[Natalieb]

HiEveryone

We have our ITA, Job offer, medicals booked and all seemed to be going well.

One massive problem is our house, we are having real difficulty selling it. Dropped the price £15K and have got another estate agents on board todays, which is another £1000! We seem to be haemorrhaging money its awful. :(

We feel under so much pressure as our NZ employer wants us there asap. There is no way we could afford to rent out the property as we are relying on our equity to set us up when we are over there.

Its so frustrating - just wish I had put it on the market months before we even applied :wah

Im so worried our employer might back out, what then.

Natalie

[willsken]

This seems to be the sticking point for so many people. It is very stressful and I remember the feeling well. Just hang in there, there is nothing more you can do for the moment. A friend of mine is still in the UK and her OH is here, as he had to start a job. She will come out as soon as everything is settled in the UK. Is this an option for you?

[marcia]

We know exactly how you are feeling!!

We ended up dropping our price from £295,000, down to £232,000 - a whopping £63,000 to get a buyer!! At the end of the day you have to accept that the the house is only worth what the public will pay for it - a valuer can say whatever they like but the public dictate at the end of the day!

We always said we wouldn't come until our house sold, however like you getting fed up of it all, we took the plunge and gave my parents power of attorney to sort it out, a week before we were due to fly we got a buyer, but it still took two months to sort after we left.

Have you got anyone you can totally trust that could sell it for you? It is still hard work and stessfull from the other side of the world, but at least you will be here, instead of living in 'limbo land'

Good luck whatever you decide and it will happen eventually, it seems to do for all of us, but it is hard we know - chin up!:nice1

[Natalieb]

Thanks Nicola,

Yes we have considered Mark going over, Im ok with it but Mark isnt so keen. Even if we did do that and I sorted everything out from the UK he would have to come back to help me with the flight. I could handle flying over there alone with an 8 and 4 year old but we have a 1 year old and I dont think I could cope with all 3 of them.

I know what you mean though there is nothing I can do at the moment just got to keep hoping. Apparently the market is picking up again so fingers crossed.

Natalie

[Natalieb]

Hi Marcia,

I have so many family members close to my house who I could trust to sell the house for us.

The problem is we dont really have many savings so for flights, container, renting in NZ, bills and myself not working while getting the kids settled would be such a strain financially, in fact not a strain impossible. The equity from the house is what we were relying on for all those things.

WOW you dropped your house price a massive amount, I thought £15K was alot - bet that was awful for you. Suppose its a sacrifice we have to make to have the life we want :)

Natalie

[wiki]

Incredibly frustrating for you all.

The cost of a flight back for your hubby is probably going to be a lot less than risking losing that job offer. Fingers very crossed that you get the price you want as quickly as possible - real estate if nothing but a game of luck!

[gil]

Hi Natalie,
I really feel for you. It took us 13 months to sell our house in Cardiff and we dropped £40K in the end. We got our PR Nov 05 and were fully expecting to get out here end 05. However, we flew out Nov 18, 2006 in the end, having completed the sale on Nov 17! (Edit: we actually took the plunge and booked the flights ebofre we'd even got a buyer!)

Whilst it was great to have the support of everyone on this forum and being an immensley positive person, it was still tough dealing with everyone saying "Are you still going to NZ then?" and "So when are you actually going?" You just have to keep beliwiving it WILL happen: it only takes 1 buyer and they can just happen out of the blue.
Good luck Natalie and we are sending "Sell the House" vibes your way!
Gil
x

[Natalieb]

Thanks for all your kind words.

I suppose if we didnt have the job offer there wouldnt be as much as a rush to go - but it was essential for us to get our ITA.

What would happen if our employed pulled out, is that the end of that, start the whole process again? That leads me onto another thing, you have to stay in the job for 90 days then get your PR - what if your new boss takes an instant dislike to you and wants you out!

Think im having a panic day and need counselling.

Natalie

[Ana&Steve]

Sorry it's been so stressful! The only thing that I can offer by way of condolence is that it will work out eventually, even though it's stressful now. This forum's members are proof that it can be done, just not always the way you planned it! Hang in there and {HUGS} to you and yours:)
Ana

[StevieD]

Natalie, good luck, as the others say, just hang in there. You'll just have to play it by ear and see what comes up. We are in such a mess at the moment, and on the verge of the shippers arriving, so it isn't fun by any means.

Steve and Jan xx

[nippa&pippa]

We were in same situation as you, got job offer but house hasn't sold by the time we left for NZ last october. Been on market since may, and last week, we just accepted offer after drop £25k price. My mum did very good job getting this man brought our house:nice1 ....yes, my mum remarked the market is picking up.

[jubjub]

Natalie, you are stuck in a classic catch 22... cant sell so cant move, and cant move until you sell!

You are already taking steps to change things by swapping agents, always worth a try... I assume you have done all the House Doctor tricks, so there is nothing that is going to put people off your house?

Only other thing I can suggest, although its pretty risky, is seeing if you can take a 6 month holiday from your mortgage payments? Many building societies allow you to do this. That way, Mark can come over, earn money and set a few things up, you can stay in UK to get a house sale, but you wont be skint cos there wont be a mortgage to pay?

One thing that may be of some comfort, it is quite hard to sack people here, so your hubby would have to do something pretty bad to lose his job before your 90 days.

Hugs

[Diny]

I could handle flying over there alone with an 8 and 4 year old but we have a 1 year old and I dont think I could cope with all 3 of them.



