From your experience which would you do?
 

Sell your house, and come to Oz with the equity and start again debt free, clean slate, give it your best:)
OR
Save up for a couple of years, rent the house out and come to Oz, see how it goes.:unsure:

My head says the sensible thing to do would be the latter, but my heart says sod it, you can always start again if it doesnt work out and would we really give it our best shot if we had something to run back to????

The reason i ask is my parents sold their home a few years ago to move to spain and after a couple of years decided it wasnt for them and came back broke. My mum says she really regretted selling the house until they had decided but i always said well you'd have to have sold it at some point and you could have changed your mind 20 years later and regretted it:confused:

So from your personal experiences what do you think??

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

We have decided sod it and sell it !! I could have taken a 1 year break from work and started my new job over in oz in that time and kept the house. However we thought if we keep it and i'm only on a break from my job then we won't be doing it for real and it'll only be a holiday. To sample it for real, we decided, you had to really go for it sell up quit the job and fully start again.

If we hate it and come back skint in two years then at least we gave it ago, unlike others who only dream.

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

We are sod it and sell it. Can't be doing with the hassel of renting it out and I wouldn't want anyone else living in my house anyway. :blink:

Jackie x

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

Hi

I personally wanted to ret our house out here til I knew I would be happy over there, but then we thought about all the damage that could potentially be done by bad tenants and all the things we could be responsible for 10,000 miles away, ok so theoretically whoever you rent your house out with should look after you and your house but IMO thats not gaurunteed, could have asked family to keep a watch over the place for me but thats a stress for them and I think I'd worry more if we rented it out, I quite like teh house we have now and leaving it will be hard but I think if you rent it out it's more of a tempation if you're going through a rough patch over the other side of the world to just jack it in instead of sorting it out.
I think whereever you go be it somewhere in the Uk other side of the world there will be happy times and sad times rough and smooth patches.
Only you can decide whats right for you but if you thin kit will be an added stress or make it all too easy to come back i'd say sell it.

Jen

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

We also are "Sod it and sell it". You only get one chance in life and we are determined to make it work, we can't do will all the hassle of not being in the country and someone else living in our house. Oh and then there is the other reason...............we need the equity to buy in Oz. Good luck to everybody whatever their decision.:thumbsup:

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

Re renting - i had an investment property which i rented out to a colleague (belived would be trustworthy, check out my proffession) i had problems with rent not being paid, complaints from neighbours, complaints from council due to mess . . . . etc. sod it and sell up

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

I'm another 'sod it and selling up' merchant

The sensible thing is to keep your property in blighty and reap the rewards of house price increases over the next few years,but moving to the other side of the world to somewhere you've never been before is'nt exactly a sensible thing to do !!!!

Being sensible when out of the window the minute i started this whole emigration malarky :blink:


Lee :thumbup:

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

cant make our mind up either , one minute we are selling , next minute lets rent it . This morning we were for renting , now in the space of one day have changed our minds again and nothing in particular makes us change . Im sure we will make our minds up soon .:(

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

Wow where all sod it and sell its!:D
the interesting thing here though is the fact we are all still in the uk, will be interesting to see what the ones already in oz have to say.
I have only thought about renting it out today as i have come to realise that we are in a very risky situation. We cannot get a skilled visa or PRso would be going on a sponsered job visa, if my husband hates his job or gets sacked we have to be out of Oz in less than 28 days.:eek: until he completes two years then we can have PR. This means his employee will have a huuuuuuge hold on him hence the rethink.:unsure: :confused:
If we had PR then yeah sod it and no looking back but dont know if its too much to lose to end up back- not out of choice in 3 months!:(

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

When we moved we rented the UK house (to nasty tenants) for just over a year until we moved onto PR from 457. Our PR was not definite and we would not take the risk to sell if we could not stay.

Now five years on I think what if we had kept the house - But never mind it is gone now and we did the right thing at the time and have a nice place in Aus. I am thinking of coming back to the UK first for at least a year and when I can persuade hubby we will be renting out our Aus property. I am no way dropping out of the housing market twice.

