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?

Yes!!! Quite often. I had this on here the other day. My post was absolutely nothing to do with the fact I rent. I just happened to casually mention it. She went went on to take my original post well and truly away from the matter in hand because she couldn't understand why we rented when my dh gets a good wage. We could easily afford a mortgage. It's just getting a deposit that's hard and we have dcs too. Not easy! We also live in a lovely city which means house prices are ridiculous.

It's no one else's business. And yeah it is dead money. I'd love to own my own house.

But then again I have to say it was quite nice when he had a massive leak in the roof which ended up costing a few grand to fix....landlord paid, not our problem.

I find it funny when some people who find out I'm renting start to massively downplay their home ownership. As if to spare my feelings. It's bizarre and totally unnecessary.

My sister in law is like this, and my brother to a certain extent. It really pisses me off when they are judgemental about people who rent. Especially as my brother grew up in a local authority house and his wife was a single mother on benefits before she met my brother. They both got lucky, he has a weird skill which is completely natural and given him a fantastic highly paid job, and she met him.

Until people have fully paid their mortgage they are pretty much renting from the bank anyway. If you've got any other debts they can apply for charging orders and force sales on houses. Having a mortgage isn't all it's cracked up to be. Renting is far more common in Europe too.

Whatever anyone does they are paying to have a roof over their heads, whether it's paying a landlord or a bank. Who you pay that money to shouldn't give anyone any more worth in society than another.

As per a pp mentioned I find it a little entertaining when those who comment are paying a third of what I pay on my rent monthly on their mortgage and they put me in the poor box

No granted I struggle with the credit rating predominantly down to my Exdh but those who get very snooty usually attempt to Lord it over in terms of earnings and nine times out of ten I earn double what they do

It's just silly because yes it would be nice go have stability but do I think I'm a failure for not owning ...nope not even a little

But the attitudes to it are sort of handy...lets me weed out the judgey buggers as a rule..useful I guess because then I know I don't wish to associate with them

I think people used to have that attitude, or people over a certain age do, but I now assume that most people beneath that age probably rent because it is impossible to buy.

At work no one ever talks about their housing situation, and we all relate to each other as the people that we are. My main worry about people who rent is that they are going to have to have very big pensions to cover it when they retire. Though who knows what will have happened to the economy by then.

We live abroad, so rent there, and have a house in the UK. It's common to do this where we are. No-one comments at all.

However, I had to make an insurance claim (we have a Brit contents policy) and got 20 questions about whether we were renting or home owners. I said both, which confused the bloke on the phone. I then got more questions about from whom we rented...was it an HA or a private landlord? Well, as we live abroad, not an HA, but a member of the local aristocracy as the house belongs to his estate. More silence.

I don't understand why whether we are renting or owning makes any difference to claiming for a fried laptop? I am paying all the premiums, and don't make unnecessary claims.

I have nothing against people who rent at all. But I do think that a few (by no means all!) people who say they "can't afford to buy" could easily afford to buy if they would live somewhere cheap for a whi first. Like some vloggers I watch who were "priced out of London" (to Bath ) but rented a fancy modern house in London for years. Or a relative who insists on renting a room in Chelsea because anywhere else is beneath him, or childless friends who rent a whole two bed Victorian house for no reason etc etc. If they did their dues in a shitty house share or a small one bedroom flat in a less nice area for a few years, then saving for a deposit would possible. But each to their own. And obviously many many people genuinely can't afford to buy.

I completely understand where you are coming from.

We rented for years and were then very lucky to buy somewhere with the help for the deposit split 50/50 between each of our parents. We have been paying that back for almost 10 years now and will finally be free of it at the end of this year! I am so incredibly thankful for the help we received, we could not have done it without help.
Almost everyone I know who has bought has either had help or have lived at home with parents for a number of years to save to allow them to buy. For those this is t an option for, then you rent. Nothing else for it.

However, I have totally experienced the looks and general ‘im better than you’ attitutude from other homeowners. They think somehow you are contributing less to society or community or something.

I have friends who own outright, friends who private rent, friends who rent through housing association. It doesn’t affect how I feel about them in the slightest!

This

Don’t know if I felt judged at the time but afterwards I kind of did.
BF I rented (an unfurnished house) for almost two years before buying and moving into our first house together at which point a friend of mine asked if there was anything we needed that she could buy us as “it’s an expensive time setting up a home together”.

I thanked her and said ‘no just a nice card is fine, we already bought everything we’d need when we moved in together 2yrs ago’.

