Husband wants to rent our house out and I don't

[inappickle]

Really clashing with my husband about this and we just have such different opinions I’m not sure what to do. Financially we’re ok, he makes out it’s very doom and gloom and we do have a big mortgage but we earn £68k between us and I’m only working 3 days a week, we have an expensive car (£300 a month) and we don’t budget or skip on luxuries so we do have ways in which we could cut back, as well as extra earning potential if I was too go back full time if needed. We have a young child who has been in an expensive private nursery and another baby due soon.

My husband has an opportunity for us to live at his work, it’s secure employment and the accommodation is nice (nowhere near as nice as our current house) and in a nice area I will give it that we wouldn’t need to drive as much and would be walking distance to kids school etc. He is desperate to do so, it’ll cost us half the price of our mortgage inclusive of bills and he wants to live there and rent our house out. He says it’ll pay for our retirement and set us for life. I hate the idea of someone else living in my house, we designed it ourselves and it’s my home. I hate the idea of living somewhere that isn’t ours again. I hate the idea of living where he works so he never switches off. This is our family home we worked so hard to build and I don’t want to leave. He also talks about renting it out at what he could realistically get for it but it’s more than our mortgage and I feel like it’s just being part of the problem and ripping off people that need housing.

I want to enjoy our lives now, but he’s so set on sorting ourselves out ‘for life’ and that our retirement would be sorted we’d be able to travel and save up loads in the mean time and it all just seems too far fetched and at too big a cost

Who’s right here? Am I being too attached to the house and possibly missing a good opportunity or is he just getting caught up in this idea that being a private landlord will set him for life when it isn’t realistically that straightforward

Looking round the financial situation of my friendship group who are mainly between 50 and 62 but an overall range from 42 to 80. The difference between their retirements or retirement plans is so vast.

Depending on tax implications I know I would seriously consider it for 5 to 10 years. So many people I know are facing a really bleak retirement. There seems to be no people in the middle, it’s either life of Riley or people with zero provision.

I have had similar conversations with my other half in recent months. He was very keen to move & would have some additional benefits other than just financial, We have an option to go into housing provided by his work if we want to & the outgoing costs for this are significantly lower than that of our current home.
However we have come to the conclusion that whilst we can afford to live comfortably where we are we aren't going to move. If in the future money becomes tight then we will reassess (but I know that's a luxury where we can change our minds further down the line).
Once I looked into all the tax implications and other fees involved the amount we'd be earning from it didn't become as appealing. Don't get me wrong it's still big figures each year we could make but having the comfort of my own home in a place where we went out of our way to save for & hunt down the perfect house - im not rushing to leave it for the sake of some extra money we don't desperately need.

Yes. Your work rental will be a benefit in kind
You will be high rate tax payer/s as a result probably
Tax is paid on total rental income (more or less- some deductions but not loads) not the profit (you get some allowance based on basic tax rate but none on higher)

Yes. Compound interest.

If its a hotel or pub then no I wouldn't live in with kids unless it was a seperate house on the grounds

Renting out your home for a few years is not going to 'set you up for life'. If your mortgage is, say, £2000 and your new rented accommodation would be £1000. You technically would come out ahead by £1000 a month, taking into consideration estate agent fees and repairs/re-decorating due to wear and tear, you might come out with £10,000 a year. That's perhaps being generous. So after 3-5 years, £30-50K. Again, that's probably being generous as don't account for moving costs (out and back in) and periods when the property may be empty.

You'd likely be better off cutting back on spending now, putting that money aside for a year or so, purchasing a buy to let when the market and interest rates stablise a bit, and letting that tick over for the next 30 years. You get to enjoy your house and you sell up at retirement age, and will almost certainly have made more than £30-50K even with interest earned on the initial rental income.

You need to sit down and write out the financial implications, and the emotional ones.
If it’s going to make you money it’s probably worth it. But..and it’s a big but..I would insist on making the rental place feel like home - that would be my condition and some kind of agreement if he will work more hours if he lives at his work place.
Also will you self manage when you are landlords or pay a company to do this - there are + and - for both options. Also if tenants don’t pay their rent it’s difficult and expensive to get them out.

Give it a go for a year and change your mind if it doesn't work out?

This issue entirely aside Op

what is your marriage generally like?

The laws around eviction wouldn’t apply to you. If you have lived in a property for more than two years before you can move back in.

I’d jump at this and did. It set us up for life and the money paid our mortgage off.

