To feel a rental failure

[Welshie1234]

Basically we rent and always have done mainly because by the time we had saved a deposit we were priced out of the market and due to house price inflation we can't keep up with our savings. I am now 40 and my dh is older and we have 2 kids. We live in an expensive city but have good jobs, friends, a life and the dcs are settled in school and have friends.
I want to own my own house I really do - I hate the insecurity of renting and have worked hard to try and make it happen but we just can't afford a deposit as the goal posts keep changing.
I get constant family pressure- we are viewed as the poor relations, as idiots for not buying sooner. We get comments about how ridiculous it is we pay high rent. A friend said to me that they couldnt imagine being in our 'situation'. I get told 'renting is dead money' regularly. My mother rang me yesterday (final straw) to tell me about my cousin's new house with big garden but the underlying theme is always everyone else can buy so what is wrong with you!

AIBU to feel like some kind of social failure?

I am so fed up of it all and dread (avoid) family occasions as I don't have the answers to our supposed 'situation'.

Anyway, I've heard that renting is becoming the new norm anyway.

?We are in the midst of a housing affordability crisis.
(just in case anyone wasn't aware)

We rent, tell them to butt out! No social shame in having a nice house, we have been lucky to get a longer tenancy though.

Even those with an interest only mortgage are in effect renting from the bank, but with a right to buy and some security of tenure

Oh my god, the dead money argument pisses me off soooooooooo fucking much. No it's not dead money because in the years you've been paying rent, you've been getting something in return like, erm, a roof over your head.

It pisses me off so fucking hard when people say you get nothing to show for it. I've had somewhere to fucking live for XX years you idiot. When I buy a car and run it into the ground, I end up with nothing to show for it but in the meantime, I'd had a fucking car for them years haven't I?!

Also, when you take interest into account, over the course of a 25 year life of a mortgage, we'd only be about £10K better off paying a mortgage plus interest than we are renting and saving.

We could afford a house right now but me and DH have decided to stay in rented.

I got on the property ladder before the age of 20 (without any financial help from family or anybody else). Property was much cheaper back then and it was easier to get on the property ladder. However, I do think that home ownership is overrated in some ways. Unexpected repairs are a major financial headache. The threat of unemployment is worse because there won't be much assistance towards the mortgage and the little help you might get will only last a finite time (yes I know that HB doesn't cover all of most people's rent but it is far more generous than mortgage interest support). If you own the house and you want to move you have to try and find a buyer which can take a long time.
I think a secured local authority tenancy is the best option overall but obviously those are very scarce.
There are definite benefits to both renting and home ownership.

?
The problem is that both options are vastly over priced...in a wealthy country secure affordable housing ought to be a right not a privilege.
In the uk we spend far to high a portion of income on housing ourselves ?

Or you could be like me, insisting on buying the house and now regretting it!
The neighbour turned out to be a C U Next Tuesday
The estate turned out to be noisy
My husband job dried up so we had to move to a new country and rent our house out.
Which in turn means we will have a tax bill even though I am not making a profit on rent.
We always have to have in the back of our minds to try pay the mortgage if tenants bugger off
We have to have money put aside for repairs.
Oh and we also have rent and bills to pay!!!!

My advice? Stay renting!!!

I have found the ones who give out the smug comments are the ones who did the least to make their "dream of home ownership" come true. The people I know who have worked hard or appreciate good fortune see it for what it is, circumstances.

Oh I forgot negative equity so can't sell!

Buy one in an area that you can afford with a good rental yield. You're still renting but have an investment property

Sorry to hear this mom. I am in rented. I have "owned" a house before, and frankly it was a hassle. I appreciate that not all owning is a hassle, but it's not all perfect.

I would point out the good points to them or tell them to be quite.
We have rented long term and owned properties.
I rather quite like renting there is no worries about the cost of maintance and you don't have to worry about needing to move and not being able to sell there is a lot of freedom in being able to quickly move.
Bad neighbours, neighbourhood changing, job or school changes, earning suddenly go down can all be resolved far easire IME.

Well we bought a house in Ireland and moved back to the UK four years ago, and lost an absolute bloody fortune. We'd have been much better off renting. And I was sucked into the bloody property market by everyone bleating on about how you HAVE to buy etc. If you have any kind of security, renting isn't that dreadful, I don't think. And it is nice to just refer all problems with the house to someone else to deal with.

Thanks Buddy luckily I am a live in the moment person! Just wanted to give a not so rosy picture of owning property

Buying a house is not all a bed of roses. We lsot all my life savings on ahouse bought abroad as the market dropped and we neede to move back to the UK. We managed with the help of my dad giving us a little monet to buy a do up, but twelve years later we have never had the money to do much and it's depressing. It's an old house, the roof need replacing, needs a new boiler and just needs so much doing to it. I often wonder feel envy towards the tenants who have just moved into the lovely Housing Association 3 storey new builds up the road, they look lovely.

my dad giving us a little monet

wish my Dad had a little Monet going spare :o

Another here who can't afford to buy! I don't think you should feel a failure I think it's quite normal to be honest! Most people I know can't afford to buy in the South East

I think councils should get into the buy to let business, afterall, they're not going to build any/enough social housing. Vastly increase the amount of social housing, charge a market rent but with the security of tenure social housing offers. Have enough of it to completely eliminate waiting lists so that everybody who wants to rent one, can. I would choose social housing like this over private, this would make BTL less appealing, so private landlords might start to leave the sector. All the rent collected could then be used to fund services.

?
Of course it goes without saying that social housing is better for all of us than allowing banks and private landlords to keep prices high so that a small group of people get rich by exploiting the fact that we all need a home.

But the govt prefers to let the few extract vast profits from the many ?

Also I would say at the moment social housing is even more stigmatised (and at the same time envied) than private renting, if there was vastly more of it it wouldn't be.

If you have a deposit, and good jobs but can't afford a family house, then I would suggest buying a couple of one bed flat to rent out.

Then you've got some security for the future and an income into your retirement and not owning a family house won't be such a big problem.

What kind of lunatic situation is it where a couple with good jobs and a deposit can't afford a home suitable for a family.
How can it be that something basic and essential is too expensive for most people to afford.
Imagine if food was so expensive that most people couldn't afford enough to eat.

We've allowed a few greedy selfish people to condemn a large section of the population to a life where they can never have an affordable and secure home ?

We rent.I cant imagine ever buying a house.

I like the fact that if i want to i can move house without waiting for someone else to buy mine first.If something breaks i ring the agents and they get someone round to fix it for me.

I dont think i would ever want to buy somewhere, the only good thing i can think of is that i could change it and decorate it the way i want,but we have done that here anyway.

I've rented all my life, there's no sign of me ever being able to afford a deposit in order to buy, plus everyone in my family own their own properties which also makes me feel like a bit dropped off; so OP I do feel your pain. I can't help chuckling at all the folk who are encouraging you to buy, when the gist of the thread is that you're being made to feel a failure because you can't buy.