[Closed] Dumping the Mortgage and renting... Anyone done it...?

If it's not for you then it's not for you.

Remember you may want to have something to pass to your wee fella - a home may be just the thing.

Remember you may want to have something to pass to your wee fella - a home may be just the thing.

this is my big argument..however If my wife and I live for ages he will have to wait a long time...maybe an investment for him that is available when he really needs it might be a better option?

Good question really. I have about £160k 'profit' in my house at current rates. I reckon (when interest rates on savings recover in the future) I could sell it and rent mainly just using the interest on the savings, then have disposable income to invest further.

Hmmm....

My good lady and me are doing the opposite - now looking to buy very soon.

We have the advantage of very cheap finance to help us so we may be (luckily) looking at a very short term mortgage period and actually be one of the lucky few who end up really owning their own house. Neither of us have a strong desire to own a home but the opportunity has been presented and it makes sense for us to go down that road.
Anyway, you need to go and see someone for advice, yhey see angles you may not.

Sounds like you over-committed in the first place financially, have you considered downsizing/moving to a cheaper area? Maybe it's another option to the two above?

Anyway, you need to go and see someone for advice, yhey see angles you may not.

you are quite right. To do it scares the poo out, and I would have to do lots of mulling first .

I've doubled my money on my home by buying it some 8 or 9 years ago.
Can't do that with anything else I'm aware of.
I rent out to lodgers and this pays the mortgage.
Win-win.
Safe, secure, never going to be asked to move on unless I can't pay the mortgage (already covered that) so I'd avoid selling like the plague.
We are coming out of a recession and you want to sell at a relatively low point.
In a year from now, you'll have lost thousands and thousands of investment £'s.

my missus and me have got 7 years left on our mortgage we re-mortgaged 3 years ago when we had 17 yrs left so cutting 7 off. we were looking to re-mortgage again to reduce down to 5yrs but works not very good at the mo, our kids are 18 and 14 so when they fly the nest we will be doing the same as you are looking at, get rid of house and rent a flat somewhere nice i hope.

Dancake, if you andd your wife live for ages do you really want to be paying rent through your retirement?
If you really want to spend money now there are plenty of equity releas schemes out there. A guy I once lodged with sold his house to go travelling and now he has nothing.

When you rent, you are handing money to someone else... more so than when you have a mortgage. Plus you have an appreciating asset.

It depends when you want to cash in your asset I suppose.

Cheers, guys.

I was kind of hoping no one would say, "its an ace idea" (!)

Downsizing isnt an option, so its a case of muddle through for the next 14 years or so. I guess it is the same for everybody.

I got us in this mess...even the bike was on credit.

kind of did what you talk about but don't have any kids, just me and the fiancee. Had a mortgage on a 1 bed flat for about 3 years so never really paid much off, ended up taking a bit extra out against the flat to pay for a holiday to vancouver/whistler, loved it there so sold up and moved here two years ago. Used the profits to pay off some debt and the rest helped towards the move and a very enjoyable first year here. Don't regret doing it but the prospect of buying a house here seems a long way off and at 32, like you I'm not sure i'll get round to ever paying a mortgage off in my lifetime. Not sure that helps any.

Can you re-mortgage to release some equity - use this to pay your debts (or part of).

The mortgage will be at a lower more manageable rate and payment presumably. i.e. consolidation basically.

There are plently of people who don't think we are through this crisis and assets prices are still inflated. I think the assumption that houses prices are just going to rise over the next few years can be challenged. Also beware people's calculations of how much they make as they invariably forget how much they spend doing their house up. There is a lot to think about, read about the subject, look at the demographics etc etc. They are plenty of people on the continent who never buy house.

And paying rent is no more paying money to someone else than paying interest on a mortgage.

Dancake, you say you can get rid of £20k debt, is this the mortgage your talking about, or unsecured debt on cards etc? (edit - obviously took me more than 9 minutes to write this post as you've just mentioned the bike!)

My opinion is once you're on the ladder, you might as well stay. As others have said, would you rather be mortgage free and a homeowner at some point near your retirement, or be facing what could be another 25yrs of spending your pension on rent.

If money really is a problem, maybe you could consider going onto an interest only mortgage for a few years, that might make renting look less appealing.

