We're not too sure what to do in this economic climate, whether to put the house on the market now or to wait till we actually have our visa granted

It would be interesting to hear what other people are doing

It never hurts to be prepared. If you can sell it, grab the opportunity while you can, is my opinion. You could always stay with rellies, or rent even, if you sell too soon.

Renting mine out and not selling a year ago wasn't the best decision I ever made.

Hi.I think Quercus is right no harm in being prepared.We put our house on a couple of months ago,more than reasonably priced and haven't had a single call.
We are assumming that we well end up renting our house out and that selling it might not happen,but we're trying.
Horrible time to be selling.Have you had your house valued yet?If you haven't be prepared for a shock.
Very best of luck,lisa & Davy.

But what if OP doesn't get a visa? Presumably you'd want your house back.....

We have just sold ours after less than 2 weeks on the market. We are still waiting for the visa (company sponsored), but figured it's better to sell than be stuck with it. We can't afford to have our house sat empty or pay rent in Oz and mortgage over here. I expext our buyer will want to be in before Christmas and hubby has to give 3 months notice on job when visa comes through, so we will probably have to rent in the meantime...

We'll put our house on market in January, while waiting for visa.
feel its a risk worth taking. If you are thinking of uprooting anyway, then a 'house' is only a house. And right now it feels like a burden.

Ozbaz' wife

We decided from the start that we wouldn't put the house on the market until we had our visa. We like where we live and would still want to live here if we didn't get our visa. I can see selling it though is going to be difficult and we don't know what we will do if we cannot sell when the time comes.

As much as we love our house we figured it would be better to get as much equity as possible. And if the visa doesn't come through we will sit tight in rented and buy ourselves something nicer as the house prices will have dropped even more

Very true,none of us are guaranteed a pos outcome on visa application.I'm with ozbaz-for us its a risk worth taking.Just to make a point on how dire things are on the house sales in N.Ireland-We have to pay our agent to take our house off the market if we change our mind about selling-we've already paid all other expenses up front.Never came across that one before!
Still,we'd rather try and sell than be stuck renting out.Besides if anyone gets caught out and left homeless with no visa I can offer them a very desirable chalet bungalow,an absolute steal...davys wife

Interesting to hear what everyone is doing. I think we will wait till we are sure of the visa (hopefully around March), then put the house on the market. We're not planning on moving to Australia till December 09, so that should hopefully be loads of time to sell the house.

If we sell before visa grant ( positive thinking!) we'll take you up on the offer, providing it has electricity, running water and is within easy reach of Derry!

I guess it depends upon how much you need the money from the sale to get out to Oz.

Ours is on the market and has been for about 6 weeks and we haven't had any interest at all yet.

We still haven't got the visa granted but hopefully are only weeks rather than months away from getting it (it's been 6 months and we have frontloaded all the docs and meds etc) but went with the attitude of if we can get a sale then great we will take the money and move into rented untill we fly out.

Now - when reading what I am about to tell you, please remember that I am in no way an expert - this is just anecdotal evidence.....

I happened to notice that in each of the last three years at the end-of-Sept/start-of-Oct, the exchange rate has hit something of a high......
'06 ~$2.5, '07 ~$2.5, '08 $2.7

I have no idea why this should be, but given that the rest of the time the rate is rougly $2.25 and often lower, then this will give you another 25c or more for every £ of your equity.

So if I was selling/exchanging/moving again, I would out of interest keep an eye on the rate and - just in case - be prepared for a Sept/Oct exchange.

Over the last few years the rate has 'usually' been aound 2.5 and has been higher.

G

I love these comments "more than reasonably priced and haven't had a single call". Clearly if there is no interest the price isn't right if you want to sell drop the price significantly and you will get interest if not a sale. You make a hit to the wallet but that's life.