Tell me what to do: Rent in catchment or buy?

[faraday]

Cos I don't know any more! I've only been doing this house hunting thing for 3 or 4 weeks but already I'm tired of it!

We have 3 or 4 options:
Rent as cheaply as possibly (850 pcm-ish) but we have to have a garage! Then buy at leisure later.

Rent nicely (1200) though I believe several houses in that category are overpriced.

Buy at the top of our affordability (350K).

Buy cheaper with extension potential (say 275K) but need no mortgage.

So my problem is really too much 'choice' in that I'm looking at 4 different scenarios!

Several families do rent in to get their DC into the school, then buy just outside in a bigger, cheaper house! BUT IF we were doing that, we'd have to rent for 2 1/2 years as we have 2 DSs and only 26 DCs got in on 'out of catchment/sibling already in' out of a 360 entry this year so a bit of a risk!

I wish I were more decisive.

I'd vote for buying cheaper house with potential

Buy cheaper house with potential to extend into loft. Because if you can buy at £250k it will save a packet in stamp duty, and because if you extend your property your council tax stays at it's original level until it changes ownership. Also buy because then you stay part of the community that is the school, and have friends nearby.

Cheaper house as long as you are happy to settle in catchment area.

the renting thing can be tricky - it has to be your main residence so if you actually live somewhere else, and someone mentions it, your child can lose their place. It has happened here.

I'd buy cheap and do up - tends to be similar costs to renting anyway - in fact rents are high here at the mo as so many people doing it

No no no! I absolutely intend living in catchment! No silly tricks here!

I'd be very happy to live in catchment, actually as it's all quite 'leafy' and pleasant BUT the 'in catchment' thing costs 20-30K more than out! I also want the DSs to be able to make their own way to school and to have local friends. Due to the vagaries of being a tenant so far we live 3 miles from their junior school and it's a pain!

Now, we actually think we've made a decision: to rent in then buy at leisure later. Our thinking is:

-On the plus side, moving into a renter is a straight forward thing, no collapsing chain horrors etc. We have 8 months to be 'in' but I have heard of house completions taking that long!

-We can sit and see what the market is doing as I believe it has a fair way to go yet.

-On the negative side, yet ANOTHER move and seeing 1000K a month disappear and being sure the houses we want are falling in value by MORE than that!

I really really wouldn't worry about houses dropping £12k in a year, it's a given ;-)

I say just rent a nice house that is a decent one for your family to live in for a year and sign a 12 month contract with no break clause. Live in it, be happy and worry about buying later.

You will stil save on the ful cost of owning a home and face no risk in house prices dropping. It gives you the luxury of searching at your leisure. If you buy now you will be buying under pressure and get a poor deal.

Definitely rent in catchment and take a leisurely time in buying. We've taken this route albeit we were fairly fussy (well as much as we can be) and decided that as our 'short term' could be up to 2 yrs - we decided to rent the type of house that we could realistically end up buying. Agree with Sorrento - house prices have/will definitely drop more than your annual rent so you are actually saving (apart from the hassle of moving again - but, it's definitely worth a 50k/100k or more saving isn't it? BTW, we've been in rented for nearly 12 mths now and counting - not anticipating to buy unless we see a major bargain but we feel that we are nowhere near the bottom of the market.

Definately rent if nothing is tugging your heart strings in your preferred area. We moved to catchment area of preferred school (and near my parents) and rushed into buying a house out of available choise at the time. I honestly didn't think I needed to love the house and thought I could be all practical about it as house does tick all the relevant boxes. We have spent the last year regretting it and have both agreed we have been thoroughly miserable over the whole episode. We wanted this move to be long term but have agreed we want to move as soon as finances/market allow. Unfortunately this is likely to be at least 3 or 4 years away. We want to stay in same area and agree we will rent rather than jump in feet first next time.

Thanks for all the input.

Now I just need a nice, 4 bedroomed house to come up in catchment at no more than 1000 pcm! It's fair to say there ARE some 'dreamers' out there in 'can't sell/won't sell' land. The houses are usually not wildly priced, like 290K say (this is the leafy purlieus of southern Hampshire!) but they want 1350 pcm for a 3-4 bedroom, small garden, kitchen/diner + sitting room or sitting room/diner + kitchen arrangement- in need of a repaint with a 1980s kitchen and bathroom in situ! I guess the message is 'We want to sell this not rent it out'.

And sadly we realise now the nearest to 'perfect renter' we've seen was the very first so we rejected it- it wasn't actually 'perfect'!- as we thought there'd be more... but they do come up and we do have 8 months!