[Belmont Babes]

Have just returned from a lovely relaxing holiday. My Husband got talking to a guy there and we talked about our plans for emigration. He was quite interested as he had previously emigrated to US for 2 years. He came back to the UK (reason unknown) and really struggled to get back onto housing market. He was trying to impress upon us how important he thought it was to keep a place back in the UK. We had thought about it previously but places are so expensive we would then need to obtain a mortgage in NZ which we didn't want to do. What are the views out there? Also we were worried that if we kept a bolthole we would be more tempted to throw the towel in when things got tough???:confused:

[tigerlily]

I think many people need to sell their house in their home country to get the funds to travel and set themselves up. But if you are not in that situation, perhaps you could rent out your house and find a rental in NZ. House prices there seem to be flattening out for a while, and the NZ dollar could continue it's slide (no crystal ball here though). So selling your house in the UK in a year or two (or when you were really sure you wanted to stay in NZ) could be a very good financial option.

I'm remembering a line from the movie (no, I did not read the book) Hunt for Red October. Sean Connery, as the Russian submarine captain, says:
"When Cortez reached the new world, he burned his ships. As a result his men were well motivated."

[RamblingPaddies]

i think we are planning on selling here and then leaving 60-70% of the proceeds at home in the bank just to give us that security if we happen to return.

we are lucky in that the irish housing market is so stupidly inflated its unreal - we can sell our house here are afford to leave a good whack behind. we will rent in N until we get a feel for whatever area and then perhaps decide to buy with the remaining money.

[DMcG]

I came to NZ, simply because my (kiwi) partner had to come home for a family crisis.
Neither of us was really prepared to leave Scotland at that point (now 3 years ago) - but we didn't really have much of a choice. I kept my flat in Edinburgh which is rented out, simply because our future was uncertain and it kept our options open.

Now after 3 years of chaos and two house moves, we're looking for some settled time with peace and quiet. We may still return to Scotland at some point (there's still big chunks of Europe we both want to see), but in the meantime, the property is increasing in value, and the UK mortgage rate is less than the NZ savings rate, so it makes no sense to pay it off.

I'll probably keep maintaining it until it's either no longer economically viable, or we decide to finally buy somewhere in NZ - at which point, I'll need the capital currently tied up in it. Until then, I'm aiming for my citizenship (my partner has dual nationality) - and since we don't have any kids, we'll probably spend the next ten or fifteen years flitting between the two ends of the globe.

Dougie

[M&J]

We have decided to rent out our house in the UK for the time being until we are sure about staying here long term, two years or more. Also we decided we wanted to wait before we bought in NZ so we could decide on the actual area. We know it will be around Cambridge but will it be in town, just outside, do we buy a section??? Too many undecided things.

The rent we receive in the UK more than covers our rent here in NZ and hopefully prices here still steady a bit too.

A difficult decision!!!

Jo