Well.......it looks like we will have to validate our visas in July as house still not sold
Been on the market for 12 months already, knocked £40k off the original asking price.....and still no joy.
This will put us back another year probably while we make the money back from validating
Wondering if anyone else is in the same boat as us?
Beth x x

Hi - Yes I can totally sympathise with your situation as we are in the same boat. Our house has been on the market for over 12 months and altho someone is interested they can't sell theirs either. We too have dropped the price significantly. Renting was a total no-go before, but the other day we had someone round from a letting company to tell us how much we could get per month. So its another option but we would have to borrow money on the mortgage to be able to afford to emigrate, which is something I didn't want to do. Like you we can't afford to do the validation trip and also go again to emigrate. We have given ourselves until July to sell the house and then think about renting it out. Our plan is to go in September but we have to validate by end Jan 09. I will keep my fingers crossed for you! Take care, Clare

Hi Clare,
We know we won't get enough money from renting our house to cover the mortgage......so renting it out isn't an option for us.
Really thought it would have sold by now......so we have to consider the validating option seriously.
If we do sell in the next few months and move into a rented house in the UK.....then we can do some serious saving, which will be great. But it is so depressing to delay our plans to emigrate by yet another year again.
Beth x x

Hi Beth, I do not think that you should write off the rental option just because the income will not cover the mortgage.

Instead, work out exactly how many £££ you will need to pay out of your own pocket, in order to cover the gap. Is this amount acheivable?

Another thing to remember is that the gap will not be there forever. Your homeloan will, very slowly, reduce in size, whilst your rental income will gradually increase, reducing the gap over time.

On top of this, you should consider that inflation will reduce the real value of the shortfall between (a) your homeloan repayment and (b) the rental income. This means that a shortfall of £80pw as of 1st April 2008 will become less significant as time passes and your income rises through inflation.

just something to think about !!

Not even got our visa yet ( caught in the august backlog ) but looks like we will have to validate then come back and sell. We did our PCC's in October so we have until then. Can't afford to go any lower on the house as need to cover mortgage and loans before we go. Don't want to arrive with no money or job and struggle. Wanted to go in July/August to have a decent amount of time to find a rental and get our eldest settled in to school. Hopefully things will pick up in a few months, if not we have up to 5 years so will sit tight and pay off as much of our mortgage that as we can
Oh and we have the same problem as you renting it out isn't an option.

We have looked into most options........our mortgage is over £1000pm but we have a loan secured on the house also....which is our downfall at the moment, as we can't afford to pay this off without selling the house
So we would have to get at least £270 a week in rent just to cover the mortgage payments (and most houses around here are 3 bed terraced renting out for about £80 pw)......then we would still have to pay the loan on top......which we can't afford to do if we're in Oz.
We have a 5-6 bed semi new build by the way.
Thanks for the advice though,
Beth x x

ah well, it does seem like that option isn't open. Never mind.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do...whether it is (a) sell for less than you want, or (b) sit it out and come to Oz later.

Even better still, I hope you get lucky and get (c) someone paying what you want very soon !

best of luck,
Mark

Seems this housing crash is affecting quite a few of our plans to emigrate
Looked for return flights for the 6 of us and so far the cheapest I can find is £4,500 (with Travelbag).......plus we will need money for hotel/car hire/food/spending money plus more.
Probably going to cost us around £8,000+ just to validate
Beth x x

i know how dheartening it is beth. We first put our house on market last feb. We complete today but we already had one buyer pull out day of exchange.

In the end you have to price to sell and a 5/6 bed house will take longer than a 2 bed terrace. we reduced ours by 20k which was alot as it was a third of our equity but now im not bothered as its gone.

We also switched agents. my advice if you want it to sell price it right, prices are falling and there is no point holding out fro another 10k if u will have to spend that validating!! Good luck hun x

Hi Clare,
We've dropped to the lowest price we can go to.......so it is a bloody bargain for someone at £159,995!!!!!! Was £200k.
We paid £150k for it 2 years ago.......so not making any money by selling anyway
Hopefully we will laugh about this hassle one day!!!!
Well done on selling yours hun,
Beth x x

Ouch! We have had a quick look for flights as well 2 adults and 2 kids. Eldest is 13 so cost same as adult and a 2 year old who needs a seat. She is only the small though (height and weight of an 18 month old) so annoyed she needs one.

Yeah......big 'ouch' in our savings!!!!!!
We have to pay for 3 adults and 3 children......def taking a chunk out of our money just to pay for the flights!!!
Beth x x

Trouble is there is priced to sell and giving it away! We are the same as Beth reduced by £50K which is nearly all of our equity. Plus selling fees, paying of loan, shipping fees, flights, accommodation when we get there, taking a while to get a job etc. Leaves us with a big debt in the UK and paying it back for a few years on top of the cost of living in OZ.

Hi,

I was hanging around, with all the ifs and buts, and then decided to just go for it and knocked £100,000 off and sold the house within 2 days.

Having said that I am due to exchange on the 16th (touch wood), so won't be happy till then. Couldn't do with all the uncertainty, and loose ends, and have to validate by the 7th of June.

Things will sell, but at the "current" market price, you just have to be realistic.

If it "truly" looks a good buy, not just only a little bit more than you paid for it, buyers all appear, as if from nowhere :-)

Alan.

Yeah......was hoping they'd be camping on my drive by now and they'd all be in a bidding war.......boy was I wrong....LOL
Beth x x