All this is to make it easier to come back to Aus :). Life changes over time and you have to make a decision and ensure you don't keep thinking oh dear what have we done. I think trying a six month to a year rental period is a good option. I do not believe it makes it easier to want to move back it is just a sensible plan if you really do not want to stay and that happens to plenty of people.

It made our money much tighter for the first year, especially on one job for four months. But we managed, we only bought one old car and really changed the way we had previously lived - renting out a large but pretty crap house without a pool. We shipped everything we owned, all the crap and did not buy anything we did not really need. Guest slept on old futons and the kids where still in their old bunks. That all changed when we sold in England and bought here - there was a little bit of a shop fest for new beds and a suite. If I look back that first year was the hardest but possibly one of the nicest in terms of managing and changing ourselves. If we had come over with all the money to start I think we would not have spent as wisely as we did. We knew a lot more after one year than we did straight off the plane.

I know it is not possible for some people who need the capital from the house to start again, I am also not saying I am right, just what worked very well for us.

Five years on we are considering buying a second car! Mainly cause son is turning 17 this week. Hubby got a motorbike to help with transport like the UK, we have five tellys in the house - three from the UK! We still have the old bed but in the guest room and my mum is pleased she doesn't have to sleep on 4 inches of matresss on the floor when she visits.

You never know what you can do till you try it.

Cheers Sandra

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

if you live in an area with house prices in the uk rising keep hold of it and rent out, if its hit the top sell and use the cash to buy in an area which will reap the rewards.

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

We also are doing to 'sod it sell it'. If - after a couple
of years - we decide that Australia isn't for us, we'll
buy another house. It will be a bit cheaper though
because a bit :eek: of our equity will be gone.

But....as lots of other people.....we are planning to stay
for us selling the house means we are really going for it.

Please decide what is best for you and what feels best,
it's your life and you've got to live it!!

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Miranda :)

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

We sold up and came over. I think if you rent your house out its too easy to quit Oz and go home at the first hurdle. I think you should emigrate with the attitude that your not going home to have the best chance at success.

Rachel

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

I'd rent it.
Imagine the shall we sell or rent ? being the shall we stay or go back ?.

Having a home to go back to would be heaven if you wanted to go back to UK after a few years.

Hard one but no doubt for me what I would have done given the choice again
I really believed it was going to be where I settled and was very positive indeed. After time though, I was suprised that I really began to doubt if I could stay here long term.
You really just do not know no matter what attitude you come with which is why I think a get out of jail card is brill to have.

Be intersting to see on the poll whose just arrived or been here awhile - just a thought to see the difference in opinion to the ?

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

I voted rent it out.

We sold up everything, house, business, cars.

Been here a year now and god i wish we had kept it all. You just don't know if it's gonna work out how you imagine it to be.

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

Definatley rent it out - it's the best investment you'll ever have.

Imagine 20 years down the line - the tennants have effectively bought you a house that is still increasng in value, and you have rental coming in as additional income.

We are keeping ours to rent out for a number of reasons - having somewhere to come back to if it goes tits up in Australia isnt really one of them. We're looking at it as having a good, ready made, investment oportunity.

We also thought about how hard it would be thinking of someone else living in your house, but it's no different to selling. You just have to tell yourself that its not your home anymore - it's now an investment.

It'll make things harder for us over there in the sense that we wont have the equity to use a deposit on a huge house, but no probs - we'll just buy a cheaper house. In the long run it makes way better sense.

Emma's parents sold their old farmhouse & land in Wales to move to New Zealand. They sold about 7 years ago, just before the boom. They're screwed now - no way they could afford anything in the UK.

Best of luck with whatever you decide.

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

We are still in the UK and had this dilemma for months, we couldn't make our mind up! It has nothing to do with Oz but my hubby is financially 'aware' and house prices in our area just keep rising and rising and he thinks we would be crazy to sell just yet.

