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

Living over the job had its drawbacks, but it certainly allowed us to climb the housing ladder, to set ourselves up for retirement and to help the children out.
We rented out our houses and very quickly came to see wherever we were living as our home.

It also came with significant other benefits over and above no bills at all. On tap support from kind, slightly older people like site managers and secretaries who were happy to babysit, knit and sew, put up climbing frames, mend punctures or collect an unwell child from school. The places we’ve lived gave us free and private access to tennis courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, park areas, pianos for music practice, semi-industrial laundry facilities and many more fu things
I wouldn’t dismiss it too rapidly.

I don't think he understand the realities and risks of being a landlord

many people don't. That's the problem. I'm a veteran of house shares and friends who are landlords and have seen so many lls who are completely out of their depth and completely incompetent in running a house.

Have seen some very bad tenants too and lls who completely didn't safeguard themselves against them. Example a ll who allowed tenants to move in without collecting deposits, didn't have an electricity/gas meter and the tenants ran the bills into 1000s and fled. Just watch that chanell 5 show and you will see the realities landlords face.

As said up thread too many people go into it without proper research done on it. I know a couple who bought a btl and they had to give it up after about 2 years as they said the taxes were huge etc and they hadn't properly understood how much work was in it and how little you actually make.

No one's right or wrong here

I disagree here in that op's husband thinks it's a ''passive income...a free pension'' and has done no research into being a landlord and appears to be naive to the realities of it. His reasons are right but his perceptions are all wrong.

I'm changing my mind OP, originally I said "go for it".

I'd ask you H to make the financial case. Lay it out in a table to show the difference it would make.

This...

Has your OP actually presented realistic figures to you??

Or is it all 'pie in the sky', /'it will set us up for life' thinking with no clear drawn up figures?

I know a very decent 'good' local landlord, she owns two flats and a shop.... She showed me her profit.... The profit was tiny... After she paid tax /running repairs/fees to agent (even though she does a lot of it herself) /fees for fire alarms /all the health & safety laws she had to keep up to date.

What amount is your husband proposing will 'set you up for life' and is worth all theu disruption?

This.....

Excellent advice from Rafferty10!

If you took professional advice-your OH plans may be blown out of the water.... It mau be a good way of stopping this plan in its tracks?

Not saving in your current position is foolish. You have no idea what the future holds and this current crisis is evidence of that. I think your H is overselling the financial benefits and you are overestimating your financial security.

think you both need to really start planning for the future and it doesn’t feel as if you d

I wouldn't do it.
You might as well sell your house if he plans on staying long term, and I wouldn't be prepared to give up somewhere I loved to save money that wasn't necessary, and could be made by saving on holidays etc. It also doesn't sound as though he would want to move back again once he was in there. Plus the added stress of moving, both out initially, and then back again, potentially with the need to completely redecorate the house to put it back how you want it. Moving twice in a short space of time is not fun.

OK, so I did this 3 years ago ( slightly more complicated) and rented our house out to provide us with more of a pension.

You can apply for consent to let from the mortgage company rather than changing it to buy to let immediately as someone suggested. I'm sure you probably know that, it's just for others reading.

It's amazing how soon you 'forget' the previous house and get used to somewhere else. I had lived in my house for over 20 years! The move was positive for me in other ways though, as it was a totally different area.

It doesn't have to be forever. You could do it for a few years and save a lump sum.

A btl can be a fantastic pension pot however that is when you sell it to cash in the increase in equity which this isn't. You would be living there again. In your case either way you can sell at that point and have the same money. The question is how much will you save over the time, allowing for voids, tenants not paying, tenants destroying the property.

My neighbours rented theirs out however it was a nightmare and they sold up after losing thousands

Renting out one house doesn’t make as much as it does on paper.

Our last tenants left enough damage that it’s wiped out any profit since they moved out 5 months ago... well between that and safety checks, marketing fees and stuff like paying for heating repairs recently. To be clear, they didn’t trash it, just left more damage than we’d have expected given how long they were there. That’s with redecorating and what have you ourselves as well.

It’s only worth it for us to do (longterm) because the house we’re letting out isn’t mortgaged. If it was, the rent wouldn’t have covered it and we’d have been paying the shortfall since June.

I did it then retired in my 40s.

We have had long term tenants, but they are looking to buy, and honestly I’m tempted to sell when they leave, and upgrade to a nicer house. The only benefit is the house itself going up in the background for when you sell, NOT the rent. Unless you are a “big” landlord with 20 - 100+ properties.

I would do it. Financial security is important; sometimes you have to suck it up.

If he's worried about the mortgage then i would make some cutbacks now and overpay the mortgage. If you're already overpaying to the maximum you're allowed, put that money into a savings account and use it to pay a chunk off when you come to remortgage. I wouldn't move. You can afford your current lifestyle and there's there's plenty you could cut back on if things get tight, or you could increase your hours at work.

I'd do it OP but not forever just when the kids are young to build up savings. To be honest it doesn't sound like you're both great with money- your income is average for two of you but it sounds like you have a lot of outgoings (£300 car, don't skimp on luxuries, bit mortgage, no savings, and you're about to go on mat leave doesn't sound amazing to be honest. And then even if you go back full time you've got the costs of childcare for two). How are you ever going to save otherwise?

If you do decide to go for it for a time, factor in professional decorators / recarpeting your current house, storage if you are not renting it out furnished or want to protect anything special (if there is no space to take it in), managing agents fees, landlord insurance etc