My Husband bought a house a few years before we met, and over the years we have tried to sell it (we never ended up having children so it is just us in a four bed house that is way too big for just us) it is in a rural area with one tiny shop around the corner and the nearest town is around 12 miles away. Each time it has been on the market it did not sell, no offers, hardly any viewings etc, as an example, the last time it was up on the market it was valued at 140k, we reduced the price to 90k to get a quick sale and it still didn't sell. (Not looking to make a profit at all, just wanted to clear the mortgage so we could start again and couldn't even do that) Also looked into one of the "we buy any house" places and they ended up offering 40k.
When the recession hit we both got made redundant, and had to claim jobseekers, it ended up taking almost a year to find work, we got so behind on the bills/mortgage that we almost lost the house, we are still trying to catch up with everything, we just can't afford to live here anymore, once all the bills/food are paid and petrol to get to work for the month we have nothing left.
The house now needs stuff doing to it, all cosmetic such as decorating, new carpets etc and we would need to do all this before getting it back on the market, but we simply can't afford it, things always come up, like we only got paid last week and then the home heating oil ran out so already thats £200 down this month.
My family seem to think we can just walk into the bank, hand them the keys and skip off into the distance without a second thought, but we are trying to think realistically and do this right.
Someone else said we might be able to transfer the mortgage to a smaller property, is this possible?
If we stay here we will lose the house anyway, what options do we have?