We have been in Canada (Toronto) for almost 1 year now. Although there have been ups and downs we are happy here and plan to stay in the long term
We still own a house in the UK and are renting it out. There have been some problems with the letting agents and tenants, nothing too serious but we feel that the house is a drain on our savings, although we have quite a lot of of equity. We bought the house at the top of the market (2006), and still have a 5.5% mortgage deal that we are unable to improve on. We are unsure if the value of the property will go down or up in the long term and what is going to happen with the exchange rate. Should we sell it now and keep our money in the bank, or keep renting it out and wait for another couple of years until we are ready to buy a house in Canada?

Hello if you sell the house you will have no back up plan if it goes tits up in canada,but you will have a deposit to buy in canada. Like you said, you are here for the long run so sell the house and enjoy your new home in canada.

If you want to go back to the uk you will be in the same position as you are in now.

Vice a versa comes to mind

So you want to sell it, you just dont know if the value is going to go up or down in the short to medium term?


Does anyone have a reliable crystal ball?

If its currently draining resources Id say thats a strong argument to try selling it now? Worst case there are no takers and you are no worse of anyway, and if it sells then you are in the enviable position of having to decide how best to reinvest it.

If it looks like Canada is going to be your home in the medium / long term you have no need of a UK plan B anymore.

OP....you really want randos on the internet to make such a decision on behalf of you and your family? Really

Hes asking for opinions, hes not legally commited to act upon them


If people didnt come here to ask questions and get opinions the forums would rather lose their raison d'etre.

Can you really not get a better rate? That's crazy!

Does the rent cover the mortgage, insurance, maintenance etc.? Does it compensate for the worry? Is it making you money (I guess not if it's a drain on savings!)? Will it help you settle in Canada by letting go old baggage?

We tried to get a better rate after we moved to Canada, but mortgage deals for overseas properties were even worse than what we had. It sucks because our old deal was for 5 years fixed. When it ended in 2011 we should have reverted back to the bank of England base rate but there was some small print about exceptional circumstances and we had to continue on this higher rate indefinitely. Every time we have a new tenant we need to pay £150 to our mortgage provider and another 150 to the letting agent. Over a 6 month period we had at least 6 or 7 minor repairs of door handles, shower, toilet not flushing and so on. Now we are looking for new tenants but it looks like the property is going to be empty over the Christmas period.

The rent should have covered the mortgage, but taking in consideration all the additional cost for insurance and maintenance, it does not. I think if house prices in the UK are going down we will loose out and if they go up we would win. If prices stay the same it does probably not matter much if we sell now or hold on to it. We have got about 40% equity in the house.
Before we decided to buy, we rented for many years and I always thought landlords were making loads of money. But now we are landlords ourself the reality turns out to be different.

Ain't that the truth boo.......... Not unless you have a duplex or a number of flats in the same bldg with a low mortgage

Trying to make a mint of a single house renting it out won't yield much. property tax, maintenance and all that has to be accounted for

ultra.. We're not all randos .. My opinion for what its worth, uve not done enough haggling with ur mortgage company and if the small print wasn't pointed out to U then they mid sold U a financial product. I would kick some banking ass and then the ombudsman if U get no joy.. Btw, my phone keeps putting in big u's all d time, its not me being rude, I just don't know how to change d blinking thing. Anyway, missold financial products are very much frowned upon now as everyone wants a bit of d bankers added. U will fi d friends in commissions if U look for them to sort it out.

If you bought it in 2006, my guess is it's worth significantly less now.
If you can afford to continue the mortgage payments on it, my advice would be to do so for another year or two, as prices are likely to go back up (maybe not to 2006 levels though).
If not, and you still have equity, it sounds like your best bet is to cut your losses and sell it.

You've had the mortgage for 6 years now- I'd be amazed if there's no get out at this stage, and it may be worth speaking to a lawyer, because it sounds fishy to me.

Thanks for the advice Jericho and Missieleah!
We are with Skipton Building Society. It is probably worth putting in a complaint about it. We would be able to get out of this deal but because we are abroad now we cannot get a new deal that is any better than this one.

I would say keep it if you can.

We bought in 2007 when house prices were high. I've looked on right move a lot since we moved over and houses on my estate are priced for selling a lot less than we paid. We are patient and it will go back up eventually. We will wait until then to sell. (We've been advised to do this by our financial advisor).

If you need equity out (we decided to take some of it out) we changed to a buy to let and got money out that way for a lump sum that we can use to buy over here.

HTH.

Thanks for your advice Geordie Lass, we can afford to keep the house so it is probably better to hold on to it. We have seen other people in our estate that tried to sell their house for the same amount they paid for it in 2006/2007 and they they did not get any offers. Economists think that British house prices will likely stay the same or decline very slowly for many years. But it looks like the market in Canada is cooling as well so it may be best to wait for another 2 years or so.