Moving to a much cheaper area (but no job)

[OfUselessBooks]

Sorry I wasnt quite sure what to call this thread.

We live on the outskirts of London. Looking at what similar properties are on the market for in our area, we could have £180k of equity in our house. Houses in the small northern town I grew up in where my parents live start at around 130k and in the nice area from 180.

I've just lost my job. Husband is low paid and long term it will be difficult to stay in our house as I'm unlikely to get another job in my profession for a while.

I have an idea we could sell and buy outright in my home town. My husband would have to give up his job so wed both be unemployed to begin with. And of course we would have estate agents and removal fees to pay. My redundancy would keep us for 18 months if need be unless we had to eat into it for moving expenses.

Is this all too tight? I'm frightened to stay here as we will end up using all our savings and being unable to pay the mortgage eventually. But if we sell...we will end up both out of work to start off with. And I'm worried it will go wrong somehow. It feels so scary either way. We live in, and are looking at, small 3 bed, 2 rooms downstairs semis so couldn't really downsize at all. What would you do?

Are there jobs in your profession in your home town? That would be the deciding factor for me.

It depends on whether you are prepared to take A job rather than THE job if things get tight financially.

Have you thought about what jobs you could do / get in the two areas? Are there jobs in the new area? Could you apply from a distance? How about looking to sell your house and then renting somewhere whilst you apply for jobs. Once you get them, you can look to buy. It might be that you should move out of London but not necessarily to the area you are looking at.

Sorry about the difficulties you're experiencing. Sounds like you're being pro-active and realistic about your options going forwards though.

To me, that sounds sensible as up north you will have family nearby too.

Could you afford a 4 bedroom house if you lived near parents in the northern town? If you were open to having a (well vetted) lodger then that could help with an extra income on the rent-a-room scheme. That might take some pressure off the job hunt in the short term - bearing in mind there's likely to be a recession and hard times approaching. Not everyone is ok with a lodger though, so depends on circumstances.

I also agree it's about whether you'd be willing to do any job to keep on top of expenses.

I think it’s a good idea to be proactive.

Realistically start looking at jobs up north being able to live mortgage free would be a real pull for most people.

You could even live a simpler life for a while and embrace change - could either of you set up a business?

I've been thinking about this also.

I have lots of equity (at the moment) but I can only work in a few cities as I work in a very niche market. I'd love to live in my home town and could be mortgage free.
Still need a job tho!

Sounds like a good plan, and depends so much on your age, family, schools and lifestyle?

Would you both be happier out of London? And like another poster said could you take any job?

If you are mortgage free it would be such a weight lifted you'd be able to retrain or change career if needed as well so it opens up lots of new opportunities for you both.

I feel we all need a reset and if you have family close that's as good a reason as any.

Good luck

I live in a great area on the outskirts of a Northern coastal resort. An estate agent friend said he's seen a huge demand in houses from families wanting to move from the South. I expected there to be a price crash but I think it will actually put up homes locally.

Thank you for the replies...at least no one has said I'm crazy!!

I am happy to do anything for a job right now. I love my career but there are so few jobs anywhere, it's in a sector where a lot of jobs are being lost. Down here, unless I am very lucky, I would most likely end up full time and not have that time with the kids. My old job was stressful but there hours were perfect. If I were to take a lower paid job here we would really struggle, whereas I could get any job up there and living and paying the bills would be easy. I'm sure we would find something. To be honest, for now, I just want something stress free, that fits in with the kids, and that pays for bills and food. To start off with we would be fine on one wage.

Everything seems so up in the air at the moment. I'm worried we might sell and then there won't be enough to buy out but we wouldn't get a mortgage to start off with as we wouldn't have jobs. And we couldn't rent as no income. But I guess we could move in with family for a while. Such a lot to think about and it's very scary to be taking such big decisions at such uncertain times.

Yes I think the mortgage issue is key. You could begin by getting estate agent valuations on your current home?

Tbh I wouldn’t If avoidable- only because I assume whilst not the perfect job it would be easier to find new work closer to London. In a recession the poorer parts of the country tend to suffer more. Don’t want to be nosey but it’s helpful to know what you do and what level of income you need

So your aim would be buy outright up there nearish to your family.
Hopefully oh getting a similarly low paid job and you accepting whatever job too?
It sound like a good idea in terms of you'd be keeping a roof over your head etc and cheaper rkcibg costs. And presumably worst case scenario, your outgoings would be so much lower so could move to benefits if had to, same as you would in London situation eventually if this continues?
My concerns would be:
Your husband enjoying the life up north and being so close to your family. Could that cause issues?
Looking at the underlying unemployment rate for the area. Under "normal" circumstances how high is it and how high was it during the crash a decade ago. That would give you an idea of how likely it is to find work.... And ideally, as you both currently have a job, I'd be applying for anything using your parents address maybe to see lie of the land and to try and secure a job for at least one of you before moving.
The only other consideration would be, would you rent your current home out if it didn't sell quickly? That is a potential spanner in the works ...

I would do it in a heartbeat. You would have no mortgage and you're happy to do any job.

