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!