actully see an end

paulf

God! the market really has turned in the last 18 months, from rocketing prices to this!

MrsDagboy

Trust me - it's not as much as it will cost to pay the mortgage from Australia on Aussie wages for an undetermined length of time. :scared: