Sorry, this is a slightly long post but I would appreciate any thoughts!
We had to relocate from Bedfordshire to Cheshire for DH's job. Our Bedfordshire home went on the market in September/October 2021 - it's a three-bed detached, in a nice village, in a cul-de-sac, 5 min walk to a station with direct trains into London. We had updated the house it in neutral colours, fitting a new boiler, rewiring electrics etc.
To our surprise, we didn't get that many viewings and no serious offers. We weren't aiming for a ridiculously high price - we went with the average of three valuations.
In the end, we decided to rent the house out rather than sell it because there was some urgency to moving (we were so fortunate to have this option). We assumed that post-Covid and post-stamp duty relief had just dampened the market for London commuter towns a little. Our intention was to try to sell the house again in two years time when our fixed-term mortgages on both properties come to an end. We can afford the mortgages and costs of two houses relatively comfortably, but we have put off doing work on our new house until the old house has sold. Our intention is to use the funds tied up in our old house to make the improvements to our new home we want in time.
Fast forward to August... We absolutely love our new home and life in Cheshire, and are very much viewing this is our forever home. I'm seven months pregnant with our first child. We have a good tenant in our old home, and no problems so far...
However, we're looking at the state of the economy at the moment and we're wondering whether we should sell our house in Bedfordshire now rather than wait for the fixed term to end in 1.5 years time. We have quite a lot of money wrapped up in our old house, and we're worried about its value falling or (even worse) not being able to sell and being saddled with two higher-interest mortgages in two years time. We'll also have reduced income whilst I'm on maternity leave, and with prices going through the roof it would be nice not to have the risk of a buy-to-let property and the funds instead.
On the flipside though, DH is worried that putting our house on the market could leave us in a worst case scenario - whereby we lose our tenant but still can't sell.
What would you do in our situation? Do you have any ideas or tips?