we own a nice house in a nice village.
we needed to move next to my work in an undesirable area, my daughter needed a house in a nice village, so we now rent our house out to her and our 2 grandkids, and rent the council owned property next to my work. this was all on the understanding that we’ll give it at least 6 months and see how it goes from there.

2 years down the line, we need to move somewhere nicer again. life quality is sh1t here, wife hates it, something needs to give.

we’ve told my daughter we need to buy another house now, so we’ll be selling in 6 months time say to give her as much time as is reasonable to either buy the house or find another rental.

problem is, she’d love to buy it but its way out of price range she can afford. shes recently been studying hard to qualify as a nurse and is at uni. think she has tax credits, child benefit and bursary at the mo, but its not enough to buy the house.

we charge her under the going rate, so to find another rental shed be having to find a sizeable deposit, and a months rent in advance for a smaller property. plus when she does move, her fiance will move in, hes on a low wage plus i think she’ll get a fair bit of her money stopped when this happens, so is bad times for her, especially with the uni studying.

seems a shame that with all her hard work she cant make this happen, i think shes classed as ‘choosing not to work’ so this goes against her. shed probably get more help if she took a low paid job or did nothing rather than trying to better herself :-/ (this may or may not be true :-))
we’d like to help as much as poss but we have no spare income, nor savings, and would need the going rate for the house so that we can afford another.

my question is….. are we missing any alternative solutions? theres no way we can keep that house (so she can stay there) and buy another for us is there without drastically upping our expenditure? i know ‘buy to let’ seemed to be the done thing a few years back but i hear its not cost effective now. or any help she’d be entitled to that we dont know about? we’re not really very clued up about money hence coming on here and asking ‘the experts’ 🙂

thanks for any advice

I can’t see any answer. You need the equity in that house to buy another. Why don’t you all live there together? hahah.

Surprised that a uni student is classed as choosing not to work but know next to nothing about benefits system….one simple step you have probably done is work out the max you can (jointly) borrow and see if it comes close to what you you need to own two houses. ie could you manage a larger mortgage (even with no savings) and help your daughter out? With your own family moved out (I assume) you might decide you can live in a smaller place, so long as it’s nice? Just a thought.

Would getting a buy to let mortgage on your existing property give you a large enough deposit for a new place? If your daughter is on benefits youcould up the rent to market rate so she’d get max housing benefit for helping pay your two motgages? Where are you btw – i paid £65k less by opting for next town away from london for instance

we’d like to help as much as poss but we have no spare income, nor savings, and would need the going rate for the house so that we can afford another.

my question is….. are we missing any alternative solutions?

How does that chime with your posting history on here over the last year or so:

holidays in granada

holidays again – crete vs rhodes in september?

Thailand holiday – package, DIY or mix of both?

What to do in….. Budapest

which greek island holiday?

holiday time again – tell me about olu deniz please

I think I can see where you might find a little more in your housing budget. 🙂

If your daughter is on benefits you could up the rent to market rate so she’d get max housing benefit for helping pay your two motgages?

Apart from being morally detestable, you won’t get any housing benefit renting off a parent, IIRC.

Be very very careful with BTL. There’s no guarantee whatsoever that house prices won’t fall and interest rates won’t go up.
Also, Bank of England have warned it’s a risk to UK economy as so/too many people have got into it thinking it’s risk-free, free money and the slightest change in the economic situation could lead to a lot of people in serious financial trouble.
Worth also noticing that Osbourne is trying to kill it with changes in the last budget – this particular supply of ‘free’ money is likely to disappear soon

thanks for the help so far chaps, wasnt sure about the buy to lets, so it looks like that would probably be too risky to go down….

work out the max you can (jointly) borrow and see if it comes close to what you you need to own two houses. ie could you manage a larger mortgage (even with no savings) and help your daughter out?

i think i understand what your getting at, but im pretty sure my daughter just wouldnt be able to buy at all just yet. no recent wages to show, not sure bout credit history but i think at present theyre trying to build a decent rating up for when they plan to buy in 2 or 3 years.
so i think any owning of houses would have to be by me, which is why i considered BTL. but it seems thats not really an option now.

Where are you btw – i paid £65k less by opting for next town away from london for instance

we’re lincoln area. already worked out where we want our next house, and i think theyre pretty much like for like, maybe drop a little on value but not significantly.

lots of holiday threads….

I think I can see where you might find a little more in your housing budget.

you bad lad!! 😀 if youd had the last few years that we have, youd be wanting lots of holidays too! 😀 no seriously, that little avenue of pleasure will take a turn for the worse when we move anyway. at present we get cheap rent through fire service housing which allows us a few nice breaks in the sun. when we move itll be back to normal paying full whack living expenses im afraid :-/

ideal scenario i think would be someone wanting to buy a house with tenants, as a long term investment. we did have someone asking the other day and we thought we’d got a result, but in the end he was just a developer who wanted something cr@p to do up and offered us a derisory amount for it. shame…..

looks like we’ve probably covered every angle then and she’ll just have to move out :-/

thanks for the help

Isn’t Lincolnshire full of nice villages and undesirable towns? Are you staying put work-wise or will you get shifted again to the other side of the county. Just thinking with legal and finance costs you might be better renting long term if there are going to be house moves every couple of years.

Edit: this assumes house prices in Lincolnshire aren’t roaring away, but I had the impression they were pretty static. Remember, money is money, so there’s nothing to stop you renting the original village house at full market value to a stranger, then using some of that money to help your daughter out until she can be self sufficient.

Apart from being morally detestable, you won’t get any housing benefit renting off a parent, IIRC.

Not true you can pay them rent but it has to be a separate house they dont live in,

Isn’t Lincolnshire full of nice villages and undesirable towns? Are you staying put work-wise or will you get shifted again to the other side of the county. Just thinking with legal and finance costs you might be better renting long term if there are going to be house moves every couple of years.

lots of nice villages thats for sure, and not all the towns are scuzzy, its just that ours is im afraid. not much chance of being posted far away really, itd be my choice to move, and wife has a job locally anyway so we wont be going far. just far enough out to have a decent house in a nice location i hope.

Just thinking with legal and finance costs you might be better renting long term

we did look at that, but everyone seemed to want big deposits (which id be scared we wouldnt get back, ‘false’ expenses when we left, that sort of thing), months rent in advance, plus the potential hazards of bad landlords etc. we just decided that firstly we wouldnt have enough money to give a landlord/agency to get going in the first place, and secondly, wife wants ‘my own place again’, somewhere to put down roots and do what she wants to the house.
got nothing against renting myself, just seemed simpler and cheaper to buy again.

just revisiting this as ive had a quick chat with our financial advisor (retired now so ill have to find another).

he suggested ‘let to buy’ may be an option rather than ‘buy to let’ as we already own the home and its been our residence before. we take equity out of the house to put into buying another, and the rental income covers the cost of the new mortgage payments. or something like that……

never heard of that, anyone care to impart any knowledge on it? is it something worth considering?

thanks

I can’t help you myself but in your shoes I’d be looking for advice from a site like moneysavingexpert http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ or some similar site