r2i forum

First I would like to thank forum members and admin(s) for such an excellent wealth of information. Here is my situation.

Background ? We made decision to R2I sometime in fall of 2005. Our plan was to R2I around end 2006 or early 2007. We received USC in July 06.We started planning for R2I in early 2006.

Job ? I am working with present company for almost 9+ years. I have grown with company and seen company growth almost 10 fold. I am still working in technical architecture area and know business very well. Most of executive management respects my opinion. When I told my boss my R2I plan during fall of 2006 he asked me would I like to work from India. I was not very sure as our company does not have setup in India but we do work with small BPO firm. I do not want to work for that BPO. I clearly told my company that if given chance I will work only for present company from India and not for BPO. In Jan 2007 my company agreed with my proposal to work from India for same company. Plan was I will start working remotely from Mar 07.

House Sell ? We put our house on market in Oct 06. Due to winter (in Midwest) and slow market we did not get any offer though we dropped price by 10%. Contract with Agent expired in Jan 07. We got new agent/agency in Mar 07 as earlier agent was not doing that good job. Now house is in market for more than 30 days. There is roughly 1 showing per week but no offer yet. We dropped price also. Feedback we get after showing is positive that house looks good, clean, no Indian cooking smell etc. Price is very close to similar houses in our neighborhood. Agent is also comfortable with price.

Present Situation ? As I agreed to work remotely with my present company my wife I decided that she will go ahead in India and look for accommodation(initially rental) and setup things such as internet broadband etc in Pune. I will stay back, work remotely from home (Started that from Mar 07) and try to sell house ASAP and then join her. My wife is India and she found few rental properties. Now that I am still not able to sell house we have following options.

1. Sell, Pack, Ship everything (basically vacate house) and take flight to India and continue work remotely. Tell agent to sell empty house. If house does not get sold in reasonable time (say all summer) then return back. I do not want to manage property from India(so renting is not an option) and do not want to support two mortgages(One in US and one in India)

2. Ask my wife to come back and postpone R2I for few more years. This housing market is making me crazy. :emcry:

Job option I have is very good as I my job search experience with other companies in India was not very good.

Question ? Is someone in similar situation and what is best possible option?

Sorry for long post but want to give as much Information as possible.

Which midwest city has such a horrible housing market ?? Also why wouldnt you rent your house using some property managers

Sftrade,

I live in suburb of Minneapolis(twin city). Townhome housing market is very slow in twin cities area. It is taking average 4-5 months for sell.

Though one can give house to rent through property manager one has to involve into lot of things. That's what I learned from friend who is presently renting and moved out of state. Also my comfort level is not that high as I will be out of country. If there is any major issue making trip to US will be costly affair.

Shri999

If house does not get sold in reasonable time (say all summer) then return back.

The house will get sold one way or another - if you price it slightly below the market it will get sold pretty quickly. It's not like there aren't enough buyers around - they're a lot of buyers out there but they are just waiting for a seller to put up a property below the mkt rate so that they can grab it.

R2I is a pretty big decision - if you want to make it successful you should be willing to take a small loss. I don't think returning back is a good idea. You may lose a lot of money in moving back n forth - why not treat it as a RE loss?

1. Sell, Pack, Ship everything (basically vacate house) and take flight to India and continue work remotely. Tell agent to sell empty house. If house does not get sold in reasonable time (say all summer) then return back. I do not want to manage property from India(so renting is not an option) and do not want to support two mortgages(One in US and one in India)

If I were in your situation, I'd follow your option one w/ the following changes/modifications to it:

1) I would leave the furnished house behind and do a mini-R2I

2) If the home doesn't sell and I need to come back, my house and furniture waits for me.

3) If the house sells, I'd come fly in to close escrow, do my shopping based on the list generated in India and ship everything to India.

4) While in India, I would not buy a flat right off the bat for the following reasons:
4.1) I expect apt. prices to stay steady or even dip when/if the interest rates increase again.
4.2) Dollar is pretty weak against the Rupee right now, so will not be looking to equity transfer funds
4.3) It would take 6 months or so anyways to do the R2I, settle-down and start looking around for a flat. If the US house has not sold, and if I'm coming back, buying in India becomes moot.

Good luck

Title of this thread modified by admin to be more descriptive of thread content.
Just the title of "What one will do?" does not convey the discussion type,

Admin

#1,

We rented our house for almost 2 years via a property manager. We had multiple tenants during this period. The property manager would do appropriate advertising, screening of applicants, increase the rent if possible etc. In short, property manager worked out just fine. Are you sure that you wanna cancel r2i rather then manage the property manager over a vonage phone and email? The rent would also help you with the mortgage payments while you try to sell the home.

Just to play the devil's advocate, if you cannot manage a US based property manager, how are you ever going to settle down with a billion indians all born to drive you crazy here?

-restlessdesi

Here are my suggestions.

1. I would'nt sell the house. Rent it out or give it to a property manager.
2. If you have the band width and can pay the mortgage from India then i would sugegst you do this and go to India see how your plans work out.
3. You would be in a better position if you are a USC if not you could have to stick to the time lines of 6 months GC maintenance.