Hi Martina,
Thanks very much for your response!
It's not that the property itself is anything spectacular - the location is fantastic however - my parents were thinking of moving a few years ago and were looking for another house on and off for about 5 years, however, location wise nothing could come close hence hanging onto the house.
The area the house is in - it must be at least 15 years since a house went for sale - it's the type of area that once people buy in, they don't ever sell. I've lived nearly 30 years in the location myself, and in all that time only 2 houses were sold - and even at that they were reluctant sales.
I don't think there'll be any problem with them needing to occupy their time, they're pretty sociable and they're always doing something - they're definitely not the type to be sitting at home all day twiddling their thumbs looking for something to do
They have been lucky rental-income wise up until about 2 years ago, in that the rent always covered the mortgage with a bit left over - on saying that though, they've had some nightmare scenarios too with noisy tenants, refusing to pay, leaving the house in need of major refurbishment, general hassle of collecting rent itself..
The current tenants are due to leave within the next few weeks, and when that happens, the rental income is likely to decrease yet again, leaving a further deficit between mortgage - rental income.
To be honest it's early days yet, they've only just come up with the idea of selling to pay off the mortgage (not in trouble yet, no arrears thankfully!) and these 3 parties have already come to view the house and expressed an interest within a week.
One party placed an offer before seeing the property. They have since viewed the house and have gotten an engineers report. Second party have also viewed and will be getting an engineers report done this week. Third party have viewed - no mention of an engineers report yet, but if dependent on getting loan approval, they will more than likely be getting one also.
I myself love the house and the area and in a way would hate to part with it, however I can see my parents reasoning what with the hassle with renting and the possibility of it being harder to maintain the mortgage for the next 7 years, it does look like selling now could be an option.
I think the idea would be to sell, put the money away safely (no risk) for the next year or two, and if house prices drop further within the next 12-24 months, perhaps purchase a small 2 bed apartment/townhouse with the remainder and be mortgage free. The idea being that a smaller/newer property would be easier to maintain and rent, with the rental income supplementing their retirement.
It's all early days yet though, so it remains to be seen what will happen and what would be the best course of action to take.
Again, all views appreciated! The more opinions the better!