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the return is fairly minimal
Have you worked it out? Use the money you put in at the beginning, not the current value.
Anything around 4% isn't a complete disaster. Put in the context of the battering my investments have taken over the last couple of months, the minimal yield my other flat has paid over the last eight years looks like pretty reliable if unremarkable performance.
we have a baby on the way in a few months and would prefer to be out of the flat and into a house at that point (or soon after).
You could consider renting a house. Looks a bit shit on paper but I suspect there will be quite a few empty properties right now or stock that people wanted to sell but now cannot so they'll rent until this either blows over or we get a better understanding of what the new normal looks like.
Having had a new born in a top floor flat I would suggest doing whatever you realistically can to get yourself in to a place with a bit of outside space and another floor.
Howard-
It's under 2% using original purchase price + improvement cost.
I'm not convinced that renting would work. Would be looking at a couple of grand a month at least so a year of that would cancel out the extra stamp duty for instance.
The tax is too high to make it worth moving out of my place, renting it out and renting somewhere else.
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Have you worked it out? Use the money you put in at the beginning, not the current value
Why? The sunk cost is not really relevant - the value is where you could trade out to another asset today if you wanted to.
aggi
NickCJ
Yes, the return is fairly minimal. Realistically any substantial return would only come from property prices increasing.
The main reason I'm considering pushing this through now is we have a baby on the way in a few months and would prefer to be out of the flat and into a house at that point (or soon after). I suspect that if we don't move soon then the likely stagnant property market and lack of first time buyers could mean we may not be moving for a number of years.