To think people treat you differently because you rent

[festigirl14]

I rent- i’d rather own a house but circumstances/costs have prevented it so far. I have a professional career, earn a good salary, my kids are well rounded, we are normal people.
But people are SO snotty about it- there’s an underlying ‘you aren’t as good as us/ you aren’t a full member of society’ attitude that I find really weird. Maybe I am more sensitive but I have had people treat me with pity over it- like there is something wrong with me. ‘Poor you, paying dead miney’ Etc. That I have failed in the ladder of life. I don’t have family money to help out & I am priced out. It’s as simple as that.
Aibu? Does anyone else get this?

People assume I rent because I live in a flat in the cheaper end of town.

I often hear people say they wouldn't buy a flat, or they wouldn't live on the main road, or they need parking and a garden. Literally all the things my home is, they won't consider. They then say how they wished they could afford to be homeowners.

@nevertwerk I had a friend who met a rich bloke who had a 200k deposit- she told me that she couldn’t imagine being in my ‘situation’ - we aren’t friends anymore

I noticed a real difference in the attitudes of letting agents versus estate agents.

@Bluntness100 is a six figure salary combined between my husband and me, I changed careers so I only started earning this much quite recently and my husband got promoted also quite recently. Yes, we both made bad decisions in our youth and had some debt that fortunately we managed to clear before our son was born. We pay more than 1k for nursery, we could move outside London but the commute is bloody expensive! As I said we are almost 40, if we save it would take us a long time and is unlikely that bank is going to give us a mortgage. We rather live comfortably in a nice area than give all cramped for something that may not happen

Ive had my rented home sold twice and I’ve never understood the estate agents attitude, absolutely treating you like a inconvenient scum. Meanwhile in the real world your a sitting potential customer and probably a repeat one.

These days, people can only buy if they are on high salaries or have family money behind them. The overheated property market is one of the biggest factors in how fucked the UK economy is.

The amount you have to save feels so huge and will take the entirety of your kids childhood. So it’s a difficult balancing act to save for their security but also ensure they aren’t missing out

I find it but always put it down to me living in a housing association property. I've even had people comment about how it must be nice to live in a free place. I have no idea where they got that from as I pay £850 a month to live here.

I have owned and rented, by choice, and I have never experienced it. I don't think the ownership of our home really comes up that often in a conversation in the first place. People might ask me where we live, which is a fair question, not if we bought or rent.

People are very aware that it cost a lot more to rent than pay a mortgage, but it's a lot easier to budget: you pay your rent, you don't need a safety net to fix thing when they go wrong.

No one looked down at me or commented when we decided to rent for a few years .

I can't say I really noticed a different with estate agents either.

That's just not true reanimated.

YANBU at all! We always owned until a disastrous attempt to emigrate abroad resulted in us coming back to the UK penniless.

We've had neighbours act like utter pricks because we 'only rent' like the one who instructed her builders to take down the garden fence so they could use our garden when building an extension, covering it in rubble, as she'd asked the landlord (she hadn't) for permission. I came home and walked into the kitchen to see them through the window!

The one who used to knock on our lounge window every evening drunkenly ranting about DH parking in the shared parking area as she might have someone visiting who needed the space and she was more entitled as she owned her house! Her drive was big enough for 4 cars, she had 1, ours was a single driveway but we had 2.

Current neighbour complained about the noise when we were moving into the property and asked us how long we expected to be living here. When I replied, he responded with 'I don't think so, I know your landlord and will get you moved on'. I have studiously ignored the fool for the 5 years we've now lived here so he tells fellow neighbours I'm rude!

Family members also changed their perception of us.

I have honestly never felt so shit since being a renter, what with letting agents checking up on my housekeeping skills, LL's shafting us by promising long lets then kicking us out after 6 months. It's been horrendous - we've through 6 properties in 7 years as a family with 4 DC!

Think this might be hangover from when it was far easier to buy, but renting is inevitably becoming the new 'normal', so attitudes will likely change. Snobbery over it is nasty and unintelligent. You don't have to justify yourself to anyone, OP. Stop giving a fuck what other people think. Everyone's definition of success if different. As long as your happy with yours, that's what matters.

I owned for 16 years from my early 20s to mid 30s, then rented for a few years and now i own again.

I began private renting due to divorce and it was a complete port in a storm for me and the 3 DCs, lovely place all newly refurbished, and at first, after being mortgaged up from so young for 16 years, renting was a breath of fresh air! I felt so free! You still have your monthly bills, but to just make a phone call when something breaks and have someone come and fix it and someone else pay for it was great! I enjoyed not being tied to the place. I was totally happy.

After a while when the dust of the messy divorce settled and i was mentally better off it started to feel a bit shit to not own the roof over my head. The place looked lovely but was done on the cheap. When i got fed up with the magnolia walls i couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't do much to the garden and i missed gardening. I was stuck with the cheap kitchen appliances which kept breaking or konking out and the flexible plastic bath which you couldn't fill right up. The electrics weren't quite right and turning on the toaster or the kettle often blew the downstairs fuse all the time and the landlord kept turning a blind eye to it because i ''just'' had to go in the garage and turn it back on. Most of all i began to worry what would happen if the landlord wanted to sell and realised i'd been very luck to get the place i was in and wouldn't have a deposit up front to move again if he suddenly wanted to chuck us out.

