Why do people prefer to rent rather than buying a house?

I'm one of those (apparently rare) people who prefer to rent. I apologise in advance for a long post - I have written this in case the OP (or other readers) is genuinely interested in the views and experience of a 'choice renter'.

I was a late 50s baby and grew up in an era when renting in the UK was actually cheaper than having a mortgage. Almost 50% of the population rented then, it was considered far more normal. My parents managed to buy a cottage-in-a-field to do up for the £2000 they'd saved up (!!) and they lived there for the rest of their days. During my childhood, the thing which was most frowned upon was having a mortgage, as you were 'tied' to a mortgage company for 25 years - a life sentence! Also, the idea that someone would buy a property as an investment wasn't prevalent, people bought a house to turn into a home. Full stop.

That changed during the Thatcher years when Thatcher pushed the house buying idea. Since then the drive has been to buy your own property, leading to the modern view of renting which deems renters as "lesser citizens" because we haven't bought our own home.
For this reason, if ever asked, I always say I intentionally rent.

My experience living overseas has shown me that in other parts of the world renting still doesn't carry such a stigma; and in places such as Scandinavia, rent controls make the process so much fairer.

Why do I choose to rent?

Being able to choose how and where I live (I have lived in, and still do, occupy lovely properties situated in beautiful surroundings which I could never, ever have afforded to buy but I can afford to rent).

The freedom from having to pay for repairs and maintenance - if the roof blows off it isn't me that has to pay for it.

The freedom of being able to move easily - two month's notice and I can be gone. No advertising/estate agents, solicitors and so on. I'm not tied to anywhere.

Now I'm older it will be so easy for my family when I die or go into a nursing home. I've reduced my belongings to a minimum, there's not much for them to clear, they hand the keys over to the landlord and it's done. Having cleared and then sold my late mother's place, it took forever and was such a worry. My family won't have to go through that.

Add to that the obvious reasons which other pp have cited, mostly to do with being on low wages, the impossibility of raising a large deposit, the rising cost of housing and so on.

I'd also like to say that "renting" covers a much wider spectrum than the obvious suburban house or executive flat for a professional situated in the city centre type scenario.
There are all sorts of rural cottages available for rent at cheap prices, where you can live in peace for a long as you wish and decorate/do up the place as you wish too. I have rented some of them. There are some fantastic landlords around who do not over charge (yes, I know, plenty of awful ones too) - the good ones deserve praise, landlords come in for too much negative comment these days.

You also need to consider the wide range of renters themselves.
Of our 10 million pensions, 1.4 million exist on state pension only and the majority of those rent.
There are roughly another 68,000 who live in 'tied accommodation' which is tied to their jobs but which requires some small rent. These include farmers and agricultural workers, some country house hotel employees, and those within the church such as clergy.
By far the largest renting sector is our young people, over 69% of 16-24 year olds have to rent as the cost of housing in the UK is too great. That's a huge jump from the 1990s when only 10% of young people rented. Amongst young families, Google tells me that there are 1.8 million who rent.
Which all leads me to believe the subject of renting is far, far more complex than we would like to believe.

Thank you. I think it was the blase assumption that enraged me. As the parent who stayed I was judged at every turn.
But my adult children are wonderful and I am incredibly proud of them all. So it wasn’t all bad 😊

I've owned houses for 40 years. The only major outlays I've had have been when we did a loft conversion, so at the same time we added a new boiler (approx 2k) and replaced the tiles on the roof (had to as we were changing to a dormer, it added 2k to the conversion cost) and I replaced the boiler in house no 4 after 15 years as the parts were becoming difficult to source - that cost 1.5k which isn't a massive amount of money in the grand scheme of things.

The boiler in house no 3 would have needed replacing but it was still going when I sold the house.

That's a shame. My equity on my houses has only ever increased. My current house almost doubled in price in five years. I know if I wanted to buy today as a ftb it wouldn't be possible

This. The 'every home I have owned has never had hardly any repairs and maintenance money spent on it' type of comments are baffling me. There's no way that people are going through all their lives owning house after house without spending significant sums of money at some point. If they stay in the same house 30 years or more, it WILL require multiple 1000s, probably 10s of 1000s spending on it over the years.

And if they keep moving house every few (say 5 to 7 years ) are they trying to tell me that these houses never need any money spending on them? EVER...? No new boiler, ever? No damp issues, no new electrics, no leaks, no problems with the roof? Nothing, ever apart from what you chose to spend money on..........? Nah, not buying it. And this unexpected shit that EVERYone has is in addition to needing to replace the bathroom and kitchen and windows and doors etc because they get old and dated and wear out.

Some people are kidding themselves methinks. Can't kid me though! I'm not daft, I've owned houses, and know many many people who have too! No way are people getting away without spending 1000s and 1000s on repairs and maintenance on property(s.) At some point in their lives.

You’ve had a horrendous time. I’m so sorry.
Your situation is not what the OP is talking about though.

Gosh, why didn't I think of that 🙄

Seriously though, you could've just googled this, and not made a lot of people feel annoyed at your crass stupidity.