We only bought our first house three years ago so have a long way to go in terms of paying off the mortgage, although house is only worth £5k more than we paid (and we spent more than that doing it up) I'm still much happier to be saddled with a mortgage than be paying money to my landlord each month 🙂

Ti29er - Doubling your money over nine years is a 8% return, which is good but they will be plenty of companies that will have returned more. However, because you had a mortgage you were able to "leverage" your investment and thus invest more.

Renting is fine as long as you appreciate that you'll need an alternative investment to property - that is invest money elsewhere so as to pay rent into retirement or buy a house. If you think you can grow your money faster than property prices will rise then you'll win though keeping that profit tax free is an issue.

But it sounds like you don't want to invest so much so whilst you might have a better life before retirement your future beyond that could be difficult taking the rental option.

as spooky said
My thoughts on rent over mortgage as always come down to when I retire
I will either own a home or still have to pay rent
I'm not sure what benefits are available to help with this but who knows what's it's going to be like in 25yrs?

If you were to say rent is £600/month, how much extra pension contribution would you have to invest to cover that?
If things really go tits up when I'm old & decrepit, I can always use the house for capital.
It's hard to imagine retirement when you're young but it turns up pretty damn quickly 🙂 - I'm facing it it 10 years time & if I'm still fit, I'll be making the most of the time off

I obviously don't know your situation so I can only suggest what I'd do [have done] when things have gone wrong & I needed some extra
Is there any way that you could get a part time job & work as many hours as you can & use the income purely for debt reduction?

where are these "cheap rents" people talk about

I'm splitting from my wife and need to decide between buying a new home for myself or renting

rents here in the brighton area just seem ridiculous - for what seem to be pretty poorly looked after places. Buying seems the better option for me right now

where are these "cheap rents" people talk about

I don't know, this area you pay about the same renting as you would with a mortgage

We sold up ten years ago and have been renting ever since. No regrets!!
We are on our sixth rental property, and have lived in some fantastic places. They have either been dirt cheap (£275 a month for a "basic" one bed flat, when all other spare cash was spent travelling) or pricier for a nicer property/location. We have just moved back to town after two years in a converted barn. We now live in a lovely part of town, 10 minutes walk from school, in a house we could never afford to buy.

Why would I buy a property (and therefore live) in a less desirable area rather than rent in somewhere nice.

I can't imagine growing old and regretting all the unique places we've lived. I can imagine growing old and wishing I'd done more. I'd rather be in a nursing home with memories of great adventures, than be in my own home having not done much with life.

Live life while you (and your family) are young. My mum and dad had big plans for their retirement, but then mum got very ill and NONE of it happened. Go fot it!!!

When you rent, you are handing money to someone else...

I've just had my annual summary from my mortgage company. £11k payed, £9k to the bank in interest, £2k payed off. My mortgage is twice what I was paying in rent, although the house wasn't as nice as the one I now own.

Paying a mortgage doens't necessarily mean never doing anything with your life Spam. And renting also doens't guarantee brilliant adventures. Embrace life, sure - make it work, do lots of stuff.. but think carefully about cashing in your chips.

Also, on our mortgage the capital/interest ratio was about 50/50 before interest rates went down.

Problem with renting is you still need an "endless" cashflow and even if its cheap you have to be very strict with yourelf to save.

My advice is to pay mortgages down if you can afford to but still keep some money for a "rainy day". Offset morgages are a good idea if you are "strict" and dont keep dipping into savings.

People forget mortages are not "cheap" despite the low headline rates. remember you are paying compound interest for 20-25 years so paying back capital early in the mortgage and finishing it early makes a massive difference in what you eventually pay.

The downside with having debt today is that we have low inflation(not many people are getting pay rises!), and I dont see that changing for some time. This means a big mortgage/loan will still seem big in a number of years. Todays value of all those payments you will have to make over the coming years is very high.
There are loads of "if and buts" in the rent/buy equation, but if you live in a house you like and can afford it, I think it is nice to feel that it will be yours at some time. I do not believe house prices will go up any more than inflation for some time and I certainly think the days of "it always goes up are over".

Just another angle. Might be the one voice that can see a positive arguement to what your considering.
If you sell, use some of the cash released from the sale to pay off your biggest and/or longest running debts, rent for as long as 10 years if need be to clear your other debts and save a new deposit ready to buy your next house. Theoretically, you could have a 20 year mortgage on a nice little property to take you to your 65th year but very little or no other debt during this time.
The first five years might mean cash is tight'ish at a time in your life when others are seeing cash really freeing up as they'll be coming to the end of their mortgages but your time will come again and quite quickly if you stop yourself from overspending on credit again.
Anybody see a flaw in this plan?

