Why don’t people understand that not everyone wants to buy a house?

This is true to some extent as the market goes up and down. The big question is when. It the OP is paying £2.5k a month in rent, that's £30k a year going 'poof' into the air.

If her investments are making anything near that I'd be amazed.

I'm in an HA property. The issue I've had re them fixing things is they're actually ok at the small things. They usually come quite quickly and do the repair, no issue. It's the big things that I couldn't afford or do myself, that are the things they take months over. Like when I had a hole in the roof or the time I needed a new boiler. My understanding of it is, that for those things they need "approval" from higher up due to the cost and this is where it gets dragged out. Also I think the contractors they use aren't great whereas I believe they have their own for the smaller things.

Regardless of that, I am very grateful for my home. My sister was a snob about SH. She could have got it. She split from her partner back in the 90s when it was much easier to get and she had 2 young DC. But she decided to private rent. I've watched her over the years go from 3 bed house, to 2 bed flat, to 1 bed and now all she can afford is a studio. She hasn't downsized through choice. It's all she can afford and even that is a stretch but she can't face an HMO and I don't blame her. I'd never say it to her but I feel she made a big mistake not going for SH when she could have got it. But I think she thought she'd meet someone and they'd buy together but that didn't happen.

That's one of the big things that's a barrier to buying. If you're single, unless you live somewhere cheap or earn very well, or have major help, you have no hope. You have to be in a couple to do it comfortably and not everyone wants or can get that.

As a long term trend your mortgage will go down and rent will always increase.

My grandparents had the opportunity to buy the large house they were renting in the late 1970’s but choose not to because the mortgage would have been slightly higher than the rent at the time. So they rented their entire lives and we’re still paying rent when my grandmother was 90 and passed away. The house that they had the chance to buy but didn’t, recently sold for just over a million pounds. My grandmother passed away 3 years ago and had stayed living at home with no care package just help from family. The generational wealth that was missed that could have been passed down to help the next generation of her family was huge. As i said previously if you have the opportunity to buy instead of rent it’s madness to continue renting in my view.

I get that. But renting for a year or two whilst you finish training or whatever is not the same as a lifelong renter who passed up the opportunity to buy when they could face and are now stuck renting forever.

I can just never imagine sitting waiting for something that's relatively normal to fix to be fixed when you could do it yourself. Fair enough, a hole then roof might be an ask. But watching mold grow on the walls because the guttering needs reconnecting or something or waiting for a toilet to be fixed rather than getting down to tool station and doing it yourself seems madness to me.

But you're ignoring everyone saying they've paid their mortgage off in their 50s and never have to pay 'rent' again.

Rent if you want, noone is going to stop you. But you'll be paying rent, which will only ever increase and always have the risk that you'll be given notice to leave, for the rest of your life. So you'll need to plan your life so you can cover that long after you stop working. Being in that position is the thing that most people can't fathom.

No, of course!
You do you, as they say around here.
I have been a landlady (zone 1, 2) for 20 years, if you wanna "grease my pockets", I'm absolutely going to encourage you to rent! 😉 👍😄

And people have been coming on MN for years with posts designed to put people off buying in an attempt to stall prices

Still a lot less than the money they would have lost renting though.

people don't have to understand. You money, your life, your choice.

I bought a house 20 years ago, I only have 5 years until it's mine! I bought is while prices were high, it dropped in value for 5 years then went back up. Buying a home is a long term investment. My mortgage is £400 per month, to rent one like it in my street is £1800 today. If prices are dropping that's the perfect time to buy!

stripey. Some residents have paid for urgent plumbers / boiler repairs themselves after having a long wait with the housing association. They have been reimbursed for that work. I can't imagine it is the same for every area of maintenance though, probably only the really urgent stuff.

I'm exceptionally lucky that I'm not a housing association resident and have a mortgage.

The issue is as well there are no “starter homes” anymore. There are “starter flats” - but they either require a ton of work, or have service charges so high that lenders don’t lend. Flats that were £80,000 before Covid in my area are still on the market, for £120,000. A 50% increase in the last 5 years, and still nobody can afford them because of the service charges.

Homes that were sold as starter homes 25 years ago now go for £300,000 plus. It’s a disaster.

Hope it crashes even further in the future again when they look to sell/move.

Loads of people rent because they do not plan to stay in an area for ever, or expect their circumstances to change (new job, marriage, children, retirement) etc.

Some of these people would have bought “starter homes” in the past and then sold and stepped up the “ housing ladder” but house price increases are no longer happening and the costs associated with buying and selling have increased, so that model no longer works. Hece the stagnation in the hosung market.

Yes, I'd quite happily rent if you weren't subject to moving on the whim of a landlord. We ended up buying after being forced to move for the second time in 18 months. At that stage in our life, we'd have preferred to have stayed more geographically mobile. It also meant we could get our dogs, something I wouldn't have risked in rented accommodation.

Yea they are for taking out a mortgage now. I said this . This was a pp example. Was presuming they had a locked in rate. Like lots still do. Can do the calculation again for 4.5 percent.

You have no idea at all what rents will do in to the future. Just ask all the people in the UK who cannot afford rent when they could easily do so 15 years ago. If you buy something you can have fixed payments set in stone and once it's yours you have some sort of future home security.

You're also subject to strangers coming into your home to inspect it, forever and are severely limited as to any changes or improvements you can make.

And, ultimately, they can kick you out after giving you notice

Our neighbours rented their three bedroomed house for almost 20 years. The landlord decided to sell and they couldn't find anywhere as retirees to rent so have had to move into a one bedroomed council flat. I feel sorry for them but at the end of the day it wasn't their house.

Ok so if allow 10k for stamp duty and invest the 50k in a basic account of 5 percent. Again appreciate it could be more or less given the climate and risk.
So invest 60k for 5 years.

The return would be 76580 so made 16k. This can then be taken from the total rent. So
at 1500 total is 74k
at 1000 total is 44k
at 2000 totak is 104k

The rent would need to be half the mortgage for a good impact.

I love owning my own house. It’s mine and can’t be taken away. Do you feel that security OP? I didn’t when I was renting because the house wasn’t mine.

Private renting is a mugs game. It only ever benefits the landlord in the end. The renters will forever be paying higher and higher rents, never have a home to call their own, can’t decorate it how they’d like and risk being evicted several times over the course of their lives. Why people choose to rent when they COULD buy astonishes me. Obviously I realise not everyone can buy and have no other choice but to rent. But if you can buy and you choose not to I think it’s madness.

Also, @Blueyshift ’s interest rates are way too low

So is this a market where the only landlords are not for profit? I'm not necessarily against this, but it does mean this 'ideal market' is essentially impossible from where we are now.