[Belmont Babes]

OK folks, some help please.

We are seriously considering renting our home as it hasn't sold and two job offers are awaiting. If we rent out we will have no option but to rent in NZ also as too much capital is tied up in the home. I hear from others that an important part of the settling in process is buying your own home. What I would love to know is how many people rent/buy (a % would be great):laugh . Are those that rent, happy or would they of preferred to buy?

Cheers
Nat

[Moorf]

I thought I'd be more than happy to rent for around 6 months to a year when we arrived here.

After a few months I was desperate to get in to our own home, to get our stuff around us and to feel "rooted" (not in the Kiwi sense :laugh )!!

I'm not sure why I felt this way, it took me by surprise. Needless to say we bought after 6 months (had to honour rental agreement). Our rental wasn't toooo bad either (compared to others) so it wasnt the "conditions" just an overwhelming need to "nest"! Mind you, I hadn't seen our belongings for near on a year by that time!!

I've heard many of my friends say the same....

HTH
Moorf

[Jo Jo]

I always planned to rent out my flat in London, rent in NZ for 6 months to a year and then remortgage my London flat and put the equity towards buying a house in NZ.

But when we were on holiday in NZ last Christmas we were looking at houses and decided to put an offer in on one there and then. When I returned to the UK I remortgaged my London flat, and took out a small mortgage in NZ for the new house. It became ours in March - and we're not even in NZ yet! (we will be soon, though - we fly out on the 14th October.)

Have you considered remortgaging your home to free up some of the capital? When I remortgaged I switched from a repayment mortgage to an interest only mortgage, and although the new mortgage is much bigger the repayments are only about £50 a month extra. And the rent I should get for the flat will more than pay for the mortgage, and all the other costs associated with the property, even if there are void periods.

It's not the ideal solution for everyone, but it could be worth considering if you have a lot of equity in your property, and your property is likely to rent out easily.

PM me if you want any more info.

Jo Jo

[mgbridges]

I also found the urge to have our 'own' place quite overwhelming and it very quickly became top priority to find somewhere to buy. All my energies since I've arrived (6 wks ago) have gone into looking at real estate websites, property press and viewing properties. At weekends we've spent one day going to Open Homes and one day doing 'something else' so our 5yr old son didn't get too bored. We made a decision on where in Auckland we wanted to live pretty quickly (researched a lot before arriving), helped along by our son starting school in the area.

Very fortunately the right place for us just happened to come onto our property finding radar at just the right moment and we went unconditional on it (exchanged) earlier this week. As an aside getting to exchange tends to happen quickly over here - 5 days after first seeing the property for us!

However..... we had got to the stage of considering reviewing our situation and looking for another rental and taking a break from the whole house buying game. We'd been knocked back on one offer that we'd made pre-auction, had been pipped to the post on a tender on another property and after seeing inside 28 houses in such a short space of time I was getting pretty jaded with the whole process but I didn't want to stay where we are.

I think what I'm trying to say is, yes having your own place can help a great deal towards settling but... if you are open to all options you can feel settled in a rental. You just need to be prepared to move a few times to find the right property for you, also be prepared to feel rather displaced until your belongings arrive as that will help too. Renting does have a lot of upsides so don't feel you have to buy as soon as you get here.

As ever I've rambled but I hope this will help a little.
Anneliese

[Sam B]

We rented out our UK home, and rented here. I lasted about 3 weeks before I KNEW I would never settle until I had my own stuff in my own home. Our property agent arranged our house sale in the UK, it was a bit of a chocolate box house in Cornwall so it sold in a week, and we bought here as soon as we completed. I reckon you may well struggle to settle here in rental. Sorry.

Feel so sorry for my tenants, who moved into our house with 4 kids and who got kicked out again 2 months later.

[whiskythedog]

we have just bought in nz after 5 months in a rental - i think is helps the settling in process enormously
we didnt really have time to sell our house and still wanted a safety net so we decided to rent our uk house
fortunately it was let within a couple of weeks on a one year fixed rent
This then allowed us to remortage the uk property - international buy to let mortgage (stroud and swindon) and borrow money at a cheaper rate (plus a nz mortgage) meant we could afford to buy here
the next best solution ?

[chazndave]

We are also considering renting our house out in the UK when we move to New Zealand but is it possible to re-mortgage your UK house whilst based in New Zealand?
Sorry to hijack your thread Nat

[whiskythedog]

essentially yes-we started ball rolling before we came out but all final paperwork was signed off by us in nz - we came here mid april but remortage didnt occur until end of july (ie when our last mortgage deal finished - to ensure no early redemption penalties)

[KerryS]

I'm in a very different situation, as I came to NZ as a single person. I flatted originally, and then rented a place with a friend. Then I finally bought last year. I still own my house in the UK, and I intend to keep it for another few years until the mortgage is paid off.
I don't real feel an affinity with the place I live, and I'm just as happy in a rental as in my own home. Actually, I was happier in my last rental than I am in the house I'm currently living in - mainly as it is a money pit and it depresses me to come home to dust and dirt everywhere, but I keep reminding myself that it will be worth it in the end!
Every rental I have had has always been home to me whilst I have lived in it.