Doesn’t everyone aspire to own a house?

[Letsmoveondude]

Is it just me? I thought everyone aspired to own a home in their lifetime.

I know that it’s a luxury many of my generation will not have.

Currently trying to understand why someone who has the ability would not take it

DDIJ if you own it outright and it's making you that miserable why not just sell it and walk away?

I suppose if you have a very high income or a lot of personal wealth, renting could be appealing: you could afford to rent somewhere really nice via letting agents who actually view you as a customer rather than an inconvenience, the maintenance is someone else's problem, and if you've got another few million sitting in the bank you don't need to worry about how you'll pay once you've retired. And you could move every 6 months. Or sooner! Basically money could cancel out all the awfulness of private renting if you had enough of it.

I've now developed an exciting fantasy life for myself where I spend a year living in every major city in the world, just because. Though even then I'd probably still want to keep my tastefully renovated castle in the UK to store my books.

DDIJ no disrespect but it sounds like your problems lie deeper than your house..

Op i always wanted my own house. Renting isnt secure and its bloody expensive. I couldn't afford to rent the house i own.

Bought my first house at 19 and sold it and bought this at 23. Not owned outright (nowhere near!) But one day it will be.

I would worry about renting in my old age.

I like the flexibility of renting

DDIJ, I think I remember your thread. I've often wondered how you are getting on. I'm sorry things aren't any better.

No, not everybody thinks its the be all and end all

Letsmoveondude i've owned and rented and owned again. I found renting with school age kids very stressful. Always that fear of having the landlord announce they're selling up so bye bye.

I have to say the most sleepless nights i ever had was when i was mortgaged and worrying about bills and losing the house!!

I guess both ways have their good and bad points. If you're settled in one place though and the rent is more than a mortgage would be i'd be wanting the stability of buying.

@DDIJ If you own it outright then can't you either a) sell it and use equity to buy somewhere else or b) release equity/use the money you don't spend on a mortgage to do it up? It seems v bizarre you are talking about living in your car v just doing something about the property you own!

If we bought our mortgage would be higher than rent, before life insurance, buildings insurance and maintenance. We are also from a cheaper part of the country than where we live and intend to move back when we retire. We can nearly afford a small house in our home town so feel we are better putting all our money into saving for that than putting into a mortgage here.

What happens to people who rent when they have no income any longer or retire? How do younsupport yourselves?

I aapire to own a home. I cannot afford to save much towards a pension so at least owning a property would mean I have something for the future. I'm sick of renting. No way will I be able to afford to pay rent on a state pension when I'm retired.

Really happy in our mortgaged home! Cheaper than renting.

As a country, what happens when millions of people have never been able to afford their home retire and can’t afford to pay rent out of their pensions? If they have a pension.

The mind boggles. I rented for years. The whole “don’t want to have to pay to maintain a property” is complete rubbish from personal experience. If something broke, it rarely got fixed on the rentals. Most of the agents didn’t bother and I think I had one landlord who actually gave a crap about the property. I hated every moment of renting.

I'm guessing those who have experiences good enough to want to STAY renting must be renting high end property.

Funnily enough the house I bought was a house that had been rented out for years. Neglected, 30year old boiler, taps didn’t work properly etc. I thoroughly enjoyed ripping it out and showing it some love!

This is really interesting. We rent at the moment but the tenancy is guaranteed to be up sometime next year and I just don’t know what to do for the best either.

I always think owning a house is the most important thing when you have children but this thread is making me question it, as well as some other points I was already considering (like repair costs)

I think the main stress regardless is not having enough money to deal with the cost of housing. I live in the eye wateringly expensive SE and that makes buying almost out of the question. If renting was not such a shit show in England then it wouldn’t be so bad - it would be the viable easy option for lots of people. But at the moment there is just no security. And then there’s the question of what to do in a situation when housing costs never go away even after retirement, which would be the case if renting. It’s bloody stressful to think about for people of this generation who need to rent and therefore will never realistically be able to buy

I suppose if you a few thousand saved up so you could move at the drop of a hat with no issues it would be okay to rent. But what to do in retirement is still a bothersome question. Does anyone know what people in these countries where everyone apparently rents does when it comes to retirement? Renting isn’t cheap here so it’s not like you can necessarily save a few hundred each month to go towards future housing costs.

