Rent out or sell - WWYD?

[EandA]

I have asked on here before about what we need to do to sell our flat. Now I need advice on whether or not we should rent it out instead.
DH has just got a job in Manchester. We are currently in London - so it's too far to go and regularly house hunt as we have kids.
With DS in school it is too short notice to be able to move for the new school year. The area we want to move to has a fast moving market and small catchment areas for schools so we need to move by the end of December (DH will go up earlier) so as to apply for reception for our DD.
I'm confident selling our current property would not be a problem (it's on a sought after street, as EAs say) but we didn't want to sell and rent so had decided to rent the flat out for a year. We would get enough rent to comfortably cover the mortgage and contribute to paying the rent of any property up north.

I've had a couple of letting agents round and although the work they suggested needs doing (bit of decluttering and getting in some furniture) would not be too expensive or time consuming I am wondering if it would be worth it for a year. We are not planning to rent up north for longer than that and are not interested in letting it out longer term. We will also need the capital from selling it to buy a home up north.
It would mean very little opportunity to house hunt though. I am torn - opinions welcome!

Seriously for the short term you are talking about I would sell your place and rent yourselves while looking for somewhere as a permanent home in the Manchester area. Letting your home out isn't easy or stress free. Being miles away, even if someone else is managing it, is far from ideal when you are an inexperienced landlord.

With the sale proceeds in the bank you would be in an excellent position to buy in a fast-moving market.

what wowfudge said. (Again!)

you do have to go into rental for a while, sorry. Sell your place, lose the hassle, gain the money and then house-hunt as dream buyers.

ideally get somewhere big enough that you don't have to store too much of your furniture.

Move to Manchester and rent while looking for houses there. Meanwhile sell in London.

Anything else is just too much hassle.

If you sold up now you'd have the advantage of being able to move quickly when buying your next property. Trying to coordinate sale, rental and purchase would be tricky as would managing a rental from a distance.

I think you're all right. If we were planning to rent out longer term it would make no sense but I have visions of myself fretting for the next year about the work we will have to do to sell it on in after a year of it being rented out.
Time to call the EAs back and find out what we need to do to sell!

LIZS I think we will try and buy, if time allows. DH is going to move up at the start of September and stay with a friends so in theory could do viewings in the evenings and me and the kids visit at some weekends.

Do you know Manchester? There are lots of MNers on here who live in the NW, who can give you advice, but I think buying immediately without having "road tested" an area (by renting) is quite brave. I'd be wary of making an expensive mistake.

We were in a similar position some years ago, we sold up and rented here and actually bought a little way away from where I'd thought we'd buy. I'm so glad we rented - I also think we only got the house we wanted because we were chain free and could move quickly. The market is going crazy here - things moving very quickly so if you're trying to co-ordinate a simultaneous sale and purchase, when you're not local, it may prove tricky.

The only caveat to that is to check out the rules for the LA you're looking for your child to go to school in. In my LA, if you are renting, you have to have at least a 12 month tenancy.

Sell the London flat unless you intend to go back soon.

Then rent in Manchester without the pressure of 'having to buy'. Get to know the place before committing to a particular area.

I rented for 30 years and moved around a lot - it really is the sensible thing when you are young.

Ha ha special - I've just added a thread about relocation myself. DP mentioned 'we could rent our house out' and I was thinking no way Jose! Done it before and don't want to do it again.

mandy214 we know the area but not very well. We have to fix on a fairly small area because school catchments are small and the market seems to move fairly fast so like you renting would put us in a better position. When you talk about tenancies do you mean you have to the show the LEA that you have taken out a 12 month tenancy - presumably to stop people renting for three months to get in somewhere?
MoreBeta despite the misgivings of friends who think we are nuts to get out of the London market altogether our plan is to sell and never come back - we won't be able to afford to! I want a decent sized house and with only one earner on the mortgage to get that we have to sell our current place.
We will miss out financially a bit by selling now and renting but the EAs seemed to agree with me that the market is calming down and the year on year value increases seen a few years ago have stopped.
wowfudge why would you not rent out your house again? I suppose what worries me about renting this place out is a) it won't feel like we have really made the move permanent without selling it and b)
the risk that we will have to fork out to get it done up after it's been rented out as even good tenants don't take immaculate care of a property.

This is my LA's rules regarding applying for a school place if you are moving into the area

"If you move into or within XXX, you must provide proof of your removal into the area and of the disposal of your previous home. The minimum requirement will be proof of exchange of contracts or a copy of a signed rental agreement (minimum 12 months)."

Otherwise, the LA will treat your previous / former home as the "permanent" address. We had to provide copy of 12 month tenancy agreement and completion statement (with copy of the Land Registry) to show we had disposed of previous house 50 miles away.

I wouldn't rent a place out again because it's stressful - even when you have a good tenant who pays the rent on time and looks after it. If anything goes wrong you have to be ready to pay the mortgage so it limits what you can do in your own place.

We only rented it out because we couldn't sell at the time when we needed to move.

Agents are variable to say the least. I had to sack them as them as they nearly lost us the tenant.

I don't want the worry of being responsible for someone else's home as well as my own.

Well DH and I had a chat last night and decided we will sell up and rent so that's just a flat I have to keep immaculate for selling then pack up while solo parenting for three months! But wowfudge I think you're right I think I would find renting out our current place too stressful and we need to concentrate on getting to know the area and getting the kids settled.

mandy214 Thanks for the tip I've checked with the LEA that we are moving to and they don't have that rule, you just need proof of tenancy so obviously we need to rent somewhere in good time. That might be the tricky bit; family homes don't seem to come up for rent very often.

OP - pay extra for a full packing service with the removals company. It doesn't cost much more and is worth every penny.

I would say sell and rent in Manchester while you get feel for area. UNLESS you think you may want to move back to London in the future in which case get in long term tenant