fisher lass

How easy is it?

We leave in 9 weeks and have been trying to sell our house with no luck. We have it for rent as well and have had a bit of interest.

If we get long term tennants we are considering taking our house of the market for maybe 2 years and then selling again.

My question is - how easy is it and are buyers/tennants put off with the house for buying/renting like this. (??) Is it better to sell an empty house?

Head spinning just now.

chris1386

IM NOT AN EXPERT BUT IVE JUST BEEN TOLD BY A LETTING AGENT WHOS VALUED MY HOME FOR RENTAL THAT YOU CANT HAVE A HOUSE FOR SALE WITH TENNANTS IN IT AT THE SAME TIME, BLOODY HELL, lower case back on sorry! Doesnt matter to me if its true or false but just passing on what ive been told.i cant sell either, so letting with guaranteed rental scheme appears my best option, good luck!

fisher lass

Our letting agents did say it was ok to do so, plenty people do. You just have to make tennants aware it is up for sale (let in viewers by arrangements) and that they can complete their tennancy term or leave earlier by agreement.
Buyers need to be made aware of tennancy term etc.

I have also been to a few estate agents today and asked questions. They all said that if we continued to sell (while rented) a sale could be done through emails and then they could send us the forms to sign and send back or set up power of attorney which would make a sale go through quicker.
IF we rented the house out and took it off the market when/if we decided to sell from Oz (as the owners) we would have to get a laywer to ID us and send that over to UK so that an estate agent could then begin marketing the property.

I am in Scotland so this info might just apply here.
We will have to decide to carry on selling with tennants or take it off the market for a few year to see how we will settle in Oz.

Big decisions

JAJ

Do you always believe what you're told?

I am not sure if this is true legally, although it is probably true that only other investment buyers would be interested in buying the property on that basis. Although it would be worth checking with a solicitor whether the tenancy can transfer to a new owner.

Guaranteed rental scheme? How do you think the company giving the "guarantee" is making money on the deal?

FionaandAndrew

We were in the same position - our house was up for sale for 6 months before we moved out here with no interest so we put it up for rent. Once we got some tenants we had to take it off the market for a minimum of 3 months.

We decided to put it back up for sale after 12 months, hoping the tenants would stay put until it was sold but they told us they would move out. We went ahead anyway and decided we'd put it up for sale for 6 months then review our situation if there was no interest (as we'd obviously be paying the mortgage with no rent coming in).

As it happens the tenants have decided to buy it - and it's going through at the moment (fingers crossed).

But I think the rule is you can't put your house up for sale for the first 3 months you have a new tenant in.

fisher lass

I am hoping that a tennant would like to buy.
It would make life so much easier - I think.

kaishang

I've sold a house in Australia, while overseas, which had tenants in it.

The dynamics will be similar although specific laws will be different.

IMHO good tenants can ADD to the sale price. Messy tenants can detract from the sale price, so keep the fact that you are selling it in mind. If you rent to a 23yo bachelor, then they may have other priorities than keeping it tidy for example.

Also put yourself in the tenants shoes - they have strangers walking through their house and at the end it is likely they will have to move out. So give them a discount off the rent. And definitely do not put up for sale within 6-12 months of renting it out or you will have pissed off tenants and pissed off tenants are likely to mean a lower sale price for you. Plus even if it is not illegal, I think it's unethical to get someone to move in on good faith and then soon after put the house up for sale.

darrellandsarah

we sold our house in february with tennants in it.we had no problems just let our agent do everything for us[though she is a friend] and it was easy.most things can be done by email except original documents that have to be sent to your solicitor.we put it on the market the day they received the notice to leave and they moved out 1 week before completion.perfect timing with no loss of rental income