Moving house wwyd

[Bojoshatface]

Has anyone here moved from a property they own into a rented one as a stop gap?

DH, 3 year old DD and I are currently living in our 2 bed no garden London flat which we bought in 2015 for 350k. We're on a fixed rate mortgage. Had intended on staying here til the fixed rate deal ends and then move out of London to a house but stupidly didn't realise the primary school application deadline is January so means we have to move before if ds is to get into a half decent school.

We could port our mortgage but we'd have to borrow significantly more money. Stamp duty will wipe all our savings out. Ideally I'd prefer to wait a year to buy to allow us to save and also to find a house we really like (DH is a relatively high earner and gets a bonus so we are able to save a fair amount). I feel like moving into rented in the area we want to buy in will be better for several reasons:

1. it'll make it easier and less stressful to sell
2. it'll be easier to view places if we're living nearby rather than a good hours' drive away at least
3. brexit might crash everything and I would feel more secure not being at the mercy of rising interest rates and possibly being stuck in our flat in negative equity if we wait to sell
4. rent in the area we're looking at will be a good £400/£500 a month less than our mortgage would be on the kind of property we want, so we'd be able to save more.

I'm very financially risk averse and so is DH but he is less bothered about moving before the primary school deadline than I am.

Any advice welcome.

Yes, it makes sense. We sold and rented and it put us in a good position when buying again.

Is there a penalty for redeeming your mortgage early and, if so, how much is it?

Yes. It's £5k approx.

Yes - we did exactly that.

We sold up and moved into a house in the area we wanted to move to with the aim of buying somewhere before the 6 month lease was up.

Pluses were:

• chance to get to know the area better before buying
• able to be the end of the chain as already sold which was helpful in offer negotiations
• able to buy a house that needed a bit of TLC before moving in and we had the work done before moving in
• able to organise removal men on cheaper days!
• no stress on move days

Good to hear others have done the same!!

That’s a lot of money to lose. Could you rent out your flat in London and rent in the area you want to live until the early redemption penalty expires? Then sell the flat and buy a property in your preferred area?

No we definitely can't rent out sadly, don't have enough equity.

Also we'd still have to pay the fee if letting out, as we'd be switching to another mortgage.

Be careful about moving into rented just before an application deadline. Some parents move short distances to rented accommodation to be closer to a better school and councils are now investigating this when you apply.

We'd move a few months before hopefully. If we decide to do this I'll be putting the flat on the market in the next month. They tend to go quite fast in this area.

Have you asked your lender if you can rent it out? If you tell them circumstances are changing temporarily they sometimes allow it. Eg. Job move or something similar.

I was given 3 years permission for a temporary job move and didn't remortgage

I feel I don't want the hassle of tenting tbh. We'd have to find money to pay a property company as well plus the risk of not finding renters and still having to pay the mortgage.

Don’t primary schools keep places for children that have moved into area after the deadline? Admittedly it’s very many years since I had anything to do with schools.

No Llot. Only for an extra month or so.

We can't risk getting into a school you need to drive to as I am unable to drive for medical reasons.