What do you do with your house when you're on a 6-month tour

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Me and Mrs W are in the early stages of planning a 6-month+ cycle tour, and are looking at options on what to do with our house while we away.
We don't have any family who we can move in to look after it (and pay the mortgage for us), so we have a few options as I see it:-

1. Leave it empty and meet all the bills etc from our savings (on the assumption that we'll both be taken unpaid leave from work).
2. Rent it out while we're away, meaning we'll have to put our stuff in storage etc.
3. Sell it, use the equity to fund the tour and buy/rent somewhere when we're finished.
4. Do something else I haven't thought of yet....

What do other people do?
 

alicat

Legendary Member
Location
Staffs
Another suggestion would be to have a sort of caretaker. Someone who needs somewhere to live and who would be happy to have most of your stuff around for reduced lodgings eg they pay the Council Tax and utilities and taking care of the jobs round the house when you are away eg gardening and putting the bins out, dealing with the mail etc.
 
Another suggestion would be to have a sort of caretaker. Someone who needs somewhere to live and who would be happy to have most of your stuff around for reduced lodgings eg they pay the Council Tax and utilities and taking care of the jobs round the house when you are away eg gardening and putting the bins out, dealing with the mail etc.

Now why didn't I think of that ??? I love this forum :-)
 
If you do this you need to be very careful how you go about it. You can end up with a tenant that won't move out and trashes your property. Use a reliable letting agent that can provide guarantees.
 

I like Skol

A Minging Manc...
This is exactly what I did (being the caretaker) between selling one house and buying another. It was the perfect way to break the chain.

Luckily we had friends who spent a good portion of the year living on a narrow boat so they were more than happy for us to move into their bricks & mortar home for 6-8 months and pay some of the bills and a nominal rent.

I imagine you have to be very careful about the prospective 'tenant' though or else it could go horribly wrong and you might wish you had just left the house empty for the period.
Our 'landlords' kept 'complaining' that we were wearing out the hoover and the goldfish bowl had never been so clean! :laugh: They popped in once a week or so, just to use the washing machine and pick up mail etc. It worked very well for both of us.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
It's finding someone you can trust that might be the problem - got any friends with older kids looking to 'move out' ?

Gosh, I'd love to have an employer that would let me take 6 months off unpaid leave - the only way I've managed that was to break my spine !!
 

Salar

A fish out of water
Location
Gorllewin Cymru
Another suggestion would be to have a sort of caretaker. Someone who needs somewhere to live and who would be happy to have most of your stuff around for reduced lodgings eg they pay the Council Tax and utilities and taking care of the jobs round the house when you are away eg gardening and putting the bins out, dealing with the mail etc.

That's what I was when I got married way back.

We were caretakers of a big house in a semi rural setting for a year, living rent free, all bills paid, we were even paid 50 pence per week, probably something to do with squatting. It was great, it allowed us to save up a deposit for our first house.
 
It's finding someone you can trust that might be the problem - got any friends with older kids looking to 'move out' ?

Gosh, I'd love to have an employer that would let me take 6 months off unpaid leave - the only way I've managed that was to break my spine !!

My wife works in the NHS and has had no time off in 35 years (yep, that's right, not even any significant sick leave).... most other clinical staff take sabbaticals, or have maternity leave etc, but we don't have children, so she feels she's almost entitled to the time off, though there is absolutely no guarantee she'll be allowed the time off, and might have to resign.

I'll probably have to resign my job, and I'm hoping I can persuade my employer to re-employ me when we get back.. I'm lucky that a large proportion of construction professionals are self-employed or work on a contract by contract basis, so I imagine I will be able to find something to tick along with.....

Of course, until we've done the sums we don't know if we can actually afford it, but we're both so bloody jaded by our jobs, and since turning 50 a year or so back, I am beginning to wonder just WTF it's all about..... Mrs W came up with this idea out of the blue, and to her at least, it's got some weight.....
 

Brains

Legendary Member
Location
Greenwich
House sitting is surprisingly common.

Some options include:
Looking at the motorhome forums, quite a few 'full timers' do house sitting.
Look at the pets forums: There are a lot of cat and dog sitters out there that move from house to house

We went travelling a for 5 months a few years back, we got in a friend of a friend who was an actor and was doing a run in a west end show. We rented the house to her for £1 a week and paid most of the bills (She picked up the gas and phone bills)
 
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Brains

Legendary Member
Location
Greenwich
Another option to look at, but it needs quite a bit of preparation, is to turn your house into a holiday let.
We have done this, it works, but it's not something you can just 'switch on' (unless you go the AirBNB route, which is a different option)

If you want more info, PM me
 
I rent my place and my disability covers my rent.
So I just shut everything off and disappear for a few months.
I plan to do that soon ....... :biggrin:

One thing to look out for if you do just disappear is something like a cars MOT where you'll be hit by a penalty charge if not paid on time, which you cannot do because your not there.
Mine has a SORN at this moment.

Luck ........ ^_^
 

Slick

Guru
My wife works in the NHS and has had no time off in 35 years (yep, that's right, not even any significant sick leave).... most other clinical staff take sabbaticals, or have maternity leave etc, but we don't have children, so she feels she's almost entitled to the time off, though there is absolutely no guarantee she'll be allowed the time off, and might have to resign.

I'll probably have to resign my job, and I'm hoping I can persuade my employer to re-employ me when we get back.. I'm lucky that a large proportion of construction professionals are self-employed or work on a contract by contract basis, so I imagine I will be able to find something to tick along with.....

Of course, until we've done the sums we don't know if we can actually afford it, but we're both so bloody jaded by our jobs, and since turning 50 a year or so back, I am beginning to wonder just WTF it's all about..... Mrs W came up with this idea out of the blue, and to her at least, it's got some weight.....
My wife and I went through similar without the bike tour. We sold our businesses, our home and all our investments and started again elsewhere.
 

HelenD123

Guru
Location
York
It's a real headache trying to pack up a house and prepare and pack for a tour. The house sitting option sounds appealing.
 
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