Won't help the OP but depending on where you are in the UK, renting flats can be very cheap indeed due to oversupply built specifically for the buy to let market.

We sold up 2 years ago (3 bed det house) and into a 2 bed flat in a very nice area. Payments went from 650pm to 550 - as with nickjb the mortgage was being paid off at 2k p.a., and we're easily covering that off with the saving plus interest on our capital.

Also, don't forget that mortgage does not equal rent. If you rent, you don't pay for maintenance, breakdowns or buildings insurance (etc).

Trouble is, SWMBO has got her eyes on a "nice" part of the world for our family house and I'm wincing at the thought of the repayments...

Has anybody thought of using your pension to pay off your mortgage?

I'm thinking of swapping my house for some magic beans? Any advice?

[i]I've just had my annual summary from my mortgage company. £11k payed, £9k to the bank in interest, £2k payed off.[/i]

Sounds even worse for us as, being young, we opted for a 40yr mortgage to start with, but to overpay to keep us on track for a 30yr term, which gives us the option to borrow back the overpayments if things go wrong.

If we hadn't overpaid and stuck to the minimum payments, we be paying £8400 in interest, and a mere £240 off the balance! Obviously that gets more favourable as the years tick by...

Don't do it unless it's your last resort. If you haven't already, switch your mortgage to interest only to reduce your monthly outgoings. The property will appreciate in value and time and capital growth will solve all your financial problems.

I would even suggest going one step further in that if you have equity in your property you could use it to buy an investment property which if you buy in the right way will mean that you will get your investment back in 6 months and will have an investment property for free - you will also have equity in it from day 1. In a couple of years the increase in value of prop 2 will mean that you can take a huge chunk of £ off of your residential mortgage.

A few years ago (5) we did the same (although for a very different reason) and it's moved us backwards. At the time I didn't take advice and knew nothing about property. Now, I understand property, have studdied how to make property work and wish I knew then what I know now. I now help buy-to-let landlords find below market value property to expand their portfolios and will shortly be getting back into the game myself.

Squin that sounds scary. You still seem to believe house prices always go up. Borrowing lots to buy houses relying on capital appreciation is very risky. That is gearing up! Remember thats just what the Banks did and then found they got killed by falling asset prices. My view is that you may well see the UK housing market stagnate in the next few years. I.e houses fall in actual value or have near zero growth!They are still too expensive vs peoples earnings despite the current record low rates!

Buying something "below market" is a different story. If you do that you immediately make money by definition. If you can do that why not sell it straight away and take no risk.

You need this guy

He might say

Sell your bikes, tighten your belt, remortgage your house (to get rid of the 20K), don't even think about the new car, and take an income on the side.

[img] [/img]

Weve just sold our house and are now looking to rent. The main reason for this is were moving to a totally different area and want to make sure we like it there before committing to buying another property.

right, i haven't read the other replies but this is my opinion.

if you were gonna buy a campervan and travel the world, fine, if you're in imminent danger of reposession, fine, but as you want to carry on living a coventional life in a conventional house then don't do it.

with the current market you should be buying another place not selling your only one. mortgage rates are low, rents are high, the value of your property (and your equity) has been reduced by 20% in the last 18 months.

if you really do want to realise some of your equity then remortgage or down size for ****s sake don't rent unless you have to.

Radioman - of course I was generalising, I wouldn't expect anyone to risk investing money on the back of those 2 paragraphs 🙂 There are a number of strategies.

BMV prop doesn't matter when you buy it, you're right.

Historically, property has out-performed inflation, so that alone would see a capital growth.

All investment is a risk, property is just one 'class' of investment, but remember, there is only one class of investment that we live in - residential housing! The UK has an obsession with property ownership.

