Please help me articulate this point to my stubborn DH!!

[Austereorange]

I need help explaining to my DH that his ‘bright idea’ doesn’t work.

We are on the market and not having much luck. Agent says it might be because the area isn’t as good as it once was (I don’t want to go into why, but let’s run with that). He says if we don’t bottom out our price and get rid quickly we will be stuck. I do also desperately want to move.

He is slightly older than me and therefore only has 10 mortgageable years left. I have 20.

We want to make a considerable leap now, which we can afford to do, out of the area entirely. We want to do this in the stamp duty exemption window.

He says if no one is biting for ours we need to drop our price hugely, get a buyer, get out and do a side step into a (for arguments sake) saleable equivalent house to the one we have now. Then buy upwards. He is proposing this all happens within the next 6 months.

I have pointed out the double moving costs, solicitors, removals, agents etc and he argues that it doesn’t matter - it’s moving us sideways then up.

In my head it makes more sense to drop the price and move, still moving upwards, and ploughing all that duplicate expenditure into the move. 2 lots of costs would be more than the amount we drop the house price by....so that makes no sense whatsoever to me?

Please help me to articulate what a daft idea this is - I can see no merit in it at all - or am I missing something?

What’s his argument for why that makes sense? Does he think you can make a profit on the sideways moved house? Or can’t you find a step up one that you want to buy?

His argument is entirely around ‘getting rid’ (it’s not that bad for goodness sake, seriously!) he cannot see we spend twice on things like fees and moving costs - he says the only we we ‘get rid’ is to ‘give it away’ - in which case I suggest we do that anyway (in context it would be a £20k drop) but 2 moves would cost us an additional £10k so it’s just not worth it!

I can’t advise as I don’t know why you want to move this time, other than you desperately want to move.
I suspect that one of you once liked this home enough to buy it.
I don’t know what you want to achieve, what your “leap upwards” is for, and now long you would stay in that property if you think income into you household will drop in 10 years. I don’t know the ages of your household and if that means dc will be leaving home in a few years.
I do know that as I age I am more risk adverse.
Could you spell out the ongoing (annual costs like mortgage) and transaction costs (removals, agents, duties) vs salary and pension incomes? Lay it all out there?

We have two options we like, yes, so that’s not an issue.

You need to sit down together with a spreadsheet and work it out. It's obvious to us that you'd pay twice for everything but maybe he needs to see it in black and white.

If you buy a house and then sell it within 6 months, your buyer's solicitor would have to report it to the buyer's mortgage lender for permission to proceed. It can be seen by lenders as a sign of mortgage fraud so they are cautious about it (not saying that's what you're doing!)

Just something to think about.

In both scenarios you sell your current house for less than you'd like, yes?

Option A) Find and buy a better house in a better area, which will cost more (you can afford this), stay there forever.

Option B) Find and buy an OK house in a better location, which would cost the same as your current place but wouldn't keep going down in value like your current house. Stay there only as long as it takes to find and buy your forever house.

This seems to be based on how easy he thinks it will be to find and complete on the forever house before stamp duty perks are closed down.

Have you found the forever house yet?

@OneEpisode - thanks - we want to move to a bigger plot in a less condensed area. We both love gardening. We want to move to a semi-rural location from inside the city. We don’t want a bigger house, just a bigger plot. We loved our house because it was affordable to us at the time. Since then I’ve had a small inheritance and both our careers have rocketed upwards, to the degree that even if one of us was out of work the other could still afford the new mortgage. DC are at home just starting high school, new semi-rural location is within walking distance to their school which our current house isn’t. We would not intend to move again (for at least 15 years minimum) as this isn’t a move to a unmanageable home for 2 people when the DC are potentially not there, just a different location.

@TorkTorkBam we have two options which tick all the boxes, yes.

If he thinks your current house is difficult to sell and 'wants rid' (and it sounds like he's not wrong), point out that a house you've owned for only a matter of months will also be difficult to sell, due to the mortgage requirements pointed out by someone else above, and also because buyers will be suspicious as hell about why you're selling so quickly. No one is going to believe that you bought it as a stop gap for a matter of months deliberately, despite that being the truth, because it's such a financially odd thing to do.

Yes, you need to sit down with him and go over the hypothetical numbers. Your way you leave room to drop the house even more if it doesn't sell at the reduced price. His you couldn't afford to do that and Di the extra sideways move (which I don't at all understand his motives for anyway tbh)

In both scenarios you sell your current house first, is that right?

Just a thought - have you checked whether you can benefit from the stamp duty thing more than once? There may be clauses in the small print, it might be worth investigating.

Otherwise, just imagine what it's like packing up a house to move, and all the hassle with agents, solicitors etc etc. Could you honestly face doing that twice within a few months? Because I certainly couldn't.

I'm confused.

Move out of A having dropped price by X.
Buy B. Sell B.
Buy C.

Move out of A having dropped price by X.
Buy C.

How does his plan make sense?

All really helpful points, thank you.

So you’re both agreed on reducing the price of the current place to sell it. After that step, what’s his actual argument for needing an intermediate purchase? What difference does he think it will make? He must have a reason?

@sleepingstandingup

Precisely! You’ve simplified it so much better than me. I felt like I was missing something

Does plan A involve holding out in the current house for longer in the hope of getting a better price?

While plan B involves selling seriously cheap for a quick sale but that will stop you buying the forever house immediately?

Sounds to me like his actual plan is to not upgrade. You'd move to house B with still low mortgage but in a better area then never leave, or not for a few years (even though he says you would).

The only thing I can think it's hes thinking seem quick as per advice and just get a reasonable house whilst you search for the perfect house and then sell the reasonable house.

Vs

Sell quick as per advice and rush into buying a large house that's ok but isn't perfect

@Climbingallthetrees because we are porting our mortgage to a new purchase with a big fee to end it early, and if we did an interim measure (like a rental) we’d have to pay that fee for a start.

Also because it’s not down to struggling to find something we like, it’s struggling to sell.

To be honest if we could part-ex onto a new build that was right then we would do that but they are the opposite of what we want - no walkability to school, no big plots, close together houses. It’s what we already have.

It’s all about the sale not the purchase.

I think we are better to drop it, move it, take the tiny hit in extending our lending (as I say it is WELL within affordability for us) rather than fart about doing it twice.

There are 2 ‘forever’ houses in the area you want to buy in that you could offer on, if your current house is sold - yes?

So you just need to drop the price and sell.

He’s being... odd.

Dear Husband, there's two perfect house for us. If we do what you suggest, we'll lose them. If we just sell and get out we can have one of them.

The end

You’ll lose out twice if you move to an interim place - once on the initial price drop to sell, and once on the extra buying/selling fees on interim house.

Meanwhile the market does ... something. Maybe goes up, maybe tanks. Your family is stressed out. And perhaps you lose the houses you like in the area you want.

Unless he can ‘show his workings’ in cold hard figures then nuh-uh no way would I agree.

@TorkTorkBam he wants the upgrade no I think he saw some value in sideways stepping as a means out of an area potentially in decline.

So your plan a wouldn’t work as he thinks house prices in our area won’t increase, if at all. Plan b wouldn’t work either as by the time we eventually moved on his mortgage ability will have dropped as he will have less years left till planned retirement so the increase at that time would mean heady monthly payments.

Big leap now gives the maximum time to pay that.