owning a house is a waste of money

[0karen]

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

I like renting. Then if anything annoys you (neighbours, construction,etc) or you just fancy a change of scene you can just move. Also, you can live in really cool places which you wouldn't necessarily buy because they don't have mass appeal. I also like the fact that the LL has to sort everything out. I found owning a flat lucrative (bought in 2003, sold in 2007) but irritating on the admin front. I felt that I was constantly having to negotiate over renovations to the property etc with the other leaseholders. Just stress.

I probably will buy something when I'm older and more settled- when I'm 45 or something.

In terms of my retirement I'd rather invest in stocks and bonds which you always have a buyer for and you can decide to sell and have it gone 15 mins later at barely any cost. Of course the downside is that you can't leverage your equity as you can with property- the upside is that you dont get your equity wiped out if the market goes against you.

Oh, I like renting too. We rented for ages and it meant that we could move around wherever life took us without worrying about selling up or letting a house out (with voids, maintainance, tenants who don't take care of the place, agents, all that hassle).

DH was desperate to buy, and settle down, and is very happy that we now have a place joint-owned by us and the mortgage company. I wasn't so keen on an emotional level.

But buying does have big advantages long term, from a logical point of view. I also like the fact that we will never have to pay a fee to a leasing agent again, and will never have to deal with an arsey jobsworth itinery clerk. We have been very lucky that we have had very reasonable landlords and landladies, otherwise we would have been stuck paying for stuff that was completely unreasonable. Our future is a little bit more in our hands.

Mind you, the biggest hassle with renting is having idiots tell you that renting is "dead money" or "throwing money away". No, I am paying for somewhere to live!

Mind you, a few of those friends bought in haste and now regret it. :(

we have a mortgage and will still have it into our retirement. we can't afford the repairs on the property which is getting more and more shabby and consequently losing value. We are looking at selling up and going back into rented.

I just think that owning a house is not such a great investment.

I pay nearly £900 a month mortgage, which is about what I be paying for the house if I was renting

Whether I was unlucky or not recently, fact is the house will always need repairs and updating, bathrooms, kitchen, windows, this boiler will only last 10 years or so

stillbobbysgirl, you seem to know me so well, how did you know I wanted to pay him cash to avoid the VAT lol

Sorry stillbobbysgirl, the cost of tradesmen seems excessive, it does not cost that much to run a van and if they pay 40% tax it is because they earn a fortune. The people who service my car charge £30ph and I am sure starting and running a workshop has bigger overheads then running a van. My BIL is a joiner - would not use him though!

The China comment was supposed to be a bit of humour, need to start putting smily faces as some people take things to seriously

The poles seem to all have gone so can not get any cheap joiners anymore :)

Agree with the OP. Loving the fact that there are people prepared to admit that there are benefits to renting, such as it often being cheaper, the good LL's who will sort out maintenance issues exist, and extra money to spend on doing fun stuff rather than replacing boilers and the like. And knowing that you will still be in the same care home when/if you need it as you would be if you had bought a house! Kind of proving my points on the other thread

1st house bought 20 years ago for £26,500.

Current house worth about a million with tiny (and about to be zero mortgage).

So on average owning a house has made me £50k a year. This is 5th house- all but one have been renovated and extended.

I see my home as a home and not an investment and making money has never been the primary aim.

Not sure how renting would have been better?

It probably wouldn't for you Change, but you have been lucky enough to be able to afford to buy and renovate at the same time. Houses for £26k just don't exist anymore, do they?

I will probably have to sell my house in a couple of years whne my kids move out and I get no more maintenance (if not before if I loose my job - in which case I'll be homeless as without a job I can't even rent!).

Once I sell, I won't be able to get a mortgage as I don't earn enough, plus I'm middle-aged and won't get a long enough length of time on a property!

Life is pretty crp, and the future looks crpper.

I get what you say Sherby, but what got to me when I rented was that the landlord could give you notice for whatever reason and that is you out of your home. I had this a couple of times - I didn't want to move but had to.
However, now I'm thinking about it, perhaps we'd not have s much stuff in the house if we know we'd have to move again....

1st one didn't need renovating. Actually realised it's 7 houses but 1st two before married.

At the time I earnt 8k and so 3 times my income to buy it. That job now has a staring salary of 25k and so equivalent would be about 75k now or 150k if 2 people buying. Not possible to buy in London maybe but I could buy a similar house to that one in the town it was for less than 100k.

Think you have to take the long term view. Have owned a property for almost 30 years (as a single girl in London those first few years were very very tough - didn't go out for 18 months). Monthly mortgage cost is presently about 29.50 pcm and will be repaid in June with the balance of the endowment policies (which weren't a good investment all told in our bank account)Over 16 years we have probably spent about - 3k per annum on decorating/repairs. Rental value is about 4.5k pcm and purchase price has risen by about 6 times in its current state. The mortgage at its highest was about 700pcm and we would have had to pay that to rent a one bed flat round here - in 1994! All in, it's been a very good investment and it has been the home in which we have watched our children grow up.

