To sell or not to sell? To rent or not to rent?

[ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged]

I'll be starting a new job in the Lakes in January so we need to move about 200 miles. We only bought our current home a year ago so are trying to decide whether to sell it or rent it out. Anyone had any experience of relocating? What did you decide to do? Why?

Thanks!

We relocated from Surrey to Shropshire, rented out our home and rented in Shropshire and then looked around at different areas etc. I would def consider renting first, rental Market is strong at the mo.

We have sold our house, and will be renting (move from Yorkshire to Kent). I think renting in new area is definitely the way to go but as to whether to sell your house now or not, that's a harder decision. Depends what you think the market will do in the next few years, and how stable your job is (will you ever want to come back?). We prefer a clean break, and were lucky we sold our house very quickly (in time for DS to start reception), and it means we are chain-free when it comes to buying a new property, which is probably worth a few K discount on whatever house we offer on.

We have friends nearby who rented out their house to relocate and moved into rented. They want to settle here and buy, so gave their tenants notice and started to market their house for sale. For about 6 months, they were trying to sell their house (all the time paying the mortgage with no rental income). No interest. They even put their house into auction but it didn't meet the reserve (and not a greedy reserve by the way - they accept they have lost the £50K equity they put into the house when they bought it (top of market) but selling it for anything less than the reserve meant they would still owe on the mortgage!). So they have now put their house back on to rent, and had no interest in 4 weeks (although I understand the rental market is very slow at the moment in that area so hopefully will pick up in September). So for the last 6 months or so, they've 'wasted' about £10K trying to sell their house, and they are unable to put down any 'roots' here for the foreseeable future, and have to remain in their rented house. It's that kind of headache and stress which makes me glad we were able to sell when we did.

Thank you .... food for thought. We were originally planning to rent and rent so that we could keep our options open - potentially move back if we weren't happy in new location, check out new area without committing to buying, etc, etc.

The more I think about it though, the more I want a clean break. I don't really want moving back to be an option; I want to be fully commited to making it work up there. If we don't sell I think I'll worry about being able to rent this place out (definitely can't afford rent and mortgage) and if we came to sell later I'd worry about trusting tenants to get everything spick and span for viewings.

Selling here and renting there would be an option, but I bloody hate moving so it would just be putting off the inevitable wouldn't it?

Plus, I've been doing some Rightmove drooling and discovered that properties to buy in our new area are MUCH nicer than properties to rent.

Hm, have I just answered by own question?!