Advice on relocating as homeowners with school deadline and limited finances

[MsPigle]

Hello everyone,

Hoping you don’t mind a very general (rather long!) plea for help/advice.

We think we want to relocate.

Although I have moved house about 30 times (not exaggerating I counted once!), these have all been from and to rented properties.

This would be our first time relocating as home owners.

Added to that, when we bought our current house we were already living in it as renters and it was a private sale between us and a very close family friend, so we didn’t actually move house at all and didn’t have to deal with estate agents etc etc.

We also didn’t pay any stamp duty as we were first time buyers and the house price was under the threshold.

What I wanted to ask about was the logistics of it all.

What order do we do everything in and how do we go about it?

I’m thinking we need to do it in four stages: Rent our house, rent in the new location, then sell our house in about a year’s time then buy in the new location?

Or:
Do we sell our house straightaway and rent in the new location, then buy?

Or:
Do we try and sell our house and buy at the same time?

What else do we need to consider, do, decide?

Some background info:
We had a mortgage for 2 years and then renewed the mortgage for another 2 years. The current mortgage is due to end at the beginning of Dec this year 2026.

We are relocating for the start of secondary school so we need to somehow be near the new school by this September. (It’s not a state school so no issues with regards to qualifying address, attendance, losing a place etc.)

Jobs: I will keep my current job after we’ve moved because I can work remotely a lot of the time and the commute when I do have to be on site is doable.

My OH is not in a job where he can work remotely or hybrid, he has to be present on site 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. He will have to move jobs and get a job in the new location.

We don’t have the money for there to be any gaps in employment.

We don’t have the money to be paying for two housing costs at the same time. Eg We can’t be paying the mortgage and paying rent at the same time. We can only have one housing outgoing at a time.

The house we own will sell quickly and be sought after. (It’s a very desirable house on a very desirable street in a city with a housing shortage.)

We think we have about £150k of equity in the house. (Will obviously depend on sale price.)

Our current monthly mortgage payments are very high - £1,900 per month. (Well that’s high to me anyway! And it’s high in relation to our income.)

We don’t have any savings.

We owe money to family/friends as we didn’t have a deposit for the first house. We are paying this back (it was loaned not gifted). These loans are not secured against the current property and don’t have to be paid back if we sell this house. We might pay one back in full if we sell as we are paying interest on it. The other loan is a longterm arrangement with no interest. The person who loaned it is happy as long as they are being paid back monthly as they don’t really ‘need’ the money, if that makes sense.

I think that’s all the relevant information.

I just have a massive black hole with no knowledge or experience of this at all and I freeze/go into a panic when I try to think about it.

So please be kind as I am literally clueless and completely naive and have no idea where to start, what to do first, how to break it down into smaller steps.

At the moment it just feels completely unachievable and overwhelming.

Thank you so much for your time and help!

If you don’t have any savings and you owe someone money you need to sort that part out first. Also your DH has to be in full time job which he won’t be if you were to move so you are in a precarious situation.

I would stay where you are for now as you both have permanent jobs and income and a home. Not everyone has that at the moment. And I would work on building up savings.

I'm not sure if it will help you but many years ago we moved location in this order.
1 DH secured a job in the new location , (he started before we moved so he stayed in new location in cheap b&b monday to Friday for a couple of months.
2 we put house up for sale it sold in a couple of weeks
3 we spent a few days in the new location house hunting and put in an offer on a house which was accepted , but before then we had been researching areas, house prices etc.
4 We didn't move until the house sale/purchase went through because we didn't want to waste money renting and moving twice.
That was the ideal solution for us it might not be possible for you. Bur I would definitely secure work before committing to move

You may think that your house will be sought after and sell quickly, but, as many will attest, the market is very difficult at present and houses that once would have sold within days, are taking months, if not years.

I don’t think you’re in the best position to consider moving at present.

How far apart are your current location and the new one?

(I’d give slightly different advice depending on whether a daily commute for your OH / school child is possible)

You are in a very precarious financial position with no savings and loans to be paid back
it doesn’t sound like you can afford to move - you have zero buffer
the housing market is not good and things are not selling
the process itself if you were to sell and buy on a good day is weeks and generally months / when we last moved it was 7 months
I don’t think your time frames work or your money situtaion

This is why I’m thinking we should rent current house and rent in new location first? So that we can sell when property market is better? Maybe wait and see in a year’s time? Also if we sell first then we can be buyers with no chain? So a better prospect for someone selling a house?

If the two places are not within commuting distance of each other, I would agree that the timings absolutely don’t work for a ‘normal’ sale / purchase arrangement. You just won’t be through the process by September - even if you get an immediate offer and immediately find a property to buy, the formation of a chain (which will then only move at the pace of the slowest part of it), searches, conveyancing etc etc will all take too long.

With that in mind, if commuting isn’t possible, renting your owned house to rent another is the only option. Again, not guaranteed- new landlord legislation means your property will need to meet particular standards; you will need funds to cover void periods and a deposit for your new property; your OH will need a job there to prove income etc. However, it is the only option that has any chance of working out in time.

Sorry, cross post. I am concerned that you are talking about renting and then selling your house - selling a house with a sitting tenant is very hard, and new legislation makes it much much harder for you to give notice to the tenant if you want to sell it vacant.

Research the responsibilities of a landlord very thoroughly- do you have the upfront money to do all the required checks, bring energy efficiency up to the right level etc?