I did notice a slight attitude from new people who found out i was renting, however, i was in the same village and most of the people i knew were very aware of the shit i'd been through with XH ect and how i'd had to sort a home out quickly for the me and the DCs.

When i moved into my second rented property i really noticed it. Lovely houses, lovely village, but the rest of the street were all homeowners either with 2.5 kids and a pony, or elderly with the mortgage paid off years ago rattling round a big house. We loved our place and did what we could with pots of plants out the front and keeping the drive clean but it always looked dated and like The Rented Out House because we couldn't do the sort of things you do when you own to keep it looking up to date.

I did feel a bit second rate. Maybe it's me - maybe it was the funny looks we'd get until the neighbors got to know us. Maybe it was because some of the neighbors wouldn't talk to us at all. That had NEVER happened to me before.

Cutting to the chase - i'm happier to be back being a homeowner again. YANBU OP. The world is slowly changing though. Younger generations won't have the expectation and social stigma around it all hopefully. Hopefully too legislation here will slowly change giving renters the same protection they enjoy in other countries where home ownership is the exception rather than the norm.

God that was an essay sorry!

I don't think people look down on me for not being a home owner. But I look down on myself for not being a home owner.

@huggybear I agree that it is possible to save for a deposit if you are lucky enough to have a steady job and can be really frugal, but you have to accept the difficulties are there and I agree with @Choccybiccytastic that things used to be easier.

I have found this. We're in central London and so house prices are insane. We do get a lot of "but why wouldn't you aim to own?" because we are both quite high earners and it wouldn't be impossible. I just don't want to.

We own our house as family helped by buying it outright, but since funds were so limited it is a bloody mess and a dreadful decision... I woupd dearly love to rent again just to nor he responsible for things like boilers breaking, roof leaks and walls crumbling... sorry people are judging you on something so ridiculous.

It's very difficult indeed @crabbypatty.

AlwaysSomethingThere - I don't think people look down on me for not being a home owner. But I look down on myself for not being a home owner.

Ooh that's interesting! Why do you look down on yourself? And do you apply those reasons to other renters and look down on them too?

@alwayssomethingthere I think I do that a bit too- and it’s because it’s ingrained in our culture that ‘owning’ is a measure of success! The world is changing though!

I own - well, with a mortgage! - a house now, but I definitely experienced this when renting. My best experience was when my boss decided I could relocate to work in an office 90 miles away because I was “only renting” so it “wouldn’t be a hassle”

I have noticed this - I rent and there is simply no way I could afford a deposit on a house, short of inheriting a chunk of money (unlikely) or robbing a bank (tempting). I do feel like people look down on me for it. It's almost as if because I don't own a house I'm a flight risk.

In a lot of European countries people think we Brits are bonkers for our obsession with owning a home. I do enjoy that if the boiler breaks or the kitchen falls apart it's not my problem, but I would like to own a home one day.

I rent! Me and OH rent cause we want to, I like to rent cause I like the freedom of being able to move if I fancy it really easily, landlord is great and takes care of all the problems (if any) in the house no expensive boiler bills for me lol! I have the money to buy if I want to probably take me a couple years to save the deposit but honestly I’m really just quite happy with how things are at the moment.

OH rents with me as he was stung massively by his ex wife who’s kept the house from him, forged signatures to change to interest only mortgage so when we eventually do force the sale when the kids 18 it’ll be in negative equity by then and he’ll of lost the whole 30k deposit.

Will we buy in the future? Maybe I’m really not sure, we’re quite happy and would rather leave the kids money than a house but who knows.

But yeah I find we are definitely looked down upon cause we rent, chuff knows why it’s just a box made of bricks we live in, I don’t believe renting is dead money it’s putting a roof over our heads which makes it a worthwhile payment to me.

My grandparents of 93 and 87 rent have been in the same house 50 years and still very happy x

My parents rented for years & only bought their house when the landlady died, she owned hundreds of houses in the area as her family owned the brickworks & built the houses with their own bricks. The houses were sold off at massive discounts in the 70's probably to pay off the death duties on her estate. Most of the houses are around 100 years old. I'm in council housing now, I did own my own house but it was sold when I got divorced, I get more discount on buying the longer I live here & when anything happens to my mum will use what I inherit to buy my council property. People of my age bought their homes when they were cheap before house prices went crazy, where I live a 3 bed semi cost around 3 times my annual salary, now those houses are probably worth more than 10 times a current average salary in the area for a single person & are attracting more professional workers to buy there. More people in the area are renting as they can't afford to buy, plus buy to let landlords are snapping up the cheaper properties to renovate & rent out. Nobody looks down on the renters, many of them are children of local people who wanted to stay in the area they grew up in.