Has anyone regretted stepping off the wondrous property ladder?

[BradleyC]

In common with a lot of people we will need to sell our house before we can become liveaboards. Quite a few of the naysayers are predicting gloom/doom/the end of the world if we do anything as radical as selling our house and stepping off the property ladder. I've tended to find that when we tell people our plans they either think its a great idea, or they get very naysayery.

I was just wondering to what extent their gloomy predictions are correct in practice? For those of you who have lived on board for a while, would you consider going back to bricks and mortar? Did those of you that went back to living on land regret stepping off the property ladder or did you find that your priorities had changed, and so you were happy to live in a simpler way anyway?

Personally, I don't enjoy home ownership so if I could sell our house tomorrow I'd be delighted. It goes on the market in January and I can't wait to get shot of it (not least because once it is sold we can get our Prout and head off!

 

[Carmel2]

As someone who has, my advise would be to hang onto it if it's rentable. If you need that sale to fulfill your future life afloat then sell.

 

[BoyBlue49]

It very much depends on whether you intend to return, in the time you are out of the property market values will certainly go up, the market is predicting 10% pa.
When you return you £s will buy a much smaller property, if that sits well with you I would say GO, after all, you can't take it with you to another life, shrouds don't have pockets.

 

[duncan99210]

We haven't sold up: we have tenants in the house. We have agents who manage the place, including dealing with the inevitable things that break and so on, letting us know after the event. It's a useful source of extra money and a cushion if we ever decide to move back ashore permanently.

Given the rate of house price inflation at the moment, I'm happy with the fact that by retaining the place we not losing out on possible increases in value. So, if you don't need to sell the place to help fund buying the boat or to provide a draw down fund to live on, I'd probably keep the place, hand it over to a letting agency and enjoy the extra income.

 

[geem]

For me, if I couldn't keep property in the UK I wouldn't become a live aboard. You never know how things might change in the future. Downsizing to something tiny would be preferable to having no property.

 

[Tranona]

Only you can make the decision as it depends entirely on your circumstances and what your future plans are.

If your cruising plans require the capital from the house to fund them then you have to recognise that you are swapping an appreciating asset for a wasting asset, so the value of your net assets (in financial terms) will fall.Therefore at some point in the future if you wish to change your decision and revert to land based living you will have less money to do it. You may not be able to buy a house with your remaining capital and will therefore need to rent which will almost certainly result in a significant reduction in your disposable income and probably a fall in your standard of living unless you are able to generate additional income by working.

If this future scenario is acceptable then sell the house. If however you wish to preserve the capital then don't sell the house and even like Duncan make it work for you and earn an income from it to help fund your cruising lifestyle. This is a "win-win" situation as not only will you have the income, but instead of capital depreciation you will actually have capital appreciation.

Some people are happy to allow their capital to erode in favour of the lifestyle, but may regret it should circumstances change in the future and they are forced to abandon that lifestyle. Others strike a balance and have less ambitious cruising lifestyles in order to preserve their capital against future adverse events.

Whatever decision you take, just be aware of the possible consequences and more importantly ensure that anybody else directly dependent on your decision is in agreement.

 

[Sandyman]

Bradley. PM sent. Please acknowledge.

 

[Davy_S]

I have a different opinion, it would of course depend on where you live, ie Londinium prices are stupid. I am in the uk until next week, I have observed that prices in the North West have not shown a substantial increase in the last 10 years. I can still buy a detached bungalow for the same price I sold it for 10 years ago and if I were buying for cash would expect a 10% discount, it has surprised me! If you don't need the coin in your pocket then rent it out through an agent and trouser some funds.

 

[BobnLesley]

"...You never know how things might change in the future. Downsizing to something tiny would be preferable to having no property..."

+1

Whilst we've no intention of ever returning to a fixed-base lifestyle, we're temporarily back in the UK due to a couple of medical problems; if I hadn't been 'lucky', this return might easily have turned into a permanent thing. This situation's certainly reaffirmed my belief that if you can, then maintain as many options as you can; that said, if the property has to go to finance the dream, then don't give up on the dream just to keep hold of a few bricks and a patch of grass.

