Decision: Sell and Buy Long Term Home Now or Hold and Buy in The Future?

Hi there,

I'm a long term lurker and first time poster. I'm interested to get peoples thoughts on my current situation.

My partner and I own an apartment in Perth (~5yr old building). Our original plan was to live in the apartment for another 5 years (we've been here for 2 years so far) and then buy a house to live in long term and rent the apartment.

Recently we have seen an old house for sale in a very good location that we would love to move into, renovate and eventually raise a family in. This house has been on the market for >6months and initial discussions with the agent suggest the owners would be willing to listen to offers ~$50k below asking price.

The only way we would be able to currently afford the 20% deposit on the house we have seen is by selling the apartment we live in. At our current savings rate it would take us 3-5yrs to have a large enough deposit for a similar property at current prices without selling the apartment. Initial discussions with the real estate agents and recent sales history in our apartment building suggest we should be able to get somewhere between the price we paid for the apartment and ~$10-15k less than our original purchase price. A sale in this range would give us enough money to cover all the associated costs of buying the house.

We are currently on the fence between (1) keeping the apartment long term and buying a family home in ~5 years time (2) trying to sell the apartment now and buying the home we have found.

Some pro's I can think of for (2):

• I'm unsure I will see any capital gains in the apartment in the near to medium term (maybe very long term) so we may be better to get out while we can get a similar price for what we paid
• I'm increasingly becoming of the opinion that we could do better things with our money than owning a relatively new build apartment as an investment property over the long term. Although we have sunk costs into it, we may be better off getting out now with no to minimal losses
• Strata fee's are currently pretty low comparatively to similar buildings. I can see a path for these to increase substantially over the next 5 years
• The house we have found is in a perfect location for us and ticks all the boxes for size, location, yard size etc.
• I love building things and would relish being able to renovate the house we have found
• We are both young and aren't planning kids in the next few years so have time to do the renovations

Some pro's I can think of for (1):

• We would have lower debt over the next 5 yrs in what is likely to be an uncertain time
• There is the potential for our thoughts on what an ideal house would be to change. Maybe we should wait a few years to make sure they stay the same
• Who knows what will happen to property prices and the ability to negatively gear in the future
• Long term we would have a house to live in and an investment property
• (2) wouldn't leave us with a lot of money left over so the renovations could take 12-24months to complete (more of a con to taking option (2)

Interested to see what other people think!