I don't have a crystal ball, but I do have the historical data of property growth and a few thoughts as to why property will increase in value again:
1. Due to the class of investment as above
2. In the next 10 years the population of the UK is heading towards 70m
3. We needed an extra 3m props over 10 years (starting in 2008) just to keep up with the current population and shortage of housing stock, and due to the credit crunch we are already 200k+ houses short of the yearly target.
4. None of the large house builders have built anything for the last year+
5. Our planning laws are so slow that we won't catch up on construction demand.
6. We lost a mass of skilled construction labour over the last couple of years.
7. We live on an island and 1/3 of the UK is green-belt.
8. We currently have a disproportionately large group of want to be first time buyers wanting to get on the property ladder but for the last few years have been kept off by low LTV lending rates. 2 years ago a FTB could happily get a 95% mortgage, over the last 18 months they were lucky to be offered 75%. We have just seen 90% re-enter the market and as more lenders follow suit, there will be more FTB's per property than 2 years ago - laws of supply and demand will kick in pushing up prices.

In and out in the next couple of years is more of a risk, but mid to long term the rewards could be good.

To balance the theory though, there are counter agrguements to all of my above points. Investment is risk and we all have different risk threasholds and different opinions because of this.

FWIW, you currently do get more property for your rented £ than the mortgaged £, but value for money and investment are two very different things.

There are no right or wrong answers.

Can you rent out the property you have at present?
Switch to an interest only mortgage.
Then rent out a smaller property yourselves for less money.
This will see you with some excess £ at the end of each month.
£20k and falling!

I'm going to be in my 40's before I can afford to put down a deposit on anywhere, so I would stick with your mortgage unless you're in such dire financial trouble that you have to get rid of it...

I sold my house in 1999 and have been renting ever since.

It's rather a british obsession with owning your house..... Continentals are very used to renting, and I will continue until an elderly relative dies and leaves me enough money for a deposit 😉

Ti29er - Member
I've doubled my money on my home by buying it some 8 or 9 years ago.

If you're better than most analysts and can accurately predict the housing market then buy and mortgage when prices are low and sell and rent when prices peak. Otherwise it's a better long-term investment to have a mortgage, it also gives you something to borrow against (more cheaply) if you have a financial emergency.

I had an interesting conversation with a Malaysian bloke. He didn't see the point in paying a mortgage only to leave a house for his children when he died.
He fed and educated them he should spend money now making life as good as possible.
He thought we were mad the way we had to own our house.

Dancake - me and my missus did exactly that when we moved from Leeds to Exeter.
Granted - we were hugely fortunate in that we sold at the absolute peak (completed about a month before things started to slide! phew!). We made about £15k, paid off some debt (only some, depressingly), and have been renting much nicer houses, for the same money as our mortgage was in Leeds ever since.

Benefits:
- Exeter is way nicer than Leeds (sorry Leeds folk!)
- We rent in the nicest area of Exeter, whereas we owned in one of the least-nicest in Leeds
- We could never afford the mortgage on the place we rent!
- When the boiler dies - it's someone elses problem!
- Interest rates? WGAF? not us.

Downsides
- We are paying for our landlords to have a nice investment
- No hope in hell of getting back on the property ladder now you need huge deposits and since the house prices in Exeter never fall, god knows when we will.

I loved owning our house, but if money is tight and you have a mortgage and some equity - to me, it seems like a no brainer. Sell up and free yourself of the horrible life-limiting factor that is debt! enjoy your life.

Sounds like the original poster has been living beyond his means and if he does sell his house is unlikely to make the kind of investment that will leave him comfortable in the future.
He talks about [i]taking his son somewhere nice[/i] which I would read as [i]an expensive holiday[/i]. Truth is most young kids will apreciate their parents spending time with them more than great scenery or exotic locations. My 8 year old's best holiday last year was the weekend we went camping and surfing in Cornwall.
He has to accept that he has already spent tomorrow's money and make some cutbacks until he's straight again.

Or just learn to live with debt and not feel guilty about it?

I'd say 'go for it' and sell your house now while its still worth something before the next impending downturn.

Houses are currently way over valued, still way above the long term earnings and affordability averages. A true crash has only been avoided by the current low interest rates artificially propping up the market, but when interest rates start to rise, as they will surely have to, just watch for the big fall out in the housing market.

The last housing price rise was fueled by a mixture of greed (people convinced by the media that a house's primary purpose was as an investment - rather than as somewhere to live) and reckless and irresponsible lending by the banks to people who really couldn't afford to buy but got caught up in the media hype.

The banks have had their fingers well and truly burned so I can't see them returning to their old lending ways any time soon, meaning that house prices will have to return to levels affordable to first time buyers otherwise no-one's going to be able to move anywhere.

