Would you sell London flat?

[myboysarethebest]

We have a 3 bedroom flat in London. Good area in West London.

We are looking to move out of the city for more space, and originally planned to rent out the flat and rent in the new area we are moving to.
Now...I have found a house that I love in the new area which is the same price as our flat (bit less actually).
So we could sell one to move into the other.

The sensible part of me is saying - no rent first.
But I'm also keen to just sell, do the move, not have the hassle of renting out our property. Nor the hassle of renting and then having to move again we when do eventually buy.

I have had EA around the flat and i'm told that it will sell pretty easily due to it's location and finish. (ready to move into with loft potential for those wanting to value add)

Tell me what you think.....

id like to live somewhere mortgage free - that would be appealing to me

I sold my flat and wished I had rentedit out as could have sold it gor £30,000 more at least. That was 12 years ago though.

Work out what it will cost you in money, time and effort to rent and weigh that up with the convenience of it being sold and having a lump sum that is not an ongoing income.

I'd sell.

But I'd only sell if I was going to buy. I wouldn't sell to then rent.

We wouldn't sell if we were not going to buy.
If we rent to rent - then we will do the move and then look to buy (so that could cost quite a bit - moving costs/tax on rent etc)
A sell to buy seems like the easier option.
It's just losing our safety net of the london flat to come back to or to keep long long term as an investment.
(We do still have another london property which will never be sold - is work/residence. So if all goes belly up we still have our foot in the london market.

Can you tell I'm swaying towards selling - trying to justify it all through these posts!

Forget to say we wouldn't be mortgage free - just selling one and transferring it to a new one.
But a bigger place with a garden.

Now, I was going to sugest buying the house you want, and a buy to let in London so you you still have something to fall back on (not that you really need it) but you say would still have a property in London! Perfect.

Prices might drop in the rest of the country but not much in london. So moving from london to another place will be more profitable later on. Maybe??

But...Nothing is certain and if you like the new place. Plus, renting out is hassle and will need repairs if you sell next year.

Sorry i probably confused you more.

We have the same dilemma as the OP! But going up North not staying in the South.

Have decided to sell the London flat (also in West London, OP!) just because I can't be doing with either the hassle of dealing with tenants or the high % of rent that an agent would take. Also can't be bothered with a rental property that will have to be re- decorated on a fairly regular basis as tenants don't necessarily keep properties in good order.

We've just decided to sell our London flat (also West London) after renting it out for 5 years.

Took the decision for very similar reasons to MrToad as we have had to redecorate the property/mend/replace kitchen cabinets at the end of each tenancy, hassles with tenants, expensive letting agents costs etc etc. I'm a bit sick of putting in good quality fixtures & fittings only to have them trashed in months. We've had enough. Going to invest in something else.

EA say the market is still good in West London, we'll see. Good luck

Sell if you can. Renting is a costly hassle and return on capital now is so low in London it's not worth doing. (I don't think prices in London are going anywhere for a long long time)

do you know if you can rent out your current flat? many mortgages don't allow it, and special buy-to-let mortgages are higher interest, with all sorts of start up fees/conditions. even if you check the paperwork on your current mortgage, the terms may have changed - we had that happen as we were in the process of renting out, had even had a letter of approval, then 'oops, no, sorry' and the mortgage co threatened to call in our loan!

sit down & do the maths - work out how much each option will cost you, then see if that affects how you feel.

Letting is a hassle, especially if you can't manage the property yourself and have to pay extortionate fees to an agency who will charge you every time the tenant calls them out over some minor (and often unnecessary) query. I'd sell and leave the rental option as Plan B is you can't sell.

It is a hassle selling property with a tenant in situ. Sell and then you could rent and get to know the area so you are a cash buyer. Lot to be said for not being in a chain at the moment.

I'd go the other way. Rent out the London property and rent for a while in the new location.

I love London though.

Once you sell in London and buy elsewhere it's hard to go back - I would keep the property until you are sure it's a move you are happy with.

Why would it be hard to get back? Presumably, if you have the money you can do so at any time. Unless you're thinking of moving back in your own flat if things don't go well.

I'd sell.

DH is adament that we are not selling :(

So I have no choice really. I do see it will be good investment to hold onto in the future but I would like to have the 'nicer' home outside of london now

If you have property in London I'd suggest you try to keep it. A friend of mine bought a flatin Twickenham for £27k in her early twenties, it seemed like a huge amount of money to both of us then. I bought a house for a bit less in Walthamstow which I sold when I got married. My friend stayed in her flat and eventually bought a place in Edinburgh for very little about 10 years later and rented out her Twickenham flat until the mortgage was paid off, when she sold for.... £485k ... which is nicely funding a very early retirement for her. I'm not totally geriatric, by the way.

And rental prices are at a boom in London at the moment - there were tales in the paper of gazumping and sealed bids on rentals. Crazy, but it it were me I'd rent it out.

Keep your London flat If you can your dh is right and agree with BoBoo it's a landlords market out there! after 2 bad experiences with EA's I resorted to letting out my pre dh London flat by myself! Last tenants in for 2 half years, this time new tenants were 2nd people to view before they ran down the street to get me the cash holding deposit! I advertised on gumtree and had so much interest and Ea's kept calling even though i had NO agents on my ad offering to cover their fees with higher rent etc etc! They all seemed desperate! I used checkmytenant.co.uk (tenants pay from holding deposit) to do the full reference checks!

I'd sell. I wish we'd sold our house when we moved overseas. Renting is stressful and expensive, and unless you are in a prime rental area with a known shortage of your sort of property then it's a gamble as to whether you will be able to rent quickly and at the price you want.

Our house (with new carpets, curtains and paint) has been trashed by tenants that on paper looked fine. We've had to pay large management fees and it feels like we have to pay for all sorts of repairs and changes that I wouldn't have otherwise done (some because of tenant neglect). In return I get photos of my gradually trashed house, and there is apparently nothing I can do but hope that I'll get some of the deposit back (not that it woudl be enough to cover repairs). Luckily we'd not lived there long so I wasn't emotionally attached to it. We'll probably make a loss.

On the other hand my sister (same situation) rented very quickly at a good price and has no problems at all, but it is a significant risk I think.