Thank you for the replies.

I don't want to out myself too much, but I'm in an arts/heritage line of work. Quite specialised, but with a lot of transferable skills. We're not big earners - we both make around £1.5k roughly after tax and our current mortgage is around £1k. My work is part time and fits in very well around the children, so I would be lucky to get anything that works so well, or that is so well paid for my profession (it works out at around 40k fte, but it would be normal to get probably 30-35 on my line of work).

We would also be closer to husband's family if we moved. I think we could find work up there if we weren't too fussy - there are several big cities within driving distance and I wouldn't mind a bit of a commute as long as it were part time. There is a dream employer in my home town but not many jobs threat the moment! We would also have help with the children- it has long been a dream to be closer to our families but my now redundant job, with it's good pay, flexible hours and very interesting work has stopped us moving. Our children are still little enough to change schools fairly easily

It's really good to hear thoughts, and so hard to know what to do for the best. I suppose having the house valued is the next step. I suppose worst case scenario if we stay is that we lose our house as DH's wages plus benefits are not enough to pay the mortgage. Or that I end up having to take a job with more hours and we lose the quality of life we have at the moment. I am not fussed about money at all - as long as we can live and don't struggle, I have no desire to climb the career ladder any further. I want to work with nice people and do something useful and be at home as much as I can whole babies are small.

I will see what the value is and take it from there. X

Could you do nights perhaps at a Care home for around 6 months then you could apply to a the bank NHS which pays a lot better for nights & weekends.

If you don’t mind doing low-paid jobs and your husband is happy to move, then it sounds ideal in many ways. How old are the kids? Young enough not to kick up a fuss amputee relocating?

About not amputee!!!!

@OfUselessBooks

With your background could you go into teacher training? Would you be that way inclined?

There are loads of incentives to get new teachers into the profession, especially core subjects (mostly science and maths, but I believe English is in there too). I had a friend who had a Psychology degree and did a program where she actually converted to train as a Maths teacher - in her view Maths teachers have less marking than arts/humanities teachers lol. Point is - there are options. Generally, teachers are wanted/needed everywhere in the country. Teaching may work around the kids too - school holidays etc.

I would suggest doing some research into property prices in the Northern area. In some areas, you can buy lots more, compared to London

Also look outside your preferred area, you may find something that you had not considered before

Good luck

You'd need to look at the figures very carefully. House prices are stalling so you may not get what the valuation is worth - can you be confident it will sell quickly? Do you have enough money on top to pay for the estate agents fees, removal costs (these will probably be high if you're moving several hundred miles) and any bits in a new house ie; new carpets, curtains etc. Ideally, you'd move into a rental but I'd guess this would be tricky with no income or jobs lined up.

You could rent yours out and move in temporarily with your parents whilst job hunting. Once you've got jobs, you could rent yourselves. However, being a landlord is hard with lots of responsibilities and costs. Your mortgage would hopefully be covered though and then you could take your time looking for the right property to buy.

I'd go for it? Have you considered perhaps running your own business? I've used Lockdown to retrain as a bookkeeper and am using previous background ( law) to start my own business offering services. I live in an area with lots of small business owners and self employed and fingers crossed doing lots of mates rates stuff for people, which is for more than I was earning before now if I can just find some fecking childcare...

Thank you for the thoughts. A house similar to ours has just sold for around 390k... as long as we got 350 we could do it so there is a bit leeway. I have just booked in 2 valuations, there's no harm in it afterall.

I'm not sure what to do in the future. Something in schools is definitely something I'd be interested in, although the immediate priority would have to be getting money in rather than training. I'm not sure that I have the right kind of character to be self employed, although I could look into it. I don't think we could move without having a sale agreed though as there is too much potential for it to go wrong if we lost tenants. I think it will sell though, the area we live on is cheap compared to surrounding areas and very well located. We're also very close to a station into central london in 15/20 minutes too. The house across the road has sold extremely quickly, although I'm wary of the situation changing at the moment.

I definitely need to get together all of the figures, especially moving and sales fees.i guess all we can do is try - ifthe figures don't stack up then we stay put, but we have to give it a go I think. X

You don't have to decide anything for cetain at this stage. You're getting a valuation which is great, and you and your husband can start job hunting up there right now.

You aren't actually commited to anything until you accept an offer on your house, or accept a job offer.

I say you continue down this path and see what happens. The fact that you could be mortgage free would hugely tempt me!

I would do it so you are mortgage free. You can live in very little so long as there is a roof over your head - mortgage free would enable this. As others have said you could feasible survive on benefits if it came to it knowing the ‘roof’ was paid for. So long as debts do not start to rack up, you would be ok.
I would check the costing of selling and moving and look at the local job market to see if you a) can get a new job in any sector and b) they are a job you could do without really resenting having to do it because that’s all there is. No point in looking at care work if you don’t have the stomach for it or could survive on a potential zero hours contract.

Sounds like it is a good market where you are so I think I'd go for it. Start putting in job applications now - maybe start by looking at local and nearby Council jobs.