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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

owning a house is a waste of money

66 replies

0karen · 18/01/2011 01:23

Forked from "thinking owning a house is a waste of time, as it just gets takenoff you when you get old/put in ahome by ohnanaWHATSMYNAMEohnana"

Do not know whether owning a house is a waste of time, but wondering if it is a waste of money

My house is a money pit

Insurance, rates, water rates on top of that maintenance

The cost of materials is silly, do B&Q, Homebase and Wicks and all the other places that supply building material do not know about China?

Then the rip of hourly rates of so called trades men, joiners, plumbers and worst of all electricians!

AIBU in demanding that their charges should be halved

Had a new boiler fitted just before winter the installer charged £800 labour for about 15 hours work and the electrician £300 for about 4 hours.

The heating engineer arrived unexpectedly early and banned me from my kitchen. Eventually needed access; tapped on the door no reply, so pushed it open knocking down his fire extinguisher over and I thought he was going to snap my head off

Then had to have him back twice because the heating would not work.

Now the shower went pop, wonder what that will cost

I thinking of buying a big Mercedes and a caravan

Anyone want to buy a house, I guess not these days

OP posts:
cantspel · 18/01/2011 01:29

i would rather be paying my mortgage than someone elses, be responsible for my own repairs than have to try to get a landlord to furfil his legal obligations and know that one day it will all be paid for and i can throw a huge mortgage free party.

coccyx · 18/01/2011 06:29

You need to get a few houses. Rent from our smaller houses pays for our home. Thanks

coolma · 18/01/2011 06:32

of course, just need to pop out and snap up a few 'bargain' properties Hmm. why didn't we all think of that...

Plumm · 18/01/2011 07:32

Owning a big house is a waste of money. We downsized recently, intending to upsize again when we've got a bit more cash, but there is nothing out there that makes us want to double our current mortgage. We're much happier with a small house and small mortgage.

HappyMummyOfOne · 18/01/2011 07:33

I'd rather pay my own mortgage too than somebody elses.

I like the fact that we own, we can make any changes we like, decorate how we like etc without having to ask permission. I also dont have to worry about about being given notice to leave or having to pay moving costs every few years.

Most of all I like it as its a home not a house, its ours and a stable base for DS.

Sibble · 18/01/2011 07:49

beware of dodgy landlords friends are in court fighting a $10,000 (5k) bill for damage on their rental. all bogus......

alot to be said for owning your own home

ccpccp · 18/01/2011 07:51

Sounds like you've got a bit of a nightmare house TBH OP.

Rarely do so many issues pop up so quickly.

At least you are getting to choose the boiler you want and the design of the shower. You wouldnt have that in rented.

In fact, in rented you'd have had to fight for each repair to be done, and in most cases a dodgy botch job patch up would have been the result. Landlords dont like spending your money on you.

samay · 18/01/2011 07:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

NinkyNonker · 18/01/2011 07:58

A sensible sized house with sensible mortgage is the key. Luckily dh is the practical type who can fix or make most things, or at least know the most economical way to do so so that we don't get ripped off.

onmyfeet · 18/01/2011 08:03

Well, we plan on selling ours and moving to the country when dh retires. If we were renting all these years, we would have to be saving up along with paying our mortgage. So for us it is an investment.

MargaretGraceBondfield · 18/01/2011 08:06

The cost of materials is silly, do B&Q, Homebase and Wicks and all the other places that supply building material do not know about China?

What does that mean?

coolma · 18/01/2011 09:19

Ithink it means that those stores don;t know about cheap labour and imported stuff?

cupcakecookie · 18/01/2011 09:22

I lost interest with your comment on China.

TheEvilDead2 · 18/01/2011 09:23

Dh and I won't have any money or pension when the time comes to retire, so I hope desperatly we wil own our own home to sell and live off the money.

QuintessentialShadows · 18/01/2011 09:27

I wonder what the cost is of shipping timber and bricks from china.... And the carbon footprint.

I am also quite curious as to what timber China is trading, and whether it is suitable for building in our traditions....

Chinese glass tiles are generally cheaper than Italian tiles. Naturally. Wink

MargaretGraceBondfield · 18/01/2011 09:47

Ahem, there are B&Q's in China and Ikea....

DooinMeCleanin · 18/01/2011 10:00

You need to buy a house with someone whose best friends father is a Corgi registered gas fitter and whose ex next door neighbour is an electrician and whose drinking buddies include someone who works in a tile warehouse and a carpet fitter. It also helps if your Father is retired builder and window fitter and you inherit 1/4 of the house you want to buy.

Our boiler broke down recently (a major part went. the part alone would ahe cost us £300) my lovely plumber sourced us a refurbed part for £150 and fixed it for a few pints with Dh and his son down the pub.

I know that is not helpful to you op, but you are lucky to be able to own your own home. I had nothing but a string of shitty, unhelpful landlords prior to buying. Living with no heating and hot water for 2 months over winter is not fun Angry and that nwas just the least of the probolems in my last house. It literallyw as falling down around us and the LL would do nothing about it.

wonderstuff · 18/01/2011 10:06

I rent - we pay more than we would on a mortgage, our rent is only ever going to go up and is unlikely to be deminished by inflation, unless we work out how to buy soon then we will still be forking out rent from our pensions. Oh and at any time our landlord could give us 60 days notice to leave..

Count yourself lucky.

stillbobbysgirl · 18/01/2011 10:17

"Then the rip of hourly rates of so called trades men, joiners, plumbers and worst of all electricians!

AIBU in demanding that their charges should be halved

Had a new boiler fitted just before winter the installer charged £800 labour for about 15 hours work and the electrician £300 for about 4 hours."

So you were "ripped off" to the tune of £50 an hour for a tradesman who is paying up to 40% tax on that money, paying NI and public liaibility insurance, and probably 20% vat too. He has to run/tax a van to get to your house, and pay £1.30 a litre for deisel like the rest of us.

Bet you wanted to pay him cash though yeah to avoid the vat?!

'charges should be halved' - what utter rubbish. No one is making you use that particular tradesman. Next time, why not find some fella from China to exploit that you can pay a pittance for.

missalien · 18/01/2011 10:26

Their stuff is already from china! They just do not pass on their savings!

Jux · 18/01/2011 10:31

Ours is Grade II so it's a bit of a pain as we have to make sure that anything we do to the outside of it is OK with the Council. It is Georgian and a money pit.

Over the years, people have done things to it, often using cowboys, so we have to cope with things like a tank which will only provide enough hot water for one bath at night; drainage pipes which have been added to illegally and insufficiently so sinks and loos block up regularly, electricity which has had so many spurs taken here there and everywhere that no one can make head or tail of it.

To do the whole lot and bring it up to modern spec would probably cost as much as the house so we just trog along throwing money at stupid problems which can't be avoided or fixed. I am coming to hate the bloody place.

Ho hum, dh and dd like it.

MrsTittleMouse · 18/01/2011 10:33

I can understand that anyone who has bought a house in the past couple of years feels a bit cheesed off. Houses right now are very expensive, and it does cost money to maintain them.

However, it's still a good long term investment for most people. If you own a house then the mortgage tend to go down with inflation - not so with rent.

When you are elderly (and if you are not well off) you are not reliant on housing benefit. So you are not at the mercy of whichever government is in power changing the rules, forcing you to move to a cheaper area, or whatever they think up to save money in a few decades time.

If you do need to go into a residential home, then you can have more choice, rather than going wherever the local authority happen to put you because it's the cheapest for them.

So you are still miles better off than someone who can't afford to buy. Which is most people nowadays. :(

sherby · 18/01/2011 10:37

We rent and we LOVE IT.

I don't look at it as paying somebody else's mortgage, I look at it as paying to live somewhere.

We don't worry about boiler breakdowns, buildings ins, redecorating etc etc. You just need to find a decent landlord and draw up a decent contract. I love just phoning up the landlord and saying 'the tree needs cutting, the cookers not working'and thats the end of my involvment.

DH and I were talking about it the other day (luckily we are in a position to buy) but we don't want to. I would rather spend the extra money taking the kids on holiday/travelling/experiences than saying 'ooo I own my own house'

wonderstuff · 18/01/2011 10:55

But are you not worried about when you retire sherby?

KarenHL · 18/01/2011 11:05

We're tempted to sell up and rent. Houses here are £200-300 less per month to rent, than they are to mortgage.

However, we have found both in our last home (and our current one) - external factors are affecting us a lot more, eg neighbours & parking.

We're tempted to rent and then we would have somewhere cheaper to live (possibly with enough left over to actually be able to save or put into a pension). Also if the situation outside the house/flat changed we could easily move - instead of worrying about whether we were at the bottom of a market/gazumping/agents&solicitors fees. A big plus is that we could actually afford to live where we want to, instead of where we can afford to buy (in the worst catchment area).