My wife and I currently live on the northside of Dublin (renting) with our two children. Our eldest is 4 1/2 and due to start school in a local school in September. We would like to buy a house but are finding it hard to find something suitable near where we live as there are very few suitable houses on the market.
We found a very nice house on the southside (and we would like to move to the southside), but we don't have a school place lined up there. We could buy the house and put our child down for some local schools near the new house, but
a) we don't know which school we might get (it might be one we don't like, e.g. we would prefer non-religious)
b) we don't know if we would get a school place at all (as she is only 4 1/2 - if she was 5 1/2 I believe she would HAVE to be taken by a school somewhere in the general area)
b) is a worry as we definitely want her to start school this September, as she is quite bright and we feel she is very much ready.
One idea is to buy the house on the southside, but rent it out for a year, and continue renting ourselves on the northside and our child would start school on the northside, and then move in next summer and transfer our child to some local school near the house for the start of Senior Infants. In theory we could use the rent we take in there to pay our current rent on the northside, which would be similar. But we would only get some tax relief on the rent we take in (75% of the interest portion of the mortgage repayments only), and we pay tax at the top rate, so we would be paying tax of maybe 30-40% of the rent we take in. That said, if property prices rose say 7% between now and this time next year, we would still probably be ahead financially compared to staying renting as we are. But of course we don't know what will happen with property prices.
Our current mortgage approval is for a house for us to live in, so we would need to seek approval for a buy-to-let I guess.
Any other obvious flaws in this plan? Does it make any sense financially or otherwise?
Of course, there will be the hassle of renting out the house, finding tenants, furnishing the house, etc.
One danger is that we end up really liking the school here and our child makes lots of friends, etc. and in a year's time we don't want to move any more!
We found a very nice house on the southside (and we would like to move to the southside), but we don't have a school place lined up there. We could buy the house and put our child down for some local schools near the new house, but
a) we don't know which school we might get (it might be one we don't like, e.g. we would prefer non-religious)
b) we don't know if we would get a school place at all (as she is only 4 1/2 - if she was 5 1/2 I believe she would HAVE to be taken by a school somewhere in the general area)
b) is a worry as we definitely want her to start school this September, as she is quite bright and we feel she is very much ready.
One idea is to buy the house on the southside, but rent it out for a year, and continue renting ourselves on the northside and our child would start school on the northside, and then move in next summer and transfer our child to some local school near the house for the start of Senior Infants. In theory we could use the rent we take in there to pay our current rent on the northside, which would be similar. But we would only get some tax relief on the rent we take in (75% of the interest portion of the mortgage repayments only), and we pay tax at the top rate, so we would be paying tax of maybe 30-40% of the rent we take in. That said, if property prices rose say 7% between now and this time next year, we would still probably be ahead financially compared to staying renting as we are. But of course we don't know what will happen with property prices.
Our current mortgage approval is for a house for us to live in, so we would need to seek approval for a buy-to-let I guess.
Any other obvious flaws in this plan? Does it make any sense financially or otherwise?
Of course, there will be the hassle of renting out the house, finding tenants, furnishing the house, etc.
One danger is that we end up really liking the school here and our child makes lots of friends, etc. and in a year's time we don't want to move any more!
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