Firstly, if you rent out your property you will need to inform your lender that you have done so and they may change the product to reflect that it is an “investment” as you will not be residing in it.

In order to get the best mortgage your husband needs to get a new job before you think about making any applications.

The loan that will still be outstanding will need to be declared to your (new) lender, including the terms. Did you declare the loans in your current mortgage?

If you port your mortgage, you can have to do so within a certain time frame otherwise the ERC is still applicable.

In short unless you sell and just go into renting - leave the rest for later you’re unlikely to move by September.

(If it is of any help, in a similar situation we did:

• DH got a job in new location, initially did long daily commute
• We put house on the market, leaving most furniture to ‘dress’ the house
• Rented a tiny property in new location, with minimal furnishings, and moved in. DCs started school
• Sold house before finding onward purchase, so moved into full size rental (equity in high interest account supported increase in rent)
• Bought new house

However, unlike you, we had savings and enough buffer to absorb miscellaneous costs of sale, including a period of both mortgage and rent. Ultimately, we had pretty much exactly a year between moving out of house A and purchasing house D, and that was in a much more bouyant market.

So I guess what I am saying is that we don’t necessarily have to buy and sell right now, but we do need to move. It’s now or never for the move part of it, because of the secondary school start in September. If we don’t move for the secondary in September we won’t move at all in the next 5-7 years because we will stay put where we are for secondary. So it’s not a case of ‘do we move now?’. It’s a case of ‘how do we move now?’

We are looking at 2 different locations. We have a school place offer in both (not state.) One is about 1.5 hours by train to our current location, the other is about 2 hours by train to our current location. Both of which I can do permanently and keep my job. My OH might manage the closer one in the short term but the longer one wouldn’t work at all. Although now I’m thinking of it, he might be able to get his employer to change his start time so that he could commute in the short term whilst looking for another job.

Only you can balance the (huge) risks of a job and house move in this market and this timescale, and the benefit of this particular secondary school.

Our move was also for a school, and was absolutely worth it, because we already knew the actual damage DC’s then school was doing. Are you sure the school only has this one entry point, with no in-year opportunity?

In terms of driving. One location is about an hours drive for my OH to get to work so doable short term. The other location is about 2 hours for my OH to drive to work so not really doable. The one that’s 2 hours is our preferred location.

Wow OP - you’re considering permanently commuting by train 3 hours every day?! Is that with or without the time you’ll take to drive and park at the station car park and get to the office at the other end? That’s a horrible commute.

I think you do “sell first and rent in new place” but there’s a risk you might not complete the sale by end of August.

I think you have left it quite late to sell your house unless you’re prepared to take a low offer. Chains are so unreliable if you have a deadline you may be screwed. You need a buyer who is chain free.

Can you afford to sell at a low offer price?

The whole plan seems rather silly, why do you need to make this hugely inconvenient and expensive move?

What is the ‘stay put’ option like, in education terms?

(I am presuming, if this is not a state school, that the funds for private are coming from a different source, or potentially that this is a specialist school of some sort?)

Yes we could enter both these secondary schools in a years time for instance. But my DD has had massive upheaval and trauma in the past few years due to school closures and we want the secondary move to be one and done. She is also saying she just wants it to be done in September. Our housing, job, finances will be the same in a years time, so it would just be kicking the can down the line by 12 months…?

Ps you can move any time in y7 and y8 if it’s a private school and they have space . It won’t impact your dc too much. You need them in the right school to start y9 but that is fine to be in situ for gcses

No, what I mean is that you could embark on a normal, orderly house sale & purchase right now, and your OH could start job hunting. Then, once everything has gone through - it might involve a period of your OH commuting to their new job - you can all move, and your DC can move schools. That process could easily take up to a year, starting now.

The other thing to add is that we probably need to move anyway because our monthly mortgage payments are too high and our quality of life is untenable at the moment. So this could be a ‘kill two birds with one stone’ scenario if we can get the monthly mortgage cost down by making this move and buying cheaper. As stated we have about £150k of equity in the property.

Why was moving school a “massive trauma”?

I think you’ve left it far too late to be honest to be rushing to move house in this market. Houses are getting stuck for ages round my way. And how is it going to be any good for your dd if you and dh are commuting 4 hrs a day? When the heck will you find time to help her heal from her trauma and settle into her new school and new routines?

The plan sounds like a recipe for stress and overwhelm for your dd.

Thank you this is the kind of info I’m after. When my sister relocated several hundred miles a couple of decades ago, she got a job first. So she went and worked in new location, slept on my parents floor and came home at weekends. It’s this kind of logistical thinking I am asking for.

It sounds like you need to find a cheap rental whilst you sell & buy.

What I’m not clear on is how you can finance the rental costs.

When we relocated this is what we did. Are you relocating to a cheaper area?

My DH kept is job and was permitted to WFH which made it less stressful.

You have left yourselves very short of time to move for this September. To get a rented home done and dusted in 10 weeks could be difficult.

I’m not sure where ppl are getting 3 hours and 4 hours from? I can work from home most of the time so can do school drop and pick if we rent near new school.

There is no need for me to go into previous school experience. It has been chop and change for our DD for past 6-12 months and that wasn’t anything we as parents could control due to mid year school closing down and then having to try out several different schools before securing a place. So just very unsettled and lots of change that wasn’t predicted/planned and was a shock for DD. We have lots of school options for September so we will just pick one and that’s it then.

Thank you yes. This is helpful. I think it will have to be that we rent and rent as I initially said.