Advice from people in the know!!!

Ms2011

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Yes, but only if the property is priced correctly, e.g. about 33% of the peak price.

Senna wrote: »

Price it correctly and it will sell, there are always buyers out there, no mater what anyone else says. Most of the people saying houses wont sell now, have their houses priced too high. Seen you bought in 2009 at 262k, your figure of 170k probably is very realistic , unless 262k was a terrible deal 2 years ago.

That's a relief, I wasn't sure there was much hope of selling these days. My house was originally priced at 285k in 2009 but with a deposit I 'only' took out a mortgage of 262k.

Senna wrote: »

Just because its a penalty doesn't mean you wont benefit from paying it. Have you enquired from your bank how much the fee is? or do you know what calculation method they use?
Say your house drops 2/5/10% in value in the time you wait for the fixed rate to end, @5% thats €12.5k. Is the breakage fee less? With TRS stopping and ECB rates rising, i'd say 2012 will be a terrible year to be trying to sell a house.

I'm not sure of the exact penalty, I just remember reading it in the small print, I didn't think I'd have the oppurtunity of selling so soon so I never looked too closely into the penalty but I will now.
I also think it might be benefical to know exactly how much my house is worth now and not just guess, so I think I will get it properly valued, it'll help making decisions alot easier if I have more exact figures, thanks for that!!

Zamboni

Ms2011 wrote: »

No myself and my OH are making an appointment with my Dad's financial advisor, he's been pretty good for him over the years.

Good stuff.
Best of luck.

StillWaters

Are you planning on living in the rural house, have you factored in oil increases. My own opinion, and sadly I don't have a crystal ball, is that property prices have further to fall, particularly those outside the major urban areas.

Cash is king over the next couple of years (presuming you don't have the stomach to invest in commodities). Find a good lump sum savings rate, and stick your money there. You won't make a fortune, but you won't lose it. Being in negative equity, you can't afford to gamble this money, and would be foolish to overexpose yourself to property, imho.

Idbatterim

the good thing about a do it upper is, that if you have someone handy, you could purchase and do up the house, for potentially a good bit cheaper than you could buy the ready to move into equivalent. Any money you saved by this, also would not have to be borrowed, saving you alot more. Interest rates may go up as early as next month! So your only protected if on fixed rate... the absolute headache involved in renting out a property, never mind one that is falling in value and where the rent might not even cover the mortgage... It may make sense to wait and see what the coalition do regarding first time buyers and mortgage interest relief etc... People on these boards have no vested interest in your decision, as it will in no way effect us! you cant say the same for estate agents, banks, financial advisor etc... I have seen far better analysis and comment on these boards over the years, than from the vested interest! Theyd have you believe you cant lose on anything, property, shares etc bla bla bla, they only ever go up dont you know!

Ms2011

Well it seems from talking to people here that plan 'A' should be to sell my current house and pay off the NE with the 100k which I am going to start looking into with my mortgage company now. I'm just waiting on a reply to the email I sent them today about my fixed mortgage, the penalties for early settlement etc. I will then get my house properly valued to see exactly how much NE I have and we'll go from there.

My OH and I have discussed a Plan 'B' should plan 'A' not be viable and that is to get my Dad (who is retired and debt free) to purchase our 'doer upper' for us with (our 100k) cash and keep it in his name but signing it over to us in his will. That way if we are forced to keep our current house and anything goes wrong ie. lose our jobs etc. we still have a home to live in that the bank can't touch as it won't be in mine or my OH name. We can go between houses while we're doing the new house up, our jobs are only 15 minutes away from our current house whereas the 'new' house is an hour away so it would be nice to have a base close to our jobs Mon-Fri. Maybe then in the future rent out our current house and move into the 'new' house full time. Haven't full thought this plan out as it is like our last resort.

At the end of the day I'm not interested in making any profits or anything, I'm not greedy, I'm just interested in living a comfortable life in a nice home and trying to figure out the best way to do that

Ste.phen

Ms2011 wrote: »

My OH and I have discussed a Plan 'B' should plan 'A' not be viable and that is to get my Dad (who is retired and debt free) to purchase our 'doer upper' for us with (our 100k) cash and keep it in his name but signing it over to us in his will. That way if we are forced to keep our current house and anything goes wrong ie. lose our jobs etc. we still have a home to live in that the bank can't touch as it won't be in mine or my OH name.

Did your financial advisor discuss the possibility of gift tax implications in doing this?

Ms2011

Ste.phen wrote: »

Did your financial advisor discuss the possibility of gift tax implications in doing this?

We bought our last house off my Dad so we had to jump through hoops to prove we were paying full price for our current house so I have some experience with gift tax.
There is a tax exemption if you have lived in a house you inherit for more than 3 years and which you must continue to live in for another 6 years before selling it. The only problem would be that we would have to have no other house besides the inherited one so by the time we 'inerited' our new house we would have to have sold our current house.
It's complicated so it would be our last course of action.