Personally I can't understand the attitude of many of people who seem hell bent on getting onto the property ladder no matter what. When you see the crummy places people have stretched themselves to buy just to say they are on the ladder, you have to wonder!

Me, I'm happy to carry on renting my nice new flat, and then just see what happens.

Mostly Balanced - easy to be holier-than-thou, but not hugely helpful to the OP I should imagine, it's clear that he's miffed about getting in debt - at least he's trying to do something about it!
Debt can come for all kinds of reasons, not just being a shopoholic or a credit card bashing lunatic!

Think:
- Unwell loved one needing care
- Loss of job
- Business problems
- Accident leading to loss of earnings
- Higher education as an investment to improve your career, then graduating from said education to find the economy is fubarred.

You can be careful but you can never prepare for everything!

I love being lectured on why house prices have risen by buy-to-letters...

I wasn't trying to be holier than thou, just realistic. I get the impression from the OP that he is looking for a means of continuing to spend on his lifestyle at the expense of long term planning. I think if he had been the victim of misfortune he would have told us.

Not misfortune.

Went absolutely mental on credit from the Moment I started earning...

He talks about taking his son somewhere nice which I would read as an expensive holiday. Truth is most young kids will apreciate their parents spending time with them more than great scenery or exotic locations

sure I mean "expensive holiday" not just for my son, but for my wife who works her arse off every day. Any why shouldnt I show him something different? Our holidays are weekends away with all of us, dogs and all, and we have fantastic times every time .That said, I know my own Son; he would think it would be ****ing brilliant.

Any why shouldnt I show him something different?

TBH - because you can't afford to

It's obvious that you can't afford your current lifestyle so you need to change something.
Selling your house will work for now but you may well be back in the same situation in a couple of years time.
My advice would be to take some pain for the next 2 or 3 years & try to change your life style

Sorry if I sound harsh - it's not meant to be

Harshness is not a bad thing !

I made a right mess of things but we get by ok I guess.

I mentioned "greed" in the original post. It all boils down to that I think. Thanks for all the comments. I know what I am doing which is what I am now!

cheers, Dudes

Shorting a market is riskier than being long but only if you have to buy back in at some point; with housing you don't. Unless you think money is going to get easier to borrow then there's no reason to think prices will rise rapidly. The average British house price has been close to the maximum that can be borrowed on the average wage for years. Prices have risen because people have been able to borrow more in relation to what they earn. In the British market where potential demand always outstrips supply it's the ability to pay that dictates price.

I rented a property I couldn't have afforded and watched our local property market. When I reckoned prices were about as low as they were likely to go and would in all probability rise I bought. The money we'd saved and speculatively invested in other ways was by then enough to buy something nice without a mortgage.

Nice story Edukator, it may be that people like you put an end to the wild fluctuations that property prices have seen in the last 20 years. Until recently I wouldn't have thought that there were enough people out there clued up enough to watch, wait and pounce to affect the market, but with all the 'Homes Under The Hammer' type programmes on TV that's probably changed.

wild fluctuations that property prices have seen in the last 20 years

I don't believe there's been wild fluctuations in the last 20 years
Until recently it's pretty much been up

[img] [/img]

The average house price in 74 was about £10 000 so that graph must be inflation adjusted. Inflation adjusted wages nearly doubled over the same period. So if house prices nearly quadrupled then house prices doubled in relation to wages up to the 07 peak, the reasons:

Women's income being taken into account by mortgage lenders.
The ratio of permitted borrowing to earnings increasing.
Self certification.
Deposits demanded decreasing.
Mortgage lending periods increasing (soemtimes beyond life expectancy!)
Salesmen working as bankers.

If the borrowing conditions were the same as in 1974 the average house price would be around £100 000 IMO. How serious are the regulators about cleaning up the banking industry and returning to more rigorous lending practices? On that depends the price you can expect to pay.

If you look at alternative investments the FTSE was at 60 at the end of 74, multiply it by 4 as Nationwide appear to be doing for house prices and you get 240 in 74 and over 5000 at the end of the period. So shares have done much better in capital value and paid a dividend similar to a rental income over the period without the hassle.

They're just markets and if you read the influences right you'll profit and if you don't you'll get stung. You don't have to invest in any market.

That graph looks scary to me and shows the bubble that has formed in UK housing. George Soros warned in his speech last week in Davos about the authorities responses to "mini crises " we have seen over recent years. Every time they happened, Central Banks added more funds to the markets and "eased" and just poured more cash into the financial system.