@ Change - a house for under £100k - the average UK house price is £165K and the average UK salary £25K.

Where I live and have a FT job and child at school, I couldn't buy a 1 bed place for less than £160K...

One of the key things to owning a house is to find a builders and tradesmen that 1. do a good job and 2. do not fleece you.

If you can get 1., you are doing alright. If you can get 2. too, you hang on to him (or her) for dear life. If you don't know anyone, ask neighbours/friends in the area for recommendations. Never go with leaflets through the post box. The best builders are so busy they get work via word of mouth and never need to advertise.

A good builder will also work with their own tradesmen, like electricians, plumbers, carpenters etc. They can recommend their contacts for specialist jobs like that.

I love my builder.

I o
love owning my own house, and also love the fact that in 20 years we will have our own home mortgage free. So no rent in retirement. Also love sitting on £250k in equity for now..........

oooops that should have said 'I love' not some random I o !

I will be mortgage free next month. But will be ramping it up again this year (hopefully) for our 'forever' house. That is how much dh and I buy into property ownership, I'm afraid. We force ourselves into the fiscal discipline of a mortgage.

I've lived both sides of the argument. I bought a house with my ex and bought him out when the cheating shit buggered off he left. I was on my own and pregnant, so it was very stressful and I had to go back to work FT when DS was 6 months old, just so I could pay the mortgage. I was constantly worried that interest rates would rise and I wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage, or that I'd get made redundant. That house needed a new roof, new boiler, new front and back doors and new flooring amongst other things, but I just couldn't afford to get them done. On top of that there was buildings insurance, mortgage insurance, plus remortgaging fees to pay every 2 or 3 years - owning a house was crippling me financially.

I decided to sell up but due to the recession it took me 18 months (and lots of cosmetic improvements), before I sold my house for a lot less than it was on the market for - I only made £1700 profit from the sale. That house was like a millstone round my neck weighing me down and I was glad to see it gone.

I now rent in a much nicer area, close to my parents and five minutes from DSs school. I pay my rent every month and that's it - I don't have any of the financial strain of ownership. I have a fantastic landlord - all I have to do is call or text him if there's a problem and he comes round as soon as he can to sort it. Example: about a year ago the washing machine broke. I called the LL the next morning to tell him and that evening he came round with a brand new, state-of-the-art digital one worth about £600 - I could never afford that in a million years! Not to mention the repairs, maintenance etc. he's done, and he's putting a new porch on in the spring. In return I keep the place clean and tidy, do the garden and pay the rent (and bills) on time. I honestly wish I'd sold my house while I was on maternity leave and rented sooner.

Home ownership is completely overrated imo, and people in this country are way too obsessed with it. People skint themselves just so they can own some bricks . I don't really get the lengths some people go to just to 'own' a house which isn't really theirs until the mortgage is paid off. I'd rather sit back, have a less stressful life and keep my spare money for me and DS, rather than chucking it away on a money pit.

If you can afford it a 'money pit' becomes an investment.

I think getting on the property market at the right time makes a big difference.

If you bought at the height and then went straight into negative equity, your perception of property ownership as a worthwhile investment will be much less forgiving than someone who rode the capital appreciation up with a few dips and bumps on paper on the way. All very understandable.

I didn't read the whole thread so sorry if I have missed the point - but - I like renting. I haven't always - our last landlady was the proverbial b*tch from hell (come in when you're out - oh yes I will! Check under your beds? Oh yes!) but our current landlord is marvellous, and I couldn't ask for more. I too think of it not as paying someone's mortgage (my landlord doesn't have one anyway, on any of his rental properties), but paying for my home. I get, for £550 a month, a beautiful little cottage in the countryside with half an acre of garden, about three minutes walk from my work place. And the new cooker and bathroom suite begin to arrive next week! :)
And - I can move whenever I want ( I get itchy feet a bit, although I think I may finally have found the place to settle).

ONLY issue for me is that you have little security if the landlord wants to sell.

some people are lucky as they were able to buy at the right time,

My grandparents bought their house for a £1,000 in 1959, it was down a little lane out in the sticks in Cheshire and no one wanted it at the time.

Now it is worth around £450,000!

Will my house be worth £112,500,000 in 50 years time, I doubt it!

If I had my time again I think I would buy again, but something lots smaller

My house sold for 11k in 1973 and 570k in 2006 (reduced from 625k).

People who sold it to me downsized to about £450k but they bought very well and their road has gone up so much more than the rest and they are about £650k now.

So their 11k is now worth 650k. Not a bad return.

Change- I dont think anyone's disputing that you've done well, but you've also bought at the right time- you bought your house in 1990, in the middle of the property crash when interest rates were very high. That's completely different to someone standing here in 2010 when house prices vs affordability is close to peak levels, interest rates can only go one way and unemployment is set to rise.

It's like me saying "I put £100k in the stock market in March 2008 and now it's worth £200k so everyone should do that now because you can get a 40% pa return on the stock market."

The baby boomers (such as your 1973 buyers) have all totally lucked out, which is why it's quite annoying that they now spend all their time whinging about how inflation is eroding their savings.