Advice needed on negative equity and living abroad.

[stipie]

Can you please help with a question I have.
We have a house in Maynooth that is currently rented. The rent covers 85% of the mortgage. The house is in negative equity. We owe 200k and it may be worth about 145K.
We live in Poland and are thinking of staying here. We have flat in Poznan that's worth 90K and has no mortage on it. We have savings of 35K.

We are thinking of buying a house here. We are thinking of taking a mortage here, the repayments will be modest. We would then sell our flat and bank the money. But our worry is the house in Maynooth. We have good tenants but we may not always have good tenants. If the house lies empty for anytime, it would be very hard to cover the mortgage on my salary.

We would consider staying but we are worried about the risk with the maynooth house. However, I do have a job opportunity in Kildare and we are considering it.

I guess my question is, is it worth staying in Poznan as the property prices in Ireland continue to drop. Or would it be financially wiser to simply return to Ireland and have one mortgage.
Sorry the message is a bit muddled, please let me know if I have left anything out.

Tks

Stipie

 

[Macstuff]

No one can tell you what to do - only you can make the decision based on your own circumstances. Having read your post you do seem a bit muddled. Below I try to give you a few things to think about and to help you categorise your thoughts.

In my opinion, you really have two things to think about here and they are both seperate issues:

1) The first is in relation to your property. How quickly can you sell your flat in Poznan? If you did sell it should you:
a) bank the money and use it for any unforeseen problems in Maynooth, other rainy day issues etc?
b) use it to reduce the amt. you need to borrow to buy in Poland?
c) reduce the loan on the Irish house?

If you did buy a house are you comfortable with having two mortgages (rem Irish mortgage rates are probably going to rise over the next few months)? What would happen if you lost your job etc?
Have a think about these scenarios (use worst case scenario figures) and see how the numbers add up? That should help you decide about buying in Poland.

2) The second is in relation to your career / job prospects. How much will you earn in Ireland and Poland? Which country offers better job prospects for your profession? Taking the cost of living in both countries into account - which country is better for you / your family? Based on this criteria you should be able to decide where to live?

This is only an opinion, only you truely know your situation. Best of luck with what you decide.