We've sold - buy or rent next?

[Kmez81]

So we sold our house a couple of weeks ago and are planning a relocation from the south west to shropshire. We want a particular town in Shropshire as its close (but not too close!) to my parents and a good selection of outstanding schools.

Our buyers are FTB and are happy to wait for us to find somewhere but ideally want to be in before Sept. This timescale works for us as we want to be in shropshire for the start of the school year.

Where we're having a problem is that we have a fairly healthy 550k budget but there is literally nothing coming on the market in that price bracket or that ticks all our boxes. We want 4 beds, a garage and a study and we've found a place 150k under our budget but there would be some serious compromises (small garden and no study) that 'would do' but wouldn't be the 20 year+ home that we're looking to invest our money in.

Would you buy the 'okay' house that would suit for 3-5 years or go into rented for an unknown length of time until what we are looking for comes on the market? We could be in for a long wait, wasting money on rentals but equally we could waste money buying a house that is only OK and knowing that we would have to incur moving costs (and stamp duty) again in a few years?

Thoughts and advice gratefully received!

I’d move into rented if necessary, I wouldn’t buy the ‘wrong’ house, too expensive to settle in, move again etc.

I’d also apply to go on [[https://www.channel4.com/4viewers/take-part/location-location-location LLL] , this sounds like one for Phil n Kirsty!

Instead of looking at it as wasting money on rental, how about thinking about it as a %% investment in making the right decision. ?

link try again with the link!

Ooh how tricky! My head says buy but my heart says rent! Having lived in an awkward house for the last four years (just moved) I think it's easy to underestimate how much negative effect it can have on a family - living in a house that's not quite what you need.

With us, it was that the house was just too small and we were all on top of one another. There were two tiny rooms meant to be a sitting room and a dining room and there was a massive kitchen...what ended up happening was nobody wanted to use the dining room to eat in so we had two impractical sitting rooms...now we're better situated we all sit together as a family again.

Is there any land available? What about building?

Also, you may find you're only renting for a year...but remember, you will still have the expense of moving too.

go into a rental to break the chain. But make sure you have one secured, and that you are up to speed on your rights. There's a shortage of rentals.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-rent

I love Shropshire :-) If your folks are locals, you are presumably aware of the flooding issues and also of the threat of a couple of useless destructive new roads.

We rented for six months when we relocated. Really happy we did as ended up buying a house in a different area, the rental was in our original chosen location which didn't work for us.

The thought of moving into rented doesn't appeal much, however being in the position of being a cash buyer means you are at the front of the queue for any houses.
Bear in mind the 'okay' house may well be overpriced at the moment to take into account the stamp duty holiday and you may not get back what you have paid for it. Or if you don't complete in time you may have to pay stamp duty on this house and again when you find your dream house.
Moving into rented seems to make sense

In this case I think moving into rented is sensible. It increases the odds of your current sale going through and it gives you the opportunity to really get to know the new area you are moving to before buying.

This is exactly the same predicament I'm looking at. My plan was to go into rental, but the financials just really don't stack up. Coupled with decent rentals being really hard to find at the moment where I'm looking, and also 6 month rentals seem to be hard to find as well where the rental market is hot.

I'm hoping by the time I come to buy shortly there will be at least some houses that will be decent enough but I'm going in with a very open mind even if it's a shorter (4-5) year kind of house. The finances (for me at least) just stack up so much better.

Not an easy decision to make.