nzbound

We are wondering what people do, sell their uk home or rent it out when they move to NZ.

Originally we thought we would sell.....scoop the equity and live almost mortgage free in NZ. But with proprty prices falling each month we wonder if it is worth keeping the house until things go back up. And renting it out.

But then not sure if we would rent or buy in NZ and what we could afford on teacher salaries anyway.

Any advice would be great !

Mixter

I personaly would rent the house in the short term. Selling (which may prove difficult anyway just now), is like cutting the ties for good. IF you decided the move wasnt for you in say two years time, getting back on the housing ladder in the UK may not be that easy - unless youve access to plenty of contingency funds, that is.?

sonandbill

hyehave you both already got jobs? What area are you coming to? I personally would rent your house in uk in case you return.

lapsed kiwi

I'd say sell if you can for a decent price because:
- unless you have a UK income, you will be in financial crisis real quick if you are tenantless for any period (we were for 5 months but luckily I have a UK income that covers the rent)
- The consensus is that getting back onto the housing market at any time in the UK in the next 3-5 years will be no problem at all
- Look at the two main causes of unhappiness in migrants to NZ - lack of money and poor quality of housing. By not realising your equity, you are setting yourselves up for failure
We didn't sell and now have large-ish mortgages in both countries plus a depreciating asset in UK that is earning no income over the mortgage interest. It's manageable because we have a good income, but would be a pain in the neck otherwise

nukiwi

We are renting out our house in the UK until the market improves. I agree its a good safety net in case it all goes wrong but as long as the rent you get more than covers your mortgage then you can bring any excess out to NZ each month .

We would love to buy our own home here but by renting it gives us time to decide where in NZ we will finally buy.

Renting over here is much more expensive than the UK so do your sums first.

nzbound

thats interesting, as the estate agents Bayleys we saw at the EXPO we went to told us that renting in NZ was cheaper than the UK.

how much would a 3 bed house cost us to rent each month? In NZ

Am Loolah

That will depend entirely on what area you are coming to - they seem to vary.

CarolineSwan

we own a few properties that we rent out here in the uk, and i would say properties in NZ look much cheaper plus most include rates etc whereas over here you still have council tax etc on top of the price...

anyway thats just my opinion

caz

BEVS

It's an estate agent. A posh one but still an estate agent.

Depends where you are settling. Also you need to match your possible NZ earnings to the NZ rent + cost of living. Don't make the mistake of converting to UK pounds. I'm sure you won't.

edit here.

Our first rental was $320 per week plus utilities, water etc. At that time it was around 40% of our earnings. We then found a cheaper rental in a better area but with no integral heating for $290. This is top end of the south island.

lardyl

yes and is it more affordable compared to the other options?

NZ rentals have more of a state subsidy, in the form of tax breaks to landlords/investors than the UK market. Makes our place reasonable compared to some huge mortgage.........

I suppose it all depends one where you are, whether you want to keep your UK property as some form of safety net or even an investment. The latter *may* well be safer than the banks, finance houses, the stock market and NZ property *at this very moment*.

hippychic23

the choice has been taken out of my hands - we are trying to sell, but as the date that we need to move creeps ever closer, there isn't a soul looking at it anymore - sigh..... am not going to reduce it to silly price just to sell, would rather rent out and when house prices pick up (2010??) then sell, and move out of rented accom in NZ... sounds good on paper eh? fingers crossed, that it works out - or that we get a buyer - NOW!! am not going to let the recession stop my dream - but have we all got bad timing or what?

simon-nall

hi
i live in solihull and a 3 bed house is approx £ 650 per mth approx $1800 mth

simon-nall

Hi
Were in Solihull and in the same boat. We didn't want to rent out our house just sell but we are now thinking the same. We had planed to rent in nz anyway for a little time to sort out the lay off the land and then buy. As our visa runs out end of Feb I am thinking we need to do some sums and see what works out.
The other thing to think about that nz is been reported to be in a recession and I’ve been told that cost of living is high in relation to wages.
What would be helpful would be if anyone in nz could give a general utilities estimate because the cost here in the UK nave rocked in the last 12 mth

nukiwi

Just as a comparison, we are in Auckland (which apparently is the most expensive place to live/rent) and we are renting a 4 bedroom property at a cost of $600 per week (should have been $650 but we negotiated). This equates to about £220 per week.

It all depends on what you are looking for. Yes you can get rentals cheaper but again it depends what you want. There are a lot of very old properties here which can be very cold and damp. We preferred to pay the extra for a more modern home. This is our choice.

We are also close to bus routes, motorway, supermarkets, shopping centre, cinemas etc, so if you are more rural the cost of rentals will be less.

We too were impressed by the EXPO/Seminars we went to and how cheap they made it out to be but its NOT!

Our house back in the UK is being rented out at £700 per month (Which is just over $1,900 per month). our rent here is $2,400 per month.

Also as BEV states, when you are over here it is best NOT to keep converting back to pounds.

We found the following links helpful:

www.allrealestate.co.nz
www.trademe.co.nz

Good luck

nukiwi

The cost of living is higher than we thought in relation to wages but it all depends on what you do for a living. My OH is in IT and we did all the research before we came out so we knew wages would be less here.

The following link gives a general scale of salaries:

www.hays.net.nz/salary/

Can't really help on the utilities as we have only been renting 5 weeks.