Homeowners - could you afford to rent on your street?

[MidnightPatrol]

Worth a quick Google to find out how much it costs to rent on your street in 2024, as prices have shot up!

I only bought my house 3 years ago. Rental prices have gone up by about 50% (!) since then. There’s absolutely no way I could afford to rent here.

How on earth are people supposed to afford to rent their own properties (ie not sharing).

Yep, our mortgage is higher than the rent

The first word in the title clearly says ‘Homeowners.’ It’s one thing to click on the thread (knowing you’re not a homeowner) to have a look at the comments and another thing to type out this strange comment!

A house similar to ours would be about £500 more to rent, so nope. Couldn't afford it.

Come to think of it, a house on our street has never come up for rent in the 16 months we've lived here. The vast majority are much older homeowners who bought several years ago.

Absolutely not.
Our current house would be £14-1500 a month to rent.
Identical one a couple of doors along is to let at the moment with two different agents.
Our DD will be waiting for us to shuffle off our mortal coils to be a property owner

Very few to rent in area - none down our street at all - one bedroom less - so 3 bed and twice our mortgage.

We were later than our parenst generation with kids and mortgage and still had family saying we were too young - same people we'd finished all that by your age. We couldn't afford to buy this house now - possibly still could buy in less good area and smaller house but this was already one of those dwindling affordable areas when we bought.

I expect our the kids will have to come back to us and live or house share when we were renting flats in our 20s post education.

Yes we could afford it although it is more now than our mortgage was when we were still paying it. Paid it off last year 7 years after buying. House prices have shot up almost 50% in that time to buy.

Can't help but wish I had been born ten years sooner!

As none of the houses in my street are rented, and unlikely to be, I did a search to see what a similar house in our village would cost to rent, and there were no rental properties at all on Zoopla or Rightmove.

Our next door neightbours is rented - I had a nosy and it's the exact same shape as ours, but with a bigger garden.

We could afford it, but it's 4 times our mortgage.

I understand how you feel. It sounds awful out there for private renters. But it's only the young affected.
2 million private renters over 50. A minority, yes, but a significant (and increasing) minority.

I feel for younger people who need affordable decent housing but also massively feel for older people in that situation. Must be so worrying to be in such vulnerable housing circumstances at that stage of life.

The UK desperately needs more social housing. Not silly and expensive help to buy schemes (that actually put ownership further out of reach for many because it inflates house prices even more).

Lack of social housing costs the economy a lot. More social housing would significantly reduce the welfare benefits bill and reduce NHS costs.

It's a real worry @MiddleAgedDread No idea how my children will ever afford anything to rent or to buy.

There are no comparable houses near us (only 1 of 2 and the other is a holiday let), but I imagine we couldn’t afford to rent our house on the private market. It’s a 5br detached house and small farm. We pay £1600 a month mortgage. Our old house (3 br detached with no garden) was for rent for that much after we moved out. We were paying £650 for a similar ish house (3br, detached, very tiny garden) in the same area when we first moved there 15 years ago.

No. House next went to rent and is almost twice my mortgage

Two houses on my road were up for rent in the last 12 months. Smaller one for £2k, bigger one for £5k pcm.
Mine is somewhere in between and we rented a similar property before we bought this one. We paid £4k pcm which is slightly more than our mortgage now.
Definitely wouldn't be able to afford equivalent now if we were renting. A flat on the next road is £1200 for 1 bed & a tiny box room.
Prices are crazy.

Nope

No, would be approx 3x my monthly mortgage payment

A lot of families will qualify for universal credit if renting as the cost is added onto the allowance. So eg someone might be £300 over the earning threshold when paying a mortgage so get nothing, but if renting a £1100 property then take away the 300, add the rent value to the entitlement and then will then receive £800 universal credit.

Great for landlords, not so great for tax payers.

I think that people who bought years ago, who are paying £600 or less on a mortgage, and who are 'shocked' by rental prices in their area, must be living in a bit of a bubble.

I live in the north, and even in my area, £600 would only get you a bedroom in a house share.

I bought almost 4 years ago and the cost of my mortgage on a 3 bed semi would only cover 1 bed flat if I was renting now.

I'm not in anyway shocked or surprised by that though. That's the point of buying, so that your 'rent' doesn't keep increasing with inflation. Inflation has been massive over the past 4 years, and wages have gone up too.

Not many landlords rent to people on benefits though?

But yes, definitely it would be better for taxpayers and the economy to have more social housing.

People wondering how renters manage it - me and DP are both low earners but don't qualify for universal credit (no children) and we just spend the majority of our money on rent and bills, eat cheap food, don't go on holiday and drive one terrible car.

The issue with such crazy rents and mortgages is that it must be terrible for the economy and probably goes some way to explaining the spiral of decline we are in. Everyone is spending so much of the money they earn in servicing over inflated house prices and greedy landlords that there's nothing left to spend in the rest of the economy.

As a country we really need to undo the brainwashing that house prices going up above general inflation is a good thing for ordinary people who just own one house.

Agreed - I'm in the NW. Also strangely, rents seem to be broadly similar across different areas, even when house prices aren't!
Rent for a 3 bed semi in the expensive grammar school area of South Manchester where I used to live, is the same as my current, more erm downmarket area.

Houses in the former are 50-100K more expensive than comparable in the latter.

'Inflation' is also a ridiculous excuse when the majority of LL costs are the mortgage!
Both newer LLs on BTL, who may very well break even with a higher rent. And LL who are already mortgage free charge the same.

Housing should never be left solely in the whims of the free market

Yes, but there's a £1100 monthly difference between our monthly mortgage and the rental value. So, it would be significant.

No. Rents for a 3 bedroom house round here are £500-700 more then our mortgage.

Hardly anything comes up for rent anymore anyway, but when it does, it’s gone within the week.

Rents have shot up at an alarming rate, it’s completely unfair and wrong. I feel angry for private renters.

Dh and I rented for over 10 years before we were able to buy a couple of years ago, so I know how crap it can be.

I think it would be tight. Rents would be over £3k. Mortgage currently 2k