To sell or not to sell - any experts out there who could advise?

[gokwan]

We bought our house at christmas time and spent £30k renovating it. If we sell we will not recoup this but we could (just about) sell at an acceptable price. The problem is that I just don't like the area and can't come to terms with staying here for the forseeable future which we would have to do if we wanted to ride out the current economic climate. My current thinking is that we should just market the house at a reasonable price and get out now rather than waiting. I am told that there "are buyers out there" - but obviously only at the right price. Our house is a decent sized family home near a reasonable school. Am I mad? Should I just try and exercise some patience? Or is life too short, should we just do it? I am in agony over this! However, we are in outer London at the moment and I just don't see our future here, I want to live somewhere greener and more beautiful!

Am curious as to what part of London you are in. Did you not think about the area before you bought the house?

Anyway, if you sell now you will not only lose money on the house, but also have to pay estate agents' fees, stamp duty etc all over again. Making it a rather expensive mistake. However, if you can get an equivalent discount on the place you want to buy, you'll be alright. The problem will be finding a buyer. Friends of mine have had their houses on for weeks without any viewings.

We have just had our house on the market in London for 6 weeks and have had a lot of very interested buyers but the problem is that none of those buyers had buyers IYSWIM. So we have decided to rent the house out.

TBH I think you are going to lose money on this. This market is so unsettled that people are really not prepared to pay what you consider a reasonable price. Ours was priced to sell. Plus all the expensese Meg pointed out.

TBH I would find a way to like the area if I could, at least for a while. The way the market is at the moment, you might only get a few viewings, and any offer will be below your asking price, plus you will then worry that the buyer might pull out if the market is still falling. It depends on whether you can deal with having the house on the market and dealing with agents and buyers in a professional and detached way, rather than jumping up and down hoping that every phone call would be the one (as that could drive you mad)

I'd also think about looking at house swaps maybe?

On the plus side, it sounds as though your house is lovely to live in now. If you want to be somewhere greener, how about getting a cottage/caravan/camper for the weekends so you can at least escape then?

Only try to sell now if you have to.Don't believe agents who say there are buyers because there are few mortgages.If you could take off 15% and then reduce further you may be ok but no one is going to pay top dollar when prices are likely to tank by 2011.BUT if you don't like the area I understand What does your dp think?

I lost money moving from an area I hated (hadnt been there very long). It was worth every penny.

Hmm. DP is up for moving but we will have to see. As MegBusset quite rightly said, it could would be an expensive mistake. OF COURSE we thought about the area before we moved! But there are other circumstances that I won't go into here which dictated our move. Onlyaphase, I might just try to like the area, as you say! There are plus points. Perhaps a holiday might help in the short term But this credit crunch is a damn nuisance eh? I guess we might have to count our blessings and focus on the positive for a while, sounds as though selling will be wayyyyy too much stress. Thanks, everybody for your responses, it's always helpful to get a broad cross-section of opinions.

Think about it like this and you might feel better: say you were going to lose 50k by moving now versus staying an extra year.
That would be the equivalent of someone paying you 50k to live there for a year....doesn't sound so bad now perhaps?

I know money isn't everything and if you are really unhappy then you should move regardless.

Yes I'm interested to know where it is too....north or south?

If it is 50k down now though it won't have ercovered in a year it will be even worse!

Ah yes good point. Ok maybe 50k over three years - that's still a lot.

But that said I still think if you are going to really hate it there, there's more to it than money and you should take the hit if you can afford to.

Ok what about renting this place out and then renting somewhere else where you'd rather live. That way you could wait until the market levels out a bit.

Also if you are buying a similar value place elsewhere that will be cheaper too (assuming it is somewhere that prices have fallen roughly the same amount) and therefore all you will lose will be the transaction costs as it's all relative.

Well - some more good points. But really, I think it will be a lot of stress and of course there is always good old gazundering to take into account - on top of depreciation and selling points! I think that for the time being we will book a holiday! Things could be a lot worse and at least the children are still pre-school so even if we move in 4 years time it won't be the end of the world. I love the idea of someone paying me £50k to live here for a year, that's soooo positive!

So are you going to tell us where in London it is?

Gok I always think that way about going business class on a flight. If someone said they'd pay you £1000 to sit in economy for 8 hours instead of club etc....