Hi, i was wondering if any of you have had to go through this experience.

We came over on a work permit last Oct, got our PR in June (PNP route). We have settled in very well, love everything about being here. The kids have settled into the school / social life etc..

However we are afraid that our new life is going to come to a grumbling halt. We put our house up for sale in June when we got PR, we have had renters in until August but since then nothing not a single thing. We had done all the "House Doctor" stuff, its just the market is just so dead. So we have been paying the mortgage in the UK plus our rent here in Canada and our savings we had are running out. :scared:

The only thing we can think of doing is going back to the UK and waiting for the house to sell (which was suggested in another thread) then move back, which we really don't want to do. The kids are settled and it would seem so unfair to go through all the upheaval again and what if they can't get into the school again. All our possessions in the UK are gone, we sold everything to come over here.

I would appreciate any suggestions....

Lynne

oh dear, i suppose its how low will you sell your house for...........there are companies that buy them, someone on here mentioned one recently, but they would be below market value............not helped either with low dollar rate...........how about tempting buyer with holiday or cash back when deal as gone through or pay stamp duty...good luck

My nephew has a house near Billericay that he was trying to sell. He could not sell it although they had redone just about the whole house in order to sell. Same thing as you. He eventually rented the house out on a two year rental I think. You can't find a long term rent?

The only other thing I could suggest is that one of you could go back and work in the UK while trying to sell the house and the rest of the family could stay here. I can't imagine that would be a very good solution, but I have no other suggestions.

How about offering an assumable mortgage, vendor carry mortgage or rent to own to attract a potential buyer, say... if you can do that over there.

If you don't have a savvy relative over there to handle dealings, can one of you manage to get back on a cheap flight (Zoom will be down to $215 out of T.O. after Nov 30th). The other one will have it hard for a while managing the kids but it would be worth not losing your equity in your home in UK.

Thanks for your replies i was thinking of going for the company buy option but as you have pointed out it could be a lot less than we would be happy with.
On the option of one of us going back, that would be too hard as we have 3 kids and i'm the only one working.

Phil.

We are still advertising it for rent, but nothing. To find a long term rent would not suit us as we want to get settled here. With house prices going up pretty quickly in the Vancouver area we need the equity to get on the ladder. Thank you for your input though.

Lynne

Lynne: We're in roughly the same boat. Our house was rented by people for six months, when they first saw it they were full of praise and promises of buying if we wanted to sell. When it came to crunch time they offered us £120K when it had been valued at £195K. So they moved out - taking the curtains, poles and nets - and now it is empty and bare, and in my view vulnerable. We've had it on the market since they moved out, three weeks, but not had a sniff of interest from a buyer. We are renting here, and paying the mortgage there. Our savings are gone, and my UK overdraft climbing. I wish we'd sold before we left the UK.

What a horrible situation to be in. I can't offer any advice, I'm afraid, only sympathy.

All I can suggest is to put it on with 2 or more "NEW" agents, and get it re-valued by them and ask them to be realistic (not value high to win your business), there is only one real reason a house does not sell and it's price!, every house has a price that will sell it. There is no use wasting time and money on house-doctor stuff and the mortgage interest payments when you should be getting on with your new life in Canada.

I have not seen your house, but if it has been on the market now for example 6 months @ £250k with no sale, I would drop it by 10% straight away to £225k to see if it you get any more interest (Houses get the most interest in the first month on sale). If there is no big rise in viewings in the month after that, I would repeat until an offer is made dropping 5% per month. and i would expect an offer to be at least 5% less than the current dropped price @ time of offer.

Sorry to be harsh but If it was me I would put my family's happyness above a few thousand pounds of equity and get on with my life in Canada.

.highboy.

Its a dreadful situation to be in and you have my sympathies......I had a house in UK and one in Canada for far too many months for comfort!

Couple of thoughts to add to whats already been said....

If you haven't already, contact your UK lender and ask that you switch to an interest only mortgage. Explain the situation to them and they should have no problem with this. (They want you to be able to keep making the payments, not to have to reposses from you.)

If you are sole agency at the moment go for dual or multiple. You can usually get a reasonable % deal for dual, I think I paid .35% more than for single. Go with at least one new agent(s) for a fresh approach and interest.

Reduce the price to an acceptable level being realistic about your situation. You want a quick sale & unfortunately are in a weak position. You just have to take the reduction on the chin.

If it was rented til Aug what sort of shape is it in after the rental? Do you have anyone checking on it back home? Maybe the renters trashed it a bit before they left. Stranger things have happened!

Chase the agents weekly. Ensure they are giving you progress reports on how many people they are showing around. A proactive agent should be working for you and contrary to popular belief not all Estate Agents are gits!

Do consider renting it again rather than returning home. The market in UK will rebound IMHO - property supply vs demand means this has to happen in the longer term. Yes you want the equity to buy in Canada but a year or two out of the market here isnt going to make that much difference is it?

Dunno whereabouts in UK you are but the market is not completely dead. It is slow though and a buyers market.

Finally house selling sometimes defies logic. My place took a year to sell and was nicely decorated & renovated. Two doors down the same house, needing new kitchen, bathroom and reno's sold in 2 mths for more than I ultimately sold mine for. As they say in Canada go figure!

I'm far from convinced of that: the boomers are aging, selling up and moving into retirement flats, there's been such a bubble in 'executive apartments' in the last few years that the local council recently said they'd met their future development plans until 2012 already, lots of us are emigrating, a large fraction of the immigrants replacing us seem to be living as cheaply as possible and sending their money back home (e.g. to Eastern Europe), and many kids graduating from university seem to be living with their parents because they have far too many debts from their degree to even think about a mortgage on top.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's all downhill from here, myself: I'm just glad I don't have a house here to get rid of!

There maybe a glimmer of hope for you. We have just put our house on the market and our agent reckons there is going to be quite a boom in Jan/Feb 06 as people decide to move before the new law comes into affect in 2007 where sellers will have to fork out upto £1000 to get a sellers pack together.

The market in our area is picking up, house prices are going up again slowly and our agent is having their best results of the year.

Best advice we have been given is to put your house on the market at the lower end of the price bracket to get maximum interest.

I really hope everything works out for you

I think your agent was talking about his own work, There is going to be a boom of people putting there house on the market as the seller pays for the pack, which will push prices lower as buyers will have more choice of houses.

Damn shame really, having to go back to the humdrum. Lets face it though, your pretty greedy. My heart does bleed...

Oh, dear, here comes another one