Rent or buy

[readytosell]

Just want to see what other people are doing or thoughts.

I was planning originally to sell my place and then rent for a while before buying onwards. After a chain collapse previously, it would make things easier. Plus I'm planning to move over 100 miles to somewhere I know fairly well, but not all of the little suburbs. Give myself a bit of time to see where I'd really like to live.

But with so little on the market, and the market pretty hot in the area I want to buy (Leeds) I'm really nervous about doing so.

I don't want to waste time / money renting only for house prices to shoot up and still nothing much being available. I'm thinking buying a house of convenience for the next 3-4 years might be a better option, so at least still paying a mortgage instead of rent and give myself time to settle in.

Who knows I might be lucky and find the right house fairly swiftly, but not feeling hopeful at the moment!

An estate agent valued ours today and actually recommended that we wait to sell - or sell and rent. He said they’re expecting a drop once furlough stops, stamp duty holiday etc and recession kicks in. At the moment there’s a rush with people trying to get mortgages which will apparently become more difficult.

He reckons it’s highly unlikely that prices will rise after June.

That's really interesting. I've just been reading this morning that Knight Frank have upped their estimates from 1 per cent to 4 per cent growth this year!

Obviously nobody has a crystal ball but it's really hard to know what is best to do.

Have you made any decision on what you might do?

I think it depends on the situation with what you want to buy.

For what we want (a family house in a certain area) the competition is such there’s no point unless you are chain free. We are in rental, even though it meant swallowing early redemption on mortgage offer. we couldn’t even get a rental with a 6 month break.

I made my decisions by stopping reading the property price predictions. If it were that easy to accurately predict what will happen in the property market, everyone would be property millionaires. Buying is a leap and you'll not know for a good while whether it was a sound decision or not - it's such a lot of money and it's hard to know what to do for the best. So I've always just done what suited me best at that current time and tried not to think too much about predictions.

My inclicnation is very much to buy, even if it means compromising. The thought of renting and double moving has really lost its appeal.

Sounds like my mind is made up?!

I would definitely rent. You would then be in a very strong position to buy as opposed to other buyers. However, I wouldn't buy just for the sake of it with a plan to sell in 3/4 years. That could work out very expensive indeed and if the market does dip you would be hit hard. Rent and look for somewhere you can live in for at least 7-10 years if you can.

I don't think you can second guess the market, who knows what will happen (but I think it very unlikely it will suddenly shoot up). Put yourself in a strong position to get what you actually want for the longer term.