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?

We were only able to buy a house because we were able to make the decision to move in with family for a couple years to save for a deposit. It wasn't easy but we were lucky and know a lot of people aren't so fortunate.

Being a home owner now basically just means you are lucky/have family help. There are a lot more people who work harder and earn more money than us who can't buy because they don't have the necessary family support.

I think it is a bit age dependant - if you are in your 40's you are in the generation that could have bought reasonably in London in the 90's (I did) so I'm guessing a lot of people you know would own. Fast forward to those graduating after 2000 and that door had shut. I do have friends telling me I'm lucky to own but in reality it's because I made major sacrifices at 21/22 to save up for the deposit whilst they went on minibreaks on the new Ryan Air! I personally would suggest ignoring comments, the media looks down on renters and so people assume that makes you unhappy - you could move out, that income would buy you a huge detached house less than an hour from kings cross here, but you choose to live where you do.

I think people treat me differently since we are in our early 20's have a child and own our home everyone just assumes we rent or we have been given money for our deposit but nope just our hard earned money! Wish we did rent as it's a lot more bills to pay but people should mind their own business regardless.

Renting can be awesome @Housingcraze if you want to have the freedom to.go travelling ,move ,change jobs etc, not so much.if your settled with kids in a local school, and the landlord decides to sell as is happening to a friend at the moment, I only private rented for a couple of years , and as a pp poster said it looked lovely on the surface , nice big rooms , Garden ,nicely decorated , all of it was son on the cheap though and I never really felt it was home , I'm in housing association now, in the North West of England,and I feel.a lot more settled yes the areas not as nice but at least no one can just decide to sell.

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.

or were less demanding and bought a dump who stayed unfurnished for months and slowly made their way up! It doesn't mean people should make that choice, but let's stop pretending people who bought were just "lucky"

Friends of mine have an amazing and huge house nowadays, it wasn't luck that they had to live for 4 years in a caravan to get there. Not everybody's choice but it definitively wasn't "luck"

I do feel pity for people who rent but only because once lived across the landing from another single mum with two kids (same as me), my mortgage was £330p/m and her rent was £800. All because I could scrape the money together for a deposit and she couldn't. Its such a shitty situation and I wish BTL would die a death to be honest.

In my area I suspect the snobbish attitude comes from large swathes of traditionally council properties. But now you shouldn't use that assumption as loads were sold off.

I rent. I haven't come across any snobbishness because of it. Dh and I bought our first home but in the end it got too much and wasn't big enough for our family. We now rent a much larger home for just a little more than our mortgage was. We certainly couldn't have afforded to buy a property this size.

I think some of the snobbishness comes from the assumption that a tenant doesn't do any work on the house/garden and that's down the the landlord.

At the end of the day, the building I rent is my family's home and I will keep it in an orderly manner. The same as I would my own home. If anything, things don't slide as much here as they did in our own home simply because I am conscious that the house isn't actually ours and we don't want to give the landlord an excuse to ask us to leave. So the lawns are mowed regularly, marks scrubbed off the walls more often. We keep the house tidier.

Being tenants has benefitted us in that respect. It's a much nicer environment for us. Plus when the fence fell down and we had a leak gushing through the ceiling we phoned the agent and it was sorted. No panicking trying to get hold of an emergency plumber who wasn't going to charge the Earth or getting quoted for the fence repair.

I feel sad at the idea of raising kids in a rental. Where I am there is little tenancy security and you’re often at the mercy of the owner RE repairs and improvements. It’s not uncommon for landlords to simply not renew the lease at the end of the fixed term and ask you leave if you do try and enforce what rights you have to live in a decent home.
When people have kids before buying a property and then seem surprised that it’s too hard I am a bit judgy. Surely you realise it is much harder to save a deposit/convince the bank to give you a mortgage once you have children? If you’re happy to rent that’s fine but if you want to buy in a more expensive area you need to plan your life.

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.

