There must be TONS of equity out there in home-owner land....

[kayspace]

Otherwise how can so many houses be 'to let' AND 'for sale' simultaneously- AND be currently vacant! Thus the family must either be renting elsewhere or have bought elsewhere- but surely MOST people can only afford to do that IF they aren't paying a hefty or even medium sized mortgage on that vacant property?

Or is it a sign of people who haven't woken up to the fact they're asking too much for the property? Or is it a short term fingers crossed thing?

I've seen some property that is both 'overpriced' for sale AND with ridiculous 'to let' demands- yet they sit there in that limbo on the market for 2-3 months! There must be more people out there able to take that sort of financial hit than I thought!

we are in a rented house which is also on the for sale market. Our landlords were trying to sell it and couldnt but they had already committed to rent another house with land (for horses) so thought they would rent their own out at the same time. I guess what they save in livery and make in rent would come close to the rent on their new home. That said they have kept it on the open market which is annoying as tenants.

Yes, it's one reason we're not looking to rent a property that's also for sale - a) I don't want the hassle of moving again and b) I doubt a landlord would be inclined to do anything at a money outlay for the tenant!

We are moving to get our DS into a particular secondary school, so we need to be In on Oct 28th thus don't want to take a renter before the end of April in case we get chucked out before The Date.

No, what I don't get is seeing as it's all painted as being so dire out there what with 'the house price crisis' there seem to be so many owners who can weather the storm of leaving one house to rent/buy another. If the answer is that YOU are paying the rental on their new property, I can see that though it only works whilst the 2, house value and rental return, work in tandem, BUT surely if someone hangs onto a depreciating house cos they won't sell it in a falling market (ie no one will pay what the owners THINK it's worth!), all they're doing is delaying the fateful day- when it'll be worth even less!

It's only really bad for people who bought in the past, say, four years, stretched themselves to buy, went for interest-only mortgages and bought a new or newly-revamped house, ie, they took out a very large mortgage in proportion to their income, haven't paid it down at all and haven't added value. And those that used their houses as ATMs and kept remortgaging for posh holidays, school fees, handbags etc. A lot of people do fall into that category but many more don't.

The bad bit isn't the money that you would "lose" if you were to sell , it is that if you do want to move, you could be waiting months for an offer.

Various reasons I suspect. One of our neighbours' is a probate sale - ideally they'd like to sell (mortgage to clear and release equity) but also available to let as that seems more likely. Another owner moved abroad. Another owner decided to move in with partner who already owned house, 2 incomes used to paying separately so no worse off.

There are a couple in our area that are for sale and to let.

Jampot, can you hand in your notice?

I wouldn't be able to live with that insecurity. It's bad enough private renting as it is.

Yes, expat- and getting political here- I wish that the majority of buyer, esp the 1st time buyers who went crazy over the last 4 years, seduced and bullied by the notion you GOTTA buy! you GOTTA be on that ladder! -had instead lobbied their MPs for a better deal for tenants-..by that I mean European style renting- YEARS of security, not 60 days which is where most of us are at! That way we wouldn't have seen all the 1st time buyer style property snapped up by buy-to-let amateur landlords (with TAX BREAKS for doing so, fgs!)- and thus fuelling the crazy ongoing inflation of house prices!

And sorry here, I don't usually directly quote as I think it can seem confrontational!, but:

"Another owner decided to move in with partner who already owned house, 2 incomes used to paying separately so no worse off".

Well, yes, but by my maths, surely they both own falling value assets thus may well be worse off. Why hang onto both? Why not cut one set of 'losses' and try and get 1% return on the money- that'd have to be better than the '10-15% this year' loss the house will make?

Expat - yes we could give notice (2 months either way) but we are paid up to mid-May and have signed a 6 month contract. We want to buy and have started looking - I cant bear being in limbo

I hope you get out of that situation soon, Jampot.

I hear ya, kayspace.

We're private renting ourself.

We'll never be able to buy. C'est la vie.

But it does suck.