A

My bastard of a first husband left and paid no maintenance.
Second tried to stab me after a previous rape. Single mother of 4. No maintenance. Worked All my life. No deposit. Can’t save one while renting.
Is that enough for you? Oh and my rent is now £1100 for a tiny terraced house. Will work till I die.

But lots of people were still on the poverty line decades ago too! And living hand to mouth is not a new thing and never has been.@ShetlandishMum's point stands today as it did thirty years ago. Poverty is universal throughout time.

True. Although you put that money in a bona fide investment, whereas for most of us your house is your home, its not an investment.

And (not knowing anything about trackers/funds/shares what nots) I suppose you have to hope you put your money in the right investment?

But the house buyer has mortgage interest to pay which could be very similar to the rent they'd otherwise pay. Especially in the early years of a mortgage, the capital element of repayments is usually a very small proportion of the total repayments.

Over the last 20 years, a FTSE 100 tracker fund, assuming dividend reinvestment, has generated a total return of approximately 176% to 241%.

UK property prices have experienced an average increase of approximately 74% over the last 20 years, rising from roughly £113,900 to over £268,000. This long-term growth has been heavily influenced by London, which saw average prices increase by over 119%, while the North East recorded lower growth of around 39%.

This isn't a straightforward comparison - your FTSE investor still has rent to pay, your homeowner has upkeep costs, and I haven't calculated for an investor making an initial deposit followed by 240 monthly payments.

It's far from a slam dunk in favour of property, though.

Most 10-15 year periods have seen an increase. They dont have to be dramatic increases for there to be value in your home which is offset by the possible up front financial outlay.

Average prices are starting to fall in some places, where in others the rate of increase is falling

People will often conflate and mix up the two different things

In 5 years time the picture would be different again probably. I think anyone who buys a a house as an 'investment' per se is rather foolish. Its a roof over your head which is hoped to be paid off in 20-30 years by the time you retire hopefully.

I agree and I mentioned similar in a previous post. I do think there's still an opportunity to add value relatively cheaply to the right property though.

Historically, yes, but I don't think we're seeing significant house price increases anymore and in some areas, average house prices are starting to fall. I really don't think many people expect the rate of increase of the 90s' and 00s to be the norm over the next decade or so.

Most people move up the property ladder by investing in property. The gain funds the move to a larger, more expensive house. If you're smart, making relatively cheap improvements (that many home owners can do themselves) increases the value greatly.

I don't think that was the point! This young man rents a city-centre flat that facilitates his lifestyle, no strings.

A house isn't an investment if you live in it. People commonly work around this stumbling block by thinking of it as an investment for their children - valid, as long as you don't have many DC.

But the PP's son isn't going to have kids. He will require a home to suit his lifestyle as it changes: a need better met by the flexibility of renting.

I don't have kids. I did buy my council flat but the area was demolished and it had to be sold and what I got wasn't enough to buy another one. I'm actually not sure that it was all that easy to buy even decades ago. A lot of people were in poorly paid insecure work back then. Some people also don't do well out of buying. There are people who have had to start again after divorce or other relationship breakdowns

My brother works full time and was only able to buy his flat two years ago by moving back in with my mum for 18 months to be able to put down a decent deposit - and we live in an area where house prices aren't too expensive

I bought a small place 9 years ago. Saved up for years for the deposit. I love it, I love the feeling of having a place to live that feels secure. However, I am still waiting for mortgage payments to be cheaper than rent!

Thank you- I’m incredibly lucky and grateful.
i think affordable and secure housing should be the bare minimum for every working adult in this country and I too wish everyone was as lucky as me

Yes, we bought our house 16 years ago, its just coming up to 100 years old now. Some new electrics we want now, will require some upgrades but I wouldnt bother if we werent doing the bit of work we're doing

We're long enough in the tooth and bought enough properties to know that unless something is really dangerous, it doesnt have to be constantly changed with each new regulatory upgrade, you change that as and when you need it yourself. If a buyer doesnt want to buy it because the electrics meet the legal requirement from when they were last changed, lets say 10 years ago, well so be it

We nearly bought a property which had a loft conversion which met the regulations it needed to at the time, but not for now. We didnt move in the end but we would have bought that property.

No one on this street has had a new roof since we've been here, they all look original like ours, im not sure new roofs are common.

But unless you buy a new build or a newly renovated property, the 40-50 years is already ticking for the period of deterioration before you bought it when it was owned by other people. Say, buy a house only 25 years old, and you've not got 40-50 years of "free" maintenance, you're going to start needing to do things straight away. And it's not an "all or nothing" at the 40-50 year point - things deteriorate over different time periods, some materials deteriorate faster than others so a roof may last 50 years on one street but only 25 years on another street if different materials were used when they were built (i.e. different developers).

Also add in regulatory/law matters such as changing standards for things like electrical distribution boards, insulation, energy efficiency ratings and you can see values compromised if such works show up as being required as part of the buyer's survey.

Well yes but over 40-50 years if you were to stay in the same property, the value of that far outstrips the cost youve spent on maintaining it. For half of that (at least if you're lucky) you wont have any mortgage costs any more.

I really, really wish everyone could have that 🙂I am happy for you (genuinely).