Should we buy a house we might never want to move to?

[senorstarfish]

I know this might seem ridiculous but it's a huge dilemma for DH and me. Basically - some relatives are selling their house in very rural countryside, about 30 minutes from his parents. It's a pretty unique property - the house itself is nothing special but it has lots of beautiful space around it. The house will need some work (not loads). It's also VERY expensive.

We're renting in London and planning to have kids in the next year or two. The idea is that we might want to move out of London to this house once our kids are like 3-4 yo. What I just don't know is - is it crazy to buy a house we might never want to move to?? We can't know what it's like to have kids really so it's incredibly difficult to know what we'll want beforehand.

We both love London but worry having kids here will be hard. We both grew up in countryside. I THINK we'll want to move there at some point but can't be sure. However I don't think we'd want to raise teens in the countryside -not fair on them or us. So probably this is no more than a 10-year period we'd be living there. There'll be a lot of upkeep costs meantime.

Also re countryside living - I've lived there on and off (not near family) and struggled with loneliness. This house is near his parents and near-ish some of his friends, who I get on well with.

I should also add, DH kind of always wanted the lifestyle he grew up with, which is grander than mine, and this would give him that. The relatives are giving us an OK deal on price (not much of a discount, but some), so finding something similar later on might be difficult, and anyway there aren't many properties in the area.

But I just can't help but think it's crazy to put all of our money into a huge mortgage for something we wouldn't even have considered unless his relatives had offered it to us. Please help!

Would it be at below market value? Or something that would be very hard to buy for some other reason?

Can't really help but I would just add that I moved from London as a small child to the arse end of Devon and when I was a teenager I bloody loved every minute of it! Hardly ever asked my parents for lifts anywhere (2005-2012 so fairly recently) and spent most of it on a bike with mates or on a horse, again with a different group of mates. At 16 I got a moped so was able to get myself around if needed. But then I suppose it depends on who you hang out with and their interests.
I personally can't imagine anything worse than brining up my children in a town or city but I suppose it is each to their own.

You don't sound very keen.

Would you rent it out before you move there? Might be hard if it's very remote and needs work.

If it's not much of a discount I imagine his relatives are just seeing you as the easy option and a way to save EA fees. Why not wait and buy a house you actually want?

I would buy it without hesitation. If you decide against the move later on you can just sell it.

What would you do with it while you’re not living there — rent to tenants?

I think “no”. It sounds too big, too expensive, wrong place, wrong time. I understand the ‘but we might never get the same opportunity’ thought but apart from your husband’s idle fantasy, I don’t get the impression that you would ever otherwise have considered such a property.

If you can afford it, I’d jump at it. Better to be paying off your own mortgage than someone else’s. Do it up, Airbnb it for a few years, and then decide if you want to move in or sell it on. At the very least, you’ve built up a bit of equity.

My thoughts are… this won’t be the only house available. Live in the moment. If and when you want to move out, look around then and find a house you love, not just one you’re settling for because it’s easy.

Im assuming finding renters in the countryside to help pay the mortgage won’t be easy. It’s also a lot of unnecessary pressure given you have rent to pay as well.

I wouldn’t.

If you like the price and if there might be planning permission granted in some years time for subdivision so you can sell at a good profit to a developer, I would strongly consider it. Put tenants in for the meantime. There is nothing wrong with self interest, as an Australian Prime Minister once said.

If you think you would like time spent rurally and you could be happy there and you like the price, I would still buy it. But I quite like a rural life.

Would you be giving up any FTB privileges to buy this?

It does sound crazy to me, sorry.

Why not just buy a house when you want to in the location of your choice at that time?

Don't do it. It'll be a ball ache to renovate/manage remotely and you're talking about maybe moving there in 5 years time. If you don't move there for any reason (and you very well may not) it may be a drama to sell it as it won't be a house that there's a very large pool of buyers for. It may not rent easily for same reason. It's likely to be a bit of a cash pit.

We had a similar dilemma - were living overseas with vague plans to move back to UK in next 3 years and saw a beautiful house (albeit major doer upper) for sale in a great area of DH's home town. Fell in love with it. Put an offer in. Got accepted. Got gazumped. I was devastated. Anyway, we did move back as planned but within 6 months our lives centred on a completely different part of town and we bought there instead. Dream house would not have been our dream house. In fact I think I'd have massively regretted it.

It is premature to consider this house - when you dont have kids and have no idea what the situation will be once you have kids. Property upkeep is expensive. And dont underestimate the difficulty in securing (good) tenants and the cost of being a landlord.

Also how do you know what the market value is? In rural areas transactions are few and far between.

Do get a bank valuation even if you dont need a mortgage. This way, both parties have more assurance of a fair price. And you can work off a discount from the bank valuation to reflect the absense of agency fee and all that hassle.

Unless it's being sold to us for a good discount, I'd wait until you see something that feels as right as it can be to us.

Could still be in a rural location, but maybe on the edge of a village with some sort of community feel, ie pub, community hall, food shop and primary school - for your benefit and children. Don't just think about teenage years, at primary school they make friends and want them for tea, play date after school. Will be you available to host or collect? Also, if you're ill or there's a snow day, it's much easier to help other parents out closeby. You'll have to drive everywhere, ie can't just pop out for milk and bread. Also, living close to others, will help you build relationships.

This is possibly 7 years off....crazy decision - financially, logistically and emotionally.

Why would you not build up equity in a London property over the next 7 years rather than paying rent AND managing an empty or let property elsewhere.

Have you discussed your reservations with your DH?

What does he want to do?

Why is it hard on teens to live in the countryside? I did as did obviously most of my friends and you couldn't pay us to move to a city like London, we litrally hate big cities and very happy living rural if we weren't we would have moved. One friend moved away to a bigger city but sharply came back (less than a year later).

You do know you have to PAY for an empty house right? (council tax etc... applies on second homes, what about insurance, utilities etc...)

You also know maintenance is much higher on an empty house right? (condensation damp or undiscovered leaks, burst pipes in winter, boilers seizing up from lack of use etc... They deteriorate really fast).

You also run the risk of thieves, vandals, urban explorers, squatters if it stands empty too long (and security costs money too).

The only possible logical thing is to rent it, but you still have the cost/work and when you finally decide you want it the massive hassle of then getting the settled tenants (who have rights) to move out.