To ask who chooses to pay rent rather than buy?

[fluffiphlox]

I am laid up at the moment and resorting to watching Homes under the Hammer etc. My query is who the dickens is choosing to pay £500 plus per month (some rentals are £1200+). Isn't this more than a mortgage? I'd be interested to know who renters are and why? Most of the properties are family homes rather than student lets etc so why would a 'grown up' choose to give their money to a landlord rather than service a mortgage?

I pay more than £1200 a month rent. I also have a flat that I rent out pays the mortgage, ground rent and insurance very little left over

i am happy renting love my flat we are in any problems I call my landlord. My mortgage one day will be paid off but it often seems more hassle than it is worth I nearly lost it a few years ago after i was made redundant and then became ill luckily I did not but hanging on to it because cause selling it I would not get my deposit back but I not bothered about owning a property because I don't or only very little of it

I rent because the only property you can find that is built for someone with mobility needs are social housing and because it is specifically for someone with those needs I don't have the right to buy.

I've also moved quite suddenly in the past and it is so much easier to give notice to a landlord than sell a house.

Because we don't know how long we'll be in this city / country before suddenly needing to move another 3000 miles to another one and don't want an empty unsold property sitting on the other side of the continent, draining our resources. That's a good enough reason for me, anyway. And I've owned 7 properties in the past. Renting you don't have to pay for things to be fixed up and you can leave at a month's notice (or whatever you've agreed). There are freedoms attached to renting, and freedoms from further costs.

It's a totally valid question AF

I really think I might be royally fucked come retirement

I just sort of stay optimisitc that something will happen

I earn good money, but DH doesn't work and my credit rating isn't perfect

My rent is high and so are my childcare bills and other living costs

At the moment I can't envisage getting onto the property ladder unless I get a chunk of capital from somewhere and lenders relax the criteria a bit

Your DH doesn't work but you have high childcare costs ?

I don't understand

Maybe they don't have or can't manage to save £60-£110K for a deposit is why duh.

We rent because we can't afford to buy.

I rent because having a disabled child means I can't work. I am fortunate enough to have a HA home and there is no right to buy with it anyway. A least DS has a place to call home for as LNG as he needs it though.

'Long term renters and those never going to buy...how will you retire if you are still having to pay high rents? Do you have fabulous investments that are going to generate enough income to pay your rent until your 70's, 80's and beyond ?

Genuine question. '

Retire?! LOL! There are still people under 60 who are not filthy rich who think they're going to retire and sit around playing golf?

Hahaaa.

I love how we are expected to invest in our retirement do people think that everybody has the means to stash large amounts of money away some people can't/don't live like that

We rent at present. We looked into buying a flat in our same building, exactly the same size, though "two bedrooms" rather than one.

If we went for a mortgage where you also pay back the capital, it would be around twice our current monthly rent (with all our savings going into the deposit). + annual services charges worth thousands. If we went for an interest only mortgage it would be cheaper (but then you don't pay back the principal) it was around half more expensive than our current rent.

After much consideration, we thought it was a stupid idea so we're still renting.

Surprise! Surprise! Expectation of triple-dip recession to be announced today. Yet we're supposed to be fronting huge deposits and saving for this myth that is now known as retirement.

30-40 somethings: unless you are very rich, you will never be able to 'retire' the way our parents did. You will need to sell your home, if you have one, to pay for care you need if not you are headed for almshouse or worse, your children, unless they are or become quite well-off, will likely have to rent your mates' BTL properties forever. Get a reality check!

I know!! Expat, that's what I am saying. Bloody scary stuff. I think there are going to be more cases of people dropping dead at work over the next couple of decades!

DS is at nursery 2 days a week AF which is nearly £500 per month

Yep...Gideon has really fucked up hasn't he? Loads of economists have been saying for ages that austerity measures wouldn't work and would make things worse.

Am glad I no longer own a home to be honest.

AF it is getting that way Mydad is past retiring age but still working night shift in a factory mums missed the retiring age so she can't till next year but probably won't unless her work insist but she will find something part time, people are going to be leaving work 1 day and falling down the next

we rent at the moment,we pay 1300 a month for a 4 bed detatched house in a nice part of sussex.

reasons why

my husband owns a large business and if anything happened and things went wrong they would be able to take our house of us if we had a mortgage.
(not really a issue aymore as its gone past the point where things could go wrong really,but originally was one of the reasons.

I dont like the idea of moving somewhere ad the 6 months in realising you hate it and not being able to afford to move or not being able to find anyone that wants to buy your house.

We will buy a house outright when dh sells the business or when we have enough saved?(if we still lived up north where im from we could buy a house outright now but prices here are high for what we would want)

the only thing i dislike about renting is not being able to change things and livig with someone elses taste,but luckily the house we live in at the moment is neutral and light and airy which is what i like anyway.

We chose to buy. Our friends (similar income) chose to rent.

They chose to rent because they wanted a bigger flat and weren't sure they'd be staying in this city for ever (they were right - they recently moved to New York )

We chose to buy for the investment (as well as wanting our own place). The interest we paid on the mortgage was less per month than the people before us had been paying in rent.

So yes our monthly payments were higher, but part of those payments was capital, which we got back (with extra) when we sold.

And it meant that we could buy our next, bigger flat.

I have never been in a position to buy. In all honesty though, unless I had a shit load of money I wouldn't. Renting has meant that I have been able to live in areas and properties I would never be able to afford if buying. I really don't understand the obsession with owning your own home.

Thankfully I have a bloody lovely letting agent, who pretty much lets me do what I like to my house with regards to decorating. I have however had some utter bastard landlords/agents in the past. A good friend of mine who rents has to have 3 monthly checks from the agents, and is not allowed to put anything up on the walls. I would hate that. I wish the UK was more like the rest of Europe with regards to renting. We need more caps on rents and control over rogue landlords.

i pay £650 per mth rent for a family home, which is apparently less than the landlord pays for the mortgage on it. People who i know who have bought their own homes have been lucky enough to have well-off family members who have chipped in for the deposit, not an option for me. Also, as many have said you are not responsible for the repairs and maintenence, on a low income you just haven't got the money for this. When you 'buy' aswell, the house does not really belong to you until the mortgage is paid off, it belongs to the bank, if you fall ill or cannot keep up repayments, you can lose your home. At least with renting, if the worst happens and you lose your job, housing benefit can help with your rent.

Also, we're planning on moving, and spaffing away all our savings on a deposit, fees etc. on a flat which theoretically we could rent out (though the market rents are below the mortgage payments, so I don't know how that would work) seems silly. And we live in London - housing pretty much anywhere else in the world is going to be cheaper to buy, so saving that money could be going towards a mortgage here towards a deposit somewhere else is a much better idea. For e.g., one place we're looking to move to we would be able to get a decent house, decent number of bedrooms and great location with a tiny mortgage to be paid off in about 5 years.

15% deposit etc

We're saving for a deposit, but its difficult when rent is £650/month - going to take us at least 5 years I think.

Even I had the deposit right now though I probably wouldn't buy because I don't think I'm settled in the town I'm in - plan to move in the next few years.

Once both of these issues are sorted (!) then we'll buy!

Lady a few reasons, but the main 3 would be

DH is looking for work and plans to return to work at some point
DH has occasional freelance work
I believe nursery is good for DS in terms of socialsing with other children, variety of activities they do etc

DS is 14 months now and has been going to nursery from 5 months, when I returned to work full time

He is also with my DM 1 day a week. I work from home 1 day a week and DH has sole care of him 1 day a week

(to clarify)