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Disclaimer: yours won't be fiscal advice. People involved will consult a professional before doing anything. This is just to gather some preliminary information.

Situation:

  • you want to buy a house or a flat, in UK
  • you will get a mortgage in GBP, but you'd pay the down payment in EUR
  • you think that there are fairly high chances that the value of houses in UK and GBP will drop
  • the whole point of this question is actually buying the house/flat, renting is not an option by definition

What can you do to mitigate that risk?

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  • Are you talking about just the house value dropping, or GBR dropping in value relative to EUR?
    – Hart CO
    Commented Jun 6, 2020 at 23:17
  • @HartCO mostly the first one, the second one would just be a bonus
    – o0'.
    Commented Jun 6, 2020 at 23:30
  • 2
    Why is renting not an option? It's almost certainly the best way to mitigate the risk
    – yoozer8
    Commented Jun 7, 2020 at 0:23
  • Can you be more specific about your goal, so we can understand what exactly the risk is? You say you are planning to buy a house. If that is the extent of your plan, you care about the sale price now (or in the near future) when you buy, and not later. Do you plan to buy and then sell, with the intent of making a profit? Do you plan to live in the house or rent it out? Are you just trying to flip the house (buy it, fix it up/improve it, and sell it immediately)?
    – yoozer8
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 13:37
  • Why not buy a house somewhere where you think the price won't fall (if there is any such place), then use the rental income from that to rent a property to live in in the UK?
    – timday
    Commented Jun 10, 2020 at 20:01

1 Answer 1

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Live in it and don't sell it.

What exactly is the risk to you if the value drops? The (sale) value really only matters when you sell.

  • If you try to sell the house, you may not sell for enough to pay off your mortgage, and will have to come up with additional funds to complete the sale.

  • If you sell the house for less than you paid, you will "lose money", in that you have less than before you bought the house. This would be the case anyway if you rented during this time.

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  • 1
    You might have to eventually leave it anyway due to unforeseen consequences, and the new place where you might have to move might not have experienced that price drop. Hence, trying to mitigate the risk.
    – o0'.
    Commented Jun 6, 2020 at 23:04
  • 3
    @o0'. If having to move elsewhere is the risk you are concerned about, the best mitigation is to rent instead of buy.
    – yoozer8
    Commented Jun 8, 2020 at 12:08

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