Sell now and use our savings to pay the negative equity?

If anyone could offer some advice I'd be grateful as we can't seem to see the wood for the trees at the moment.

We're both working and have two children, we want to move to Wicklow to be near family etc etc

We live in Dublin and have an offer on our house for E200,000. Our mortgage is currently E245,000 with a tracker of +0.85. We can pay the shortfall with our savings but that would pretty much clean us out, with solicitor fees etc.

We're planning on renting in Wicklow for awhile but we'd like to buy at some stage and settle in our own home. So, do we use our saving and be free of our house, the downside of this is it will take us a very long time to save a deposit again or rent out the house in Dublin (which should rent reasonable easily) and hope that the situation will have improved in a couple of years when it comes time to buy ?

If your rent would cover the Mortgage, or come close, I don't see any reason not to go down that road instead.

Have a look at some of the threads on here about reluctant landlords - there is quite a lot of work involved as well as the risk of bad tenants and the tax implications.

You may be able to do a deal with the bank to accept the sale monies and put the rest as a personal loan at the same rate or to settle for a lower figure in exchange for surrendering a tracker that is costing them money.

If you think the 200k is the best offer you'll get, don't delay too long, your purchasers may think you're messing them about and withdraw it.

Sybil

I am in a very similar position to you Twominds. Offer of 175k and mortgage is 205k and I think we are going to go for it. I know for a fact that I don't want to stay where I am in the longterm and that means you'll just have to go through this whole process again in a couple of years of advertising, viewings, etc. Don't forget also that you would be liable for tax on the rent you get because you no longer live in the house.

Twominds, you may have decided by now what to do?

We were in the same situation and sold our house. Our mortgage was 190K and we had an offer of 165K. We used all our savings and took out a loan with the bank for the shortfall which we are currently paying back while renting. I don't regret it as I think it may have been a long time before we would get an offer again and there are lots of other 3 bed semis like ours that we are up against.

We also unfortunately have another house that we cannot sell in a different part of the country (we too moved close to family when started a family). We rent this out and it is a headache. I would sell at a loss in the morning if I could. By the time you pay out tax and all other costs its just not worth it in my opinion.