I don't agree that owning your own home shaggles you to living in one place . We brought a house in 2009, after living in it for a couple of year we wanted to move abroad so have spent many years renting it out , the rent covers the mortgage and gives us a small income . It gives me security of ownership but freedom to travel and live abroad.

This had really come to the fore with my dad and some of his friends recently, he has an ok pension nothing great and state pension, plus some savings. My mum is ten years younger, has a better pension but isn't claiming it yet as she's still working, their mortgage has been paid off for quite a while. My dad has started to realise that some of his friends who've often had flashier cars bigger houses, moved more often are now asking him how he's affording nice holidays and to still put money away now he's a pensioner (one made a home about his secret Life of crime), he's suddenly realised that despite some of them earning more over the years (these are men he's known since his teens) he always assumed they'd bought their houses like he did, but some didn't, so now whilst his pension income is more modest than theirs his outgoings are minimal, while they are paying ever increasing rents. He was absolutely stunned, he's from a very working class background, left school at 14 etc and genuinely can't get his head around why they've made the choices they have. To him and my mum (similar background) stability was the dream and they worked hard for it and encouraged us to do the same, I bought my first flat at 25 on my own and DB went straight to buying a house with his partner at around 28. We haven't had deposits gifted etc we were allowed to live at home for minimal keep on the proviso we were saving. I want to know that when I retire even if I've not made my millions I can enjoy my life, my family, grandchildren if they happen without watching the pennies or not being able to put the heating on.

Most people want to own a property eventually but young people often like to 'travel light' for a few years without responsibility. It's also quite difficult to get on the housing ladder nowadays so being 'young' lasts longer, they wait until they inherit some money or parents/grandparents are willing and able to give them some dosh.

My son in thirties rents. He intends to buy a place but is in no rush. Self employed so would have to produce a few years accounts in order to get a mortgage. We'll no doubt give him some money in due course (when husband retires), but he is quite happy in his rented home for now. A different attitude to when I was young, most of us bought houses or flats in our twenties.

We had a house, DH got made redundant and it took everything we had to hang on. Then he got a new job and we thought we were ok, until he got laid off again.
We were forced to sell at auction one step ahead of repossession, we got £63k for our home, we had £6k left for us to start again from scratch with in a rental.
We will never buy again. It's no more secure than renting, less even when redundancy comes! and it broke our hearts. Fuck that.

I do want to get a mortgage eventually, but today I am very very glad I rent! Me and my colleague at work have had issues with our boilers over the weekend. My colleague has been researching boilers, boiler repairs, parts, checking her savings and phoning family members to borrow money if necessary.

I emailed my letting agent yesterday have a plumber coming out tomorrow.

I know the benefits outweigh the costs but I'd be up shit creek if I had to replace a boiler this close to Christmas.

I am very relieved that I bought my house as now I am older, still twelve years from retirement, my earnings have barely increased but mortgage is almost gone. House maintenance can be a pita but I certainly couldn't pay rent. At least I have an asset I can sell to downsize.

BeardedMum, they'd rely on Housing Benefit and/or housing schemes/social housing.

OP, I've known Men to say that and within a couple of years they've split up. Sometimes it's because they don't want the tie that a property brings, if you split up.

In my region it tends to be a lack of stable employment that puts people off buying.

We all seen people go through repossessions.

"At least I have an asset I can sell to downsize."

There's parts of the Country were even after 20 years there isn't equity growth.

Too scary! So much money, responsibility, all your wealth sunk one place.
Those things put me off for years.
I own a big house but aspire to have a flat now, btw. Somehow seems simpler.

I have relatives who had their home repossessed which was a huge relief for them. To stop trying to hard to keep the house was liberating.

The financial benefits aside, it's also a matter of comfort for me. I don't feel at home or secure in rented accommodation. I don't like inspections, having to live with other people's decor and appliances, the lack of ability to make changes to my surroundings, etc. (And that's assuming you can find somewhere that's actually nice, decently priced and with a decent landlord).

I rented when I couldn't buy and it served its purpose (put a roof over my head). But now I'm just about to sell my first little house that I bought in my mid 20s and rented out once my partner and I bought a bigger place together, and there's a nice chunk of money coming our way, even though the value of our home hasn't changed since we bought it. In 10 years or so we will have paid our current home off. The financial freedom that will bring will be amazing for us.