Natalie


Going off at abit of a tangent here, but please don't worry too much about the flights. I travelled to NZ with my 2 when they were very small - just 2 months old and 20 months old. We flew Singapore Air and they were FANTASTIC !!!! They were VERY helpful every step of the way - you wouldn't be left to handle the situation all by yourself.

Hope this helps.

Diny

[Avalon]

Natalie,

We were nearly in theis position - the only thing that helped us was teht we started the house selling really early. Even then - it didnt look like it would go through before we left for NZ (which we had to do because there was now a job available).

Excange and compltetion were booked for a few days before christmas. Our buyer was a right pain in the backside and spent 6 months dithering around and wasting everyones time. So without an excanhe - we did the following:

Packed up and shipped out
Spend Christmas with family
Came over to NZ

Thankfully - the excange and completion DID go through.

But just in case - we left mum and dad with Enduring power of attorney to act in any matters while we were out of the country. This meant they could sell the house for us. You can restrict a POA if you want to - so it just allows someone to act on your behalf with the house sale. You can actually get your lawyer to act for you.

I agree a Mortgage holiday may be worth looking at. Check how much it will cost you in the long run first - but if you are happy with that - its worth considering.

Also - why not ask the NZ employers if they will pay for your relocation costs? Explain the problem and see what they say. Although we all tend to think in terms of not wanting to muck them around and be cheeky and that we are eternally grateful for the opportunity they give us (well - the vast majority of us think that way anyway:D ) its fair to say that they do need us to, and they may be willing to go that bit extra distance to get you over.

HTH

Hugs

Hxxx

[Big Puku]

Another one here who was in a similar situation!

We left the UK after trying to sell our house unsuccessfully for 9 months (although we had 2 buyers in that time), as I had to start work and took a 6 month payment holiday on the mortgage. Eventually we got a buyer and completed 8 months later, so I only had to stump up 2 months mortgage (although we had dropped the price of the house by over 15%/£40k).

The hardest thing is it stops you moving on & doing what you want to in NZ (although it stopped us buying a house too soon!).

Good luck :)

Matt

[nippa&pippa]

Natalie

Try contact your building society or bank first to find out if you can have 6months mortgage holiday as our building society don't offer this......It is very hard & stressful without 6months mortgage holiday.
hth

[Jo Jo]

Hi Natalie,

You say you don't want to rent out the house because you need to equity you will get by selling it. Have you looked into remortgaging the house by getting a Buy to Let mortgage? This way, you will get some of the equity, and you should be able to sort it out more quickly, so can be on your way to NZ sooner rather than later.

Obviously, you wouldn't free up as much equity from your property this way because you do have to keep some in the property for this type of mortgage, but if the alternative is dropping the house price significantly in order to sell it quickly, it may balance out.

The amount you can borrow with a Buy to Let mortgage is dependent on the rentable value of the home, so you can borrow much more than you would just based on income, and payments tend to be interest only.

Speak to your estate agents to find out how easy it would be to rent out your property and how much rent you would get for it, and then you can work out if this is a viable alternative to selling. (It might be better to speak to different estate agents to those you are using for the sale, as the ones selling your house may try to put you off this option as they want the commission from the sale!)

Good luck.

Jo Jo

[Natalieb]

Some sound advise there from you all, im very grateful thanks.

As our mortgage at present is 'Interest Only' we are not entitled to payment holidays.

Whats annoying is 75% of our equity will be going down as a deposit on our new house in NZ. Its the 25% we need to set us up. We arnt even planning to buy for the first six months so there is no rush for the 75%.

I will speak to my broker about a Buy to Let mortgage, i hadnt heard of that.

I think we better communicate abit more with our employer, just so scared he will back out.

The thing with selling houses is you just cant estimate timescales, if we knew in six months time it was going to sell, we could plan for it, then again, it could be 2 years.

Hopefully will win the lottery tonight and all our problems will be over :yes

Natalie

[Angelonthemove]

We too are in the same situation as we still have not sold our house. We have rented it out for 12 months and its still on the market. We had a garage sale and sold most of our belonging we did not want to ship. You will be surprised how much stuff (tat) people will but. We raised £1000 for just small items in one sale. Plus selling our cars £3500. with this we took the plunge and got on that plane with NO job offers.

We are in rented and it has stopped us from making a rash decision on houses here as we are still not sure where to buy. We can get a 100% mortgage here although we can not afford to buy what we would really like it is still the better option for us now.

With regard to OH coming back for the flight have you considered taking a friend or relative instead from the UK so he can carry on working.

Good luck

[jen]

Sending out house sales vibes to Natalie & everyone stuck in house limbo . . .

It took us almost 6 months to sell our house and towards the end we spent hours and hours agonizing over whether we should move and try to sell it from overseas (renting wasn't an option since we wouldn't have gotten nearly enough to cover the mortgage). We'd finally decided to move in Jan. no matter what, and got buyers in November - so hang in there, you never know when it'll finally happen for you!

Best of luck!!

Jen

[Nettie]

It has taken us 2 years to sell our house and at last it seems to be going through ok. It is a nightmare when you have plans and also the longer it takes the more you think is this the right thing to do?! I know it is and wouldn't change my mind now.... but all those friends.
I also have the comments of people saying "are you still here? sold your house yet"? etc etc...working behind the counter of a bank I get it a hundred times a day...if only I could keep my life to myself!! Ha ha.
Good luck, it will happen.