If he looses his job for any reason ( and really, anyone can get sick, for example), you could/would loose your home and might not be able to move back into your own house.

That’s a mad thjng to write 🤣 if he loses his job either way they can’t pay the mortgage, at least this way they have savings to tide them over. Renting your house doesn’t mean you can’t get it back. You give notice lol

Why on earth does he think tourism is safe. Even within the Welsh government they sacked so many. Shut down so many

this..most BTL landlords will tell you that it’s hard to make money from rental income itself, most gain comes from capital appreciation. Do the sums assuming a void month per year, agents’ fees, a % for maintenance, tax on rental income and think about the demand on your time when you get a call at midnight to say the boiler is broken or the roof is leaking…or you could pay out more for someone else to manage these in the first instance but you will still have to make decisions on what action to take such as repair/replace.

You’re setting yourself up to need to put away way more money to get the same pension income by delaying.

Also, you can’t take for granted that you will be able to save for the future when you’re a bit older. What happened to me isn’t that uncommon. I was permanently and totally disabled at age 39. Poof! Seconds is all it took for me to lose 25yrs worth of work life and ability to save for old age. However, I had been socking away 15% of gross income since I started proper work at age 24. So at least I had fifteen years of saving done. That pension pot, I haven’t been able to add a penny to it. But that money is sitting there and growing. It will not be anywhere near what I was aiming for, but it will be a help for my DH and I. I also had long term disability insurance…which pays me a modest monthly income.

Means I have more income than I would on UC.

My son in law rents his old uni flat out, and he doesn't cover the costs most years. With ongoing damage, repairs and maintenance as well as the agency fees, it balances out the increasing equity so he's decided to sell as soon as he's able (issues with cladding on exterior of building but it's due to be replaced in the New Year). Renting isn't for the faint hearted especially if you ever wanted to move back to the house.

I do understand how you feel OP. I never thought I could leave my favorite house but I did. I think about it sometimes but not often.

It has been quite rough as we moved and it was horrific and then we moved again and we will move again soon hopefully. But what it has taught me is that homes really are just bricks.

I would try it and see if you like it?

If he's in Wales or Scotland, rents are being frozen landlords expected to lower EPC rating on properties. Has he seen the new rules, you won't be able to raise rent or evict tenants. And don't think England won't follow. Small landlords are selling up. Overseas investors are buying up because local council can't touch them.

If it is nice accommodation in an area you would like to live in, then I would absolutely do it. Sounds like a good financial idea to me.

I am an accidental landlord and it's a pain.
Have a great tenant (doesn't want to buy the house) but it's the tax returns that do my head in. And I make up the shortfall between the rent and mortgage. This is not a money spinner!

Being a landlord isn't a free pension - far from it.

You would have to change your mortgage - not easy at the moment
You will need to pay for insurance, safety certificates, local council registrations
you will have to pay for the upkeep of the fabric of the house - boilers, windows, plumbing
if you are renting with furniture and domestic appliances, you will need to pay for replacements
you will have the hassle of tenants contacting you about repairs
and when you come to the point when you want to move back in to the house, you may have to go to court to enforce eviction.
Above a certain amount of rental income you will have to submit tax returns and pay tax - probably not a lot - but again your time, worry & effort

Many tenants complain bitterly about amateur and 'accidental' landlords and many amateur and 'accidental' landlords realise they got into something they have very little knowledge of and it can cost them dear in ££ and time.

Get your DH thinking through these points - I'm sure there are others. He needs to check out his legal responsibilities before booking to removers.

Realistically how much would you save by doing this compared to how much you could save by cutting back?

Could you really rent the house out for enough to make it worthwhile?

Plus cover the mortgage, bills etc if there's no tenant?

Would the work tenancy really be secure?

I'm kind of wondering why it has been offered to someone who already has their own home!

Two things to check is that the morgage may only allow you to rent for a year. Depending if you want to move to a BTL one. If you decide to move check the accommodation because it they can be very dull and impersonal. However, sounds like a great way to save money. You can tell him that you want to go for a period to seeing you like it. Like a year or two?

Tenant pays £600 pcm. Just had a new boiler installed £2320. Last year it was blown double glazed windows £1135 . There's always maintenance costs plus insurance. Leaking bath, sink, plumber call out another bill and we don't have a mortgage.

It is not. Just because a ll serves notice, the tenant doesn’t have to comply. Court and solicitor costs run into thousands. This can drag on for many months.