to not give a toss about getting on the <boak> property ladder?

[Headbanger]

Oooo, my first AIBU

The Old Man and I were brought up, like most Brits I guess, to believe that renting was the preserve of the flighty and irresponsible and ill-advised, and that the only sensible thing to do was to buy your own home.

You know where this is going (no points for originality here): we are professionals, married 10 years, hoping to start a family, but cursed with being Londoners, and of the generation that began being gently and discreetly screwed into student debt by the Government and then being savagely shafted thereafter.

We have a respectable income, but it is so eaten up by debts and the cost of London living that we are focusing all our efforts on paying the debts off, and there is little left over.

There is no hope of us ever buying our own property: our jobs are public sector and/or the arts, and we would need to save a deposit of around £40k, and get a mortgage of something like 8 times our combined income. We're from unwealthy backgrounds, and there will be no bequests or lump sums appearing on the horizon.

Of course we could leave our hometown, but kindly do not suggest this because I don't see why we bloody should: our families are Londoners for generations, we know its very stones, all our friends are here, etc.

So (get on with it woman): AIBU to ignore all this guff about home-owning being the be-all and end-all, and be quite content renting? Our monthly rent is less than a mortgage payment would be; someone else pays for the plumbing; a nice couple come and mow the lawns; if it all goes bent, or all goes better, we can up sticks in a month.

And I'm talking planning on renting long-term here - ten, fifteen years, with (hopefully) children, and all that that entails. Maybe forever, unless one of us gets that pesky half-million book deal.

Is this irresponsible? Should we eat spaghetti hoops on toast (erm, even more than currently )and go live in Zone 72 or parts of the country we know nothing about, and where our friends are hundreds of miles away, just to say 'Oh yes, we own our own home you know'?

Do any other MN'ers rent from choice? Are you happy with it? AYBU?!

Most importantly, do you think there will be a cultural change, and people will care less about that holy grail of the mortgage, and tenants will (like Germany f'rinstance) get lovely long-term leases, with security and permission to paint over the sodding magnolia paint?

I thank you.

YANBU.

I think Brits are going to have to have a paradigm shift with their silly attitude towards homeownership. That shift will likely come by force, as there are now and soon will be fewer and fewer people able to purchase any home at all.

This idea of a 'ladder', too, is going the way of the do do bird because the age of the first time buyers, what few there are, is ever increasing.

YANBU

YANBU.
We have a house, that we cant sell.
We now rent and I love it. The rent we pay is less than the mortgage payments on our house.
As soon as we cant get rid of it we will. Like a millstone around our neck it is.

I love the idea of moving to a lovely house when we want to. Not when someone eventually wants to buy our house.

I have friends who have been trying to move for two years. Cant because they need to sell their house first!!

Stick to your plans and lead a stress free life

YANBU. when I look at the houses we could rent for the mortgage we are paying on a 3 bed semi we would be lord and lady of the bloody manor! Makes me sick...

I rather like being able to leave quickly if and when we want, if the neighbourhood or area goes tits up, etc.

Oh, and no maintenance bills.

Is true Expat - I've been wondering (hoping?!) that there'll be a total shift in attitudes. I don't know how it can be avoided, really.

Ronshar really int'resting to hear from someone who's done/is doing both. Sometimes I daydream about stroking the walls of my own home and whispering 'You're mine, my own, my precious!', but then I think, erm, I shall be paying for this until I'm 70 or something. And it becomes less tempting.

Gosh, I feel sorry for folk that have been wanting to move for years and can't owing to not being able to sell - I didn't think of that. at least we can piss off to Antigua should the occasion arise.

YANBU at all. I hate the stigma attached to renting. In Europe, renting is the norm and not at all frowned or looked down upon.

We rent, and the SIL after years of planning to buy and ending up having to rent now sees the advantages of not having to worry about the upkeep of a property. I'm not a fan of the lack of security i.e will we still be here in 5 years? But even buying doesn't necessarily give you that.

I'm actually kind of glad that we gave up before we started with buying a place. We would be in the same trap a lot of friends are in now with mortgages that vastly outweigh any future earning potential (especially now), because thats the only way we could have got a mortgage to afford to buy anything.

I would love us to end slightly more European in our attitudes to renting, my aunt in Germany negotiated 4 months free rent for paying for, installing and labouring to put a new kitchen in their rented property. Makes perfect sense to me.

D'you know what you're right Maylee, it is an actual stigma - properly raised-eyebrow-at-dinner-parties stigma.

Best, I'd love that too - I really want to decorate out place, as it's a shambles, but I'm kind of afraid ot ask the landlord (despite him being really nice!) because there's something about being JUST a tenant that feels somehow small if you see what I mean.

Out of interest - those that have posted that are happily renting - do you mind my asking what age you are, and what kinds of jobs you do?

I'm only asking because we're youngISH (I'm 30, he's 37), but I've noticed increasing surprise/mild censure that we're not planning to rent (but you're getting on now, you're properly grown-up, you have professional jobs etc.).

do you think the stigma really kicks in when you're no longer young'uns just starting out in life?

Headbanger. You only stroke the walls when you are cleaning the skanky slime off from the previous owners.
Seriously though. It is no fun knowing oyur boiler has broken and you need to find £2000 to replace it. Or the windows need doing or the wall ties or the roof or the fences.
No fun at all.

My DH still comes from the home owning school but I am slowly converting him round to my way of thinking.
I have seen a huge house to rent. Private estate. He only has to find £2,200 a month. So far he isnt going for it

not planning to BUY, I clearly mean.