This supplied the absolutely enormous amount of funds that the Banks used to purchase assets ...eg grant lots and lots of mortgages at silly rates, and extend credit where it was not wise to do so. Our Regulators and Politicians knew exactly what was happening but failed to act. Politicians have made rising house prices part of their policy, and have been fairly big investors themselves. Unfortunately most people dont recognise bubbles until its too late.

Its interesting now that cooking and "talent programs" seem to be replacing the endless property ones. I think buying a property and adding "a coat of magnolia, new carpets and new curtains" is not going to make many people rich in the next few years!

The graph shown above shows that whilst the overall long term trend for house prices is upwards (as with the majority of items), anybody who times their house purchases correctly can stand to have either a much nicer house than they otherwise would have, or a life with much more disposable income.

Why oh why people in this country see house price rises as a good thing is beyond me. It is the single biggest purchase that the majority of people ever make, and people seem to think that high prices are a good thing! Each time the Nationwide or Halifax announce a high price rise, the media portray this as a good thing for our country. Nobody applauds cars/bikes/food/holidays going up in price, so why houses?

I know this mini rant doesn't help the OP, so maybe I'm getting a bit off topic!!

one key thing to consider - rental on a given place is only likely cheaper in the short term..

lets say your house costs £1200 pm on a mortgage, or £1000 on a interest only mortgage and the equivilent would cost £800 to rent. Assuming interest rates stay broadly the same, you'll be paying the same amount every month for your time. on the other hand, rent increases broadly in line with inflation - currently averaging around 2.5% pa. By 10 years in you're paying the same amount as the interest only mortgage, and by 17 years in you're onto the repayment mortgage - after 25 years the interest only mortgage would have cost you a total of 10% less than the rent (despite looking 20% more expensive on paper) and the full mortgage only 10% more (but it'd give you an asset at the end of things)

it obviously comes down to a whole lot more than that. Personally, with a kid, I'd not consider the rental option if owning was out there - chances of having to move every 6 months just isn't worth it. I'd be careful of jumping on the consolidation option as well though - putting your 20k onto 5% over 20 years will probably cost more in the long run than leaving it on 10% for 5 years (cba to do the maths).

tighten your belts, cut up the credit cards, and push through

I am a fair bit older than you and have owned several houses but for various reasons I'm currently renting. The pro's and cons for me are as follows :-

Pro's - No liability for repairs etc. able to move location easily if required, sometimes cheaper than a mortgage but not at the moment.

Cons - No long term security ie. fixed term contract, no investment value, rental still has to be paid after retirement, lack of desire to 'improve' a property for the benefit of owner & only short term benefit for tenant so you end up 'making do' with existing decor/carpets etc. Rentals tend to be in clusters so neighbour changes frequent and can be good or bad.

I will be buying my own house again as soon as I am in a position to. My advice would be to hold onto your current property if you can as you will find it very difficult to buy again in a few years time. Slumps in the market do not happen very often and you will be selling low and buying high in the future.

From that graph I'd say there's a few people on here who have also been over here www.housepricecrash.co.uk

There's a wealth of information on the forum. Just be aware that as the title of the site suggests the majority opinion on the housing market is that we are heading downhill in the near future.

Speak to an advisor but I don't think you should be selling up to release the equity. Apart from your mrs not having to work everything else is a luxury and you would be better off with some assets and savings.

At 35, I only have a few years left before a new mortgage is beyond me.

Sorry but this is pish. My parents-in-law are looking to move and they're not having any problems getting a mortgage and they're the wrong side of 50. Admittedly they're not going to be given a 40year term but even so...

The whole attitude we have to buying houses is different to most other countries. Of course our daft rental laws where you have no security does not help, nor the " an englishmans home is his castle"

A lot of folk get the sums wrong as well. My flat cost me £50 000 and 17 yrs on is worth more than £200 000. Seems like a good buy. However the mortgage interest and stuff means I have actually paid more than £100 000 including repairs and renovations and I still owe many tens of thousands. ( I also have an unusual huge repair bill of £40 000 but will discount this) It is often not as profitble or as good an investment as people think.

However now is not the time to sell IMO - My bet is houses will continue to rise in value.

So to the OP - If possible I'd remortgage to clear your debt and then live within your means.