She hasn’t offered to buy us anything back then so I was a bit 🤨 and realised that she now judged us to be more worthy of a house warming gift

at your friend @MimiSunshine. Presumably she thinks you were sitting on milk crates, cooking on a camp stove for those two years

I've seen on here a few times people say that a mortgage is cheaper than rent. Not in today's prices it isn't. Maybe if you bought a house a generation ago. My mortgage is £200pcm more more than the rent on the flat below.

@Tartsamazeballs
“What really pissed me off is that to rent this house would be at least double our mortgage so why the fuck would you treat a renter like scum?”

That’s exactly it! Our friends are renting their house and would love to buy. They’ve had experience of their landlord selling up and the horrible feeling of trying to find their next family home quick sharp so it would be somewhere that’s theirs. We don’t live in an expensive part of the UK but rental costs are still far higher, they pay more for their flat than we do for our house and if we were in their shoes we’d be the same, unable to save whilst renting.
In fact could be argued we are only in the home we’re in thanks to Northern Rock being frankly irresponsible lenders when we were looking to buy our first home 12 years ago.

When I rented in my early twenties in a pretty cul de sac of Georgian houses in Bristol there was a little street party. First my flat mate and I knew about it was looking out of the window. As renters we were not invited!

Festigirl14 I am nearly 46 and we bought our 1st property - a flat - last year after 7 years of saving a not very big deposit.
Rented for over 20 years and had similar attitudes, not from friends but school gate mums and other people I didn't know that well.
Tbh it does feel good to now have a place, although the mortgage is more than our rent was, but I know plenty of well educated people who don't own as they can't afford it, mostly teachers.

Very, very few people ‘own’ their own house - they might own a bit of it in terms of the deposit they put down and the capital they have repaid (although that will be taken if it gets repossessed of course), they are just renting from the bank until such a time as that last £1 is paid off the mortgage. I think those of us who ‘own’ just got lucky when banks were much slacker at lending and you didn’t need such a big deposit.

I wouldn't say very very few actually own their house because we are talking in the millions. So whilst millions haven't paid off their mortgage or got crippling mortgages there are as many millions that own outright.

I think most people are aware that it's very difficult to get on the property ladder. Anyone being snobby about those renting are just twats.

I rented for a long time, then got married and bought our own home with ex husband. Sold it after we divorced, marriage lasted less than two years so value did not increase that much (back in the 90s), combined with large lawyer fees.

I spend the remaining of my settlement moving abroad with my boyfriend, have a baby, we split up and by this point I am in debt because I was the only one earning so I was subsiding him and I had to come back to the UK with nothing to my name and as a single parent.

Then rented for 6 years, a few people commented about at my age I should not be renting, they always had the assumption that I wasted money on other shit. I just could not afford it, I saved about £5000 in 5 years, about that time I received an inheritance so now I own my own home.

^to add the first house we were mortgaged to the hilt and were permanently in overdraft.

Home ownership is a peculiarly British form of snobbery and aspiration.

It doesn't matter that you'll be paying a mortgage for probably your entire working life on an ex crack den that you can barely afford to maintain or improve... just as long as you can proudly award yourself the title of being a ''Home Owner'' then you're automatically better than non-home owning members of society.

I think the comment ' i don't see why you can't save on a 6 figure salary' sums it up....people assume you are shit with money. The attitude that rent is 'dead money' is weird...er no a roof over my head is a great commodity.
Also some people would rather have a nice life than scrimp and save for a deposit.
I do tire of this snobby little island and it's narrow minded inhabitants at times.
In europe renting is the norm.

I have forgotten which social theorist wrote about 'housing tenure' and proposed that 'renting' and 'owning' had replaced older ideas of social stratification. The theory was challenged and, it seems, life chances are determined by many more factors than simply how you pay for your accommodation.

There were distinctions made in older social systems between those who owned the estate and those who rented from the estate owner or lived in tied accommodation. However, this system is now largely consigned to the history books.

The 'Right to Buy' sort of empowered some people and may have led to a superficial distinction between individuals who could buy their houses and those who still rented. Yet, even this was more relevant thirty years ago than it is now.

Now we live in very insecure times and old values and assumptions are challenged. I have known so many people (my aunt included) who worked hard all their lives, bought their home and hoped to pass on their property to children and grandchildren. However, their homes were sold to meet residential care costs; costs that would have been met whether or not the individual had capital to release.

There was also a time when only people who owned their own property could sit on a jury. So, the discrimination against people who rent was institutionalised.

Yet the old attitudes will have to adapt to the new situation in which an increasing number of people never have and never will 'own' their property.

And then when your friendship group do all get on the property ladder thay have to endure those excrutiating conversations about house prices and home improvements.
Is buying even enough? In some circles i bet it's the price of your house that marks you out.