YANBU - the only thing is the possibility of having to find a new home with only 2 months' notice. This is fine when you're unencumbered but with kids is both a pain in the arse and very unsettling for all involved.

Having said that, we're about to buy our first house in London (and feel EXTREMELY lucky to be in a position to), so I would say that.

Do what suits you and stop worrying about what everybody else thinks of you.

Well I don't see that you have much choice then - so of course YANBU.

On your last point - I don't know. I doubt it.

We are "stuck" in a house that is way too small for our family because we bought at the wrong time. However I am glad that we are at least on the property ladder and there is money tied in with the house even if we can't realise it.

YANBU to want to rent but personally I can't see the advantage of renting. If we wanted to rent we would have to fork out £1k per month for a 2 bed terrace which is the same as we are paying in mortgage repayments. In a few years when I am working again and we have paid a bit off the mortgage hopefully we will be able to trade up. When we retire we would like to move to a cheaper area (abroad ideally) and live off some of the equity from our property because our pensions are worth jack s**t so property is our only hope.

I'll be renting for a very very long time.
My house is small, but the rent is pants wettingly cheap, and my landlord lets us decorate as we wish (within reason, obviously). It was a bit of a hole when we moved in so we got a few months free because it needed work.

I'm quite young and only three of my friends own their own houses, and that's because they inherited from someone else and so had money for a deposit. Me and rest of my friends probably won't be buying for a while (if ever).

YANBU- I dont like owning property. Sold my flat in 2007 and decided not to buy another one and it was the best thing I ever did. Love just being able to hit the intercom to the management office and say "shower's broken, pipe's leaking, air con could do with a clean out" and it's not my problem/ cost. We have a totally fixed monthly outgoing which includes everything (rent, service charge, management fees and the LL cant change it for 2 years (nor can we but fine with that).

I also get bored with places quickly so dont mind the fact that we are in our 5th apartment in 5 years.

We both prefer liquid assets (shares, bonds etc)so are happy to be longer term renters.

We are both 35. First DS due Sep.

Friends do sometimes act a bit surprised that we have no property but know we both hate admin so it sort of makes sense to them.

do as you wish!

all i will say is this: 30+ years of paying into pensions and the only asset of any value my folks have is their house (which they can now down size). no pension income beyond state pension.

thankfully they don't have to pay rent.

my Dad also spent 15 years commuting from well beyond zone 72, and yes, it was crap.

if you don't want to live the commuter life living somewhere with all the charm of an egg box, that's an entirely rational judgement for you to make. though there are long term benefits in said egg-box residency.

I'm outside of London and still wouldn't be able to afford to buy a house- not sure when we would be able to either.

I'm in my mid 20's, married and left uni a couple of years ago. To get a house we'd like we would probably need a deposit of 15-20 grand. I know people can save this money but when you have rent, bills and debts to pay it seems nearly impossible, especially as we'd like to start a family soon.

My friend lives in London and is looking to leave in a couple of years to somewhere more affordable- however I think it's all in relation. The job she's doing now pays alot more than up where I am, and you will still need the big deposit One of my friends has just bought a house but she's had help from her dad with a deposit. I would love to own but on the other hand if anything goes wrong i.e. burst pipe or broken boiler, we don't have to deal with it!

I do worry about renting when we have a baby though and being told we have to move as the landlord wabts to sell.

Cheesycheddar.
Thats exactly what my parents thought. However the reality is once they pay the capital gains tax etc they wont be able to live off the money for long. It may cover a couple of years in a Nursing/care home.
They have been in the same house for 33 years and have no mortgage now.

We would all be better off putting cash in a box under the bed!

Ronshar I thought capital gains tax only applied to second homes?

YANBU. Here in Ireland we were positively sneered at for renting when we moved here in 2003. We looked at the figures for buying and realised that to get a mortgage we would be paying out double our rent, over a thirty year mortgage! So, we're still renting, and prices have dropped 40% since then, and still falling. We have a nice deposit saved now, but will not be buying until we find our house for life, on 3* one salary, on a twenty year mortgage. And even then it will have to be a house I fall in love with. I'm 41 and have never been troubled by a mortgage so far, and those people who sneered at us are now very jealous of my family as we are one of the fortunate few of our generation who are not in massive negative equity. We are soon to have no debt to, and in this disastrous economy, I am unwilling to get so much as a car loan, so the mortgage millstone is particularly unappealing, even at 40% off ( and currently dropping one per cent a month).

As for insecurity of tenure, in twenty years of renting, I have only been unable to renew a contract once.

withorwithout I know exactly what you're saying in your own pithy way, and I agree - but what bothers me is that people might be right in thinking renting is daft!

Just tucking into an egg-and-cress sarnie to read other comments, hang on...

I would be happy renting if it came with the same kind of security that you get in Europe - eg, in Spain where we lived, rental contracts are fixed for a minimum of five years, you are expected to invest in a property (eg, by putting in electricity, appliances etc), and the tenants have a lot of rights (albeit, more of the expenses as well - there is no concept of 'wear and tear' so it is very unusual to get your deposit back. Plus landlords often ask for a year's rent in advance in sought-after areas).

Until then, I would feel a bit insecure renting but, like you say, London is simply unaffordable for many many people. If you can rent and save money as well, I would go for it.

'Out of interest - those that have posted that are happily renting - do you mind my asking what age you are, and what kinds of jobs you do?'

We are 39 (me) and 32 (him). He's a mini-bus driver/hotel dogsbody. I'm a ghostwriter/secretary.