 

[Richard10002]

Bradley,
How old are you? I sold my house for £20k in 1986 and didn't buy another. 2 years later it cost me £40k to buy the equivalent... That was either a real loss of £20k, or it cost me double to re buy - look at it whichever way you like.

I vowed at that time to never not have a property of some kind ever again, if at all possible, even at the expense of some things I might really want.

At some point it will make sense to sell up, but how to judge the right time?

 

[GrahamM376]

Most liveaboards we've met who sold up to buy the boat haven't so far regretted it but have met two who have. Both had to give up sailing because of health problems, one couple now live in a camper van, the other have a static caravan. Neither could afford to get back on the housing ladder and didn't qualify for council housing. We downsized to a 2 bed bungalow as the 4 bed detached left empty for 8-9 months a year was just an expensive waste of space.

 

[Neeves]

If you are happy, in the fullness of time, to live in a smaller property but need to sell the existing one to buy the yacht why not sell up, buy the smaller property (rent it out) and use the difference to buy the yacht. When the time comes to live ashore and you find you no longer like the smaller property you can still sell it and find something more to your newfound tastes.

But eventually you will need to come to live ashore. You might be lucky and live in full health and fitness until you are 80, if so you would be unusual. Most people become less fit (and certainly less strong) with age and fate has a whole series of hurdles many of which might curtail an aquatic lifestyle.

Jonathan

We would support, or second, your choice of yacht. Multihulls are great to live on, and you will spend more time (hopefully) at anchor (not marina) than actually sailing. Just stick to that old rule, gentlemen and ladies never sail to windward (though reaching is quite permissible).

 

[Hadenough]

What do you want to achieve? We sold a house and used part of the cash to buy a targeted high return rental apartment (doesn't have to be local to you, look for a good letting potential and a good agent) which provides us with a good net monthly income and is a high return on capital (unfortunately, currently nothing beats it). After two years, three winters in the UK of living aboard we don't think we will ever return to bricks and mortar and if we do it will probably be in rental for flexibility and choice but ------ the rung on the profitable property ladder is still there.

 

[BradleyC]

Thanks to everyone for your replies. Most interesting and a wide spread of views.

I'm in my mid forties, and I've two kids who are 15 and 12. Given their ages, there is a reasonable chance that at least one of them will be heading off to Uni by the time we get back, so we'd be looking to downsize by that stage anyway. We won't be able to go unless we sell our current house, so holding onto it is not really an option. This has been my dream since I was 7, so if selling the house is the price of going then I am happy to accept that. I'd be quite happy living on a boat, and we've agreed that we only carry on with cruising as a lifestyle for as long as we are enjoying it. So we might come back to a land life, but then again we might not.

That said, there are other options which we are currently looking at. Our garden is quite long so one option is to split the garden in half, and then apply to the council for planning permission to build a two bedroom straw bale house. Once we have the planning permission in place we would have three years in which to build the house, and that could be extended if necessary. It would cost £20,000 to build the physical structure (and it would only take a week or two to build), and then I've allowed somewhere between £30-40,000 to cover plumbing, electrics, solar panels, woodburner, etc so we should end up with a highly energy efficient house (passivehaus standard) for a fraction of the cost of building a brick house. This has been looked at extensively, so I'm comfortable that I have the figures right.

The other option would be to build the straw bale house before we leave and then rent it out.

Other options include doing a self build in Northumberland, which we all love, renovating a derelict property, or aquiring title in unregistered land through adverse possession, which means if you "adversely possess" eg treat as yours land that belongs to someone else for a period of twelve years, then it becomes yours officially even though you haven't paid anything for it (Note; you have to have a good grasp of the law in order to do this properly, and also be prepared to do the research into the history of the property and who the previous owners were. You also need to work out the likelihood of them turning up again angrily demanding their land back!