We have now decided to rent and we got an amazing deal with the coventry building society on a buy to let mortgage, which means after mortgage is paid and agents fees we will still have money left from the rental:thumbsup: so we will make money.

It really is a hard decision but before you decide have a look into the rental costs and the mortgage payments you never know it may be worth it and if not then you could still sell.

Our inlaws live on the same street as do our good friends so we are not to worried about tenants. We have rented a house about before in Manchester when we were in Edinburgh without an agent and had no major problems or damage.

Good Luck in your decision.

Andreaxx

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

We're selling and going.
Firstly because we need the equity in order to afford to emigrate and secondly because even if we were to come back to England it would be to a different place.
I haven't voted though as I don't have the experience yet so don't really know which is best :)

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

Very well said Rachel, we have the same attitude, its taken most people on here about 18 months to appply for a Visa and in that 18 months you have been thinking about your new life 'down under'.....why keep a house here in Uk? So if you come up against a hurdle you can run 'home'? Home is where you make it...we all have hurdles here in the Uk too....just deal with them as they come up as you would do in the Uk. i personallt think that the people who keep a property in the Uk are the ones who are unsure they are making the right decision...they are the ones who come back.

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

I don't think that keeping a property in the UK means people will come back! We are sure we are doing the right thing but don't need to sell the house to afford our dream! so therefore are keeping it.

If you go into the Moving back forum or scroll through some of the older posts you'll read about the anguish of the people who decided to return to the UK and are devastated they never kept there house.

Just like everything else in life its a personal choice and only you can make it. Lets hope we are the ones who love OZ and stay:)

Axx

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

Its not really because if we come up against a hurdle we can run back, it is as ive said because we wont have a permanent visa so if the job goes t*ts up we will HAVE to leave Oz within 28 days, not because we want to but because its the law!:ohmy: For this reason we cant buy anything for the 2 years as we wouldnt be able to sell it quickly enough to get out so its a matter of do we sell and take the equity with us/use it to get there or do we put our plans on hold for a year and save some money to get us over there making sure we've got enough to get back if needs be.
We wouldnt leave a property here as unsure on our decision, i wouldnt move across the world in the first place if i was unsure its just because its not a permanent visa thats all.

All these answers make interesting reading, we are 'just take the risk' kind of people so this 'sensibility' is all new to us!:rofl:

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

ooh just had another thought, maybe we could sell ours and buy a smaller cheaper (releasing some equity) house to rent out, abit of a compromise:unsure: thinking out loud here:o

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

Thats not a bad idea, I think it's nice to go over there with some equity but obviously it's a major concern for people with the rise of house prices and IF it doesn't work out you then have to try and get back on the house market here I suppose it would be the best of both worlds.

Jen

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

So what if people (including us) want to keep on their house just in case it doesn't work out? It in no way means that we are not going to give it just as good a go as those who are selling their houses. I believe that if you are a quitter in general then you quit at the first sign of trouble in Oz regardless of whether or not you have kept a house on in the UK. I totally understand that there are some people who have no alternative but to sell up to achieve their dream. We are just lucky that we do not. We can go to Oz and take the two or three years to make up our minds whether we can see ourselves there for the long term - we see it as a bit of a luxury to be able to do this. I'm not sure if this sounds like a rant of not - it's not meant to be, it's just my opinion!! :o

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

We are sell up and sod it too! Partly because I wanted to release the equity and not have to worry too much about money initially. Wasn't sure I could afford to go without it, even though I will have a job. So my house is in the middle of the sale, offer accepted, surveyor been, waiting for exchange and completion dates. If it doesn't work out, what the hell at least I tried, even if I never get back on the property ladder, it would probably all get taken off me anyway when my son puts me in a care home in about 30 years lol.

Re: From your experience which would you do?
 

We are in the same boat, we spent our savings last year on our holiday to see if we liked Tasmania and maxed out our credit cards on hotels and car hire etc. Plus the cost of the application for visa our savings have all but gone!:( So we have to sell to get the equity that the house has earned us, so we can be rich again!!:thumbsup:

Kerry