So various options there, all of which I am exploring, but I might not go through with all of them. Fundamentally, we want to sell the house, get shot of the mortgage and never have one again (or only a very small one) When we get back we want to build a highly energy efficient house cheaply, so our running costs are very low, and then we can divide our time between boat and land as we please (or rent out the house if we don't fancy having a house at that point) We figure that after living on the boat for a while we will be very energy concious and used to living using solar/wind power, and if we come back we plan to carry on using those principles on land, by building using energy efficient techniques that are cheap to build with.

So for me, stepping off the property ladder means stepping off the whole mortgage ladder, but not necessarily being averse to owning a house (just averse to paying a fortune for a pile of structured rubble!)

 

[GrahamM376]

Other options include ........... aquiring title in unregistered land through adverse possession, which means if you "adversely possess" eg treat as yours land that belongs to someone else for a period of twelve years, then it becomes yours officially even though you haven't paid anything for it (Note; you have to have a good grasp of the law in order to do this properly, and also be prepared to do the research into the history of the property and who the previous owners were. You also need to work out the likelihood of them turning up again angrily demanding their land back!

Are you considering stealing a boat as well?

 

[charles_reed]

Are you considering stealing a boat as well?

Unkind - appropriating yes, stealing no - it was always the intention to give it back when finished with. ;-)

 

[charles_reed]

As I've never considered stepping off the property ladder, I'm probably not in an ideal position to comment.

I can say that, excluding direct house costs, it is about x2 as expensive to live in the UK as Greece. So cutting all ties appears to make eminently good financial sense.

However I've found it's the Anglo-Saxon (British, US, OZ & Kiwi) who appear to be obsessed with retaining property. Others quite happily forgo it.
Round about age 80-85, most liveaboards seem to find the life aboard somewhat tedious and it's at that point the decision will rebound on you.
You do need a permanaent UK address for electoral roll, banking and NHS membership.
As already said it has to be a personal decision - probably resulting in an end very much as described by Thomas Hobbes regarding the working class.

Whatever you do - enjoy the moment, fretting about the future is totally counter-productive.

 

[Neeves]

As I've never considered stepping off the property ladder, I'm probably not in an ideal position to comment.

I can say that, excluding direct house costs, it is about x2 as expensive to live in the UK as Greece. So cutting all ties appears to make eminently good financial sense.

However I've found it's the Anglo-Saxon (British, US, OZ & Kiwi) who appear to be obsessed with retaining property. Others quite happily forgo it.
Round about age 80-85, most liveaboards seem to find the life aboard somewhat tedious and it's at that point the decision will rebound on you.
You do need a permanaent UK address for electoral roll, banking and NHS membership.
As already said it has to be a personal decision - probably resulting in an end very much as described by Thomas Hobbes regarding the working class.

Whatever you do - enjoy the moment, fretting about the future is totally counter-productive.

As many of us are going to live well into our 90's and with property prices rising at 10% per annum then have an obsession (consideration might be more appropriate) with retaining property does not look to be something to belittle.

You might only fret about the future without some sort of stake in property.

Surely the idea is to eke out ones finances such that at the final set of accounts you are ever so slightly in debt - but have had adequate funds in between (such that you do not need to fret).

Jonathan

 

[KellysEye]

We had a house in Muswell Hill and flat in Crouch End in London and didn't sell them, the rent covered our day to day costs when long distance cruising. If you need money downsize the current house and rent the new one.

 

[rivonia]

Twicw I sold up and bought a Catamaran. The first time when we sold our Cat we had to return to look after dying parents. I bought a realy cheap place and did it up so slowly. Then when I sold that made a nice fat profit for the second CAT. Have sold that and now retired and live in rented accomodation. The funds from the sale of the cat are invested.

So the choice is yours. You will certainly live better and more comfortable if you SELL the property...BUT... if you decide to sell the boat at a later date and return to live ashore??