^ this

In the end we are all here “de passage” and material possessions are ephemeral - but I do think it is unfair that younger people won’t have the same security that older people have / had.

And it’s pretty shit that we are moving towards being a nation of renters, but with none of the protection and security that renters are afforded somewhere like Germany for example. What will happen when millennials hit retirement age and can no longer afford to rent? It’s worrying.

Having rented for a significant amount of time... Yes I have found that people's perception of renters is one of looking down on you ( again, good job etc ) mainly from people who have bought their property many years ago and have no idea how difficult it is to get a mortgage and the large deposits now required.

I am quite horryfied by reading all these stories

I have never encoutered that in a decade. But I encountered the opposite.

I was asked by someone how much is a rent in my area, after they finally stopped taking a mickey from the postcode I live in (it's a great area, but postcode has bad rep). When I said I don't know, it turned into interview about how come. "Your husband is taking care of that, doesn't he? Would want a life when i don't have to worry ahout these things!"
No. I don't know how much the rent is because I own the house. And I take care of my mortgagae, not DH... Since that admission I have only heard things like "You don't know how hard real life is, since you don't have to rent and obviously are loaded".

God. I am not loaded by far, that's why I live in a postcode with bad rep and owning just doesn't erase the memories of renting.

Prejudice goes both ways unfortunately.

Slightly off at a tangent here, but Malificent, renting isn't necessarily the preferred option 'in Europe'.

A while ago I was talking to a lovely French neighbour of a BiL's (in France) and remarked how often Brits say that people 'in other European countries' nearly always rent, and aren't bothered about buying.

She said it was bollocks (rather more politely) at least anywhere around there in France, where a good percentage are homeowners, and that most French people do prefer to buy if they can.

I have a Swedish friend, who grew up in Stockholm in an era when most people rented, and it was the norm. Things have changed now, especially since house prices relative to incomes have increased so much in recent years (much like the U.K.). Her own son has done the supposedly Brit thing of buying, doing up, selling, and buying something bigger/better, 3 times now, and has friends who have done similar.

Friend has now moved back after many years and didn't even think of renting, given that she was in a position to buy.

I rent and am in my 40s. I think people I know are probably too polite to ‘look down on me’ for not being in such a fortunate position to buy. I wish I could buy somewhere as I know I am wasting money but am crap at saving. Only plus side I see at the moment is I am moving into the catchment area of a great secondary school which is easy to do when renting whilst all the home owners in my area are hoping and praying they are close enough.

For those saying renting is much more common in mainland Europe. It isn't in most countries.
Nearly everyone I know in my country of birth owns. But it is getting much tougher for the younger ones mainly due stupidity of bank's restrictions.

tradingeconomics.com/country-list/home-ownership-rate?continent=europe

I always feel like I have to explain my "plan" that one day I'll own a house... Truth is it's by the skin of my teeth that my kids and I have a roof over our head at all. Home ownership is not realistic for everybody and it creates a system whereby those who can afford to buy feel vastly superior when in reality their situation is often only marginally different to those who rent (due to inheriting or being leant or given money, whether they are employed or self employed etc.)

I also find it on the other end where people with a council house will lord it up over people who rent about all the benefits of council housing too. Like we can all get a council house 🙄

I had one neighbour who proudly showed me the high fence she’d erected between gardens when the house we moved to became a rental as ‘you never know with renters’. She did concede that we were ‘quite normal’ though. I’m very tidy and minimalist and our house and garden always look great, unlike theirs with the mountains of wood piled up in the garden and conservatory full of carrier bags and newspapers

Lots of urban myths on this thread!

• if private renters lose their job housing benefit will only pay the local allowance rate which will be less than the rent unless it’s an extremely basic rental/ deprived area/social housing.

• rents go up with inflation, mortgage payments don’t

• renters are going to need close to a £million in their pension pot to not be in poverty in old age

• plenty of landlords don’t do the repairs they should

• there is no such thing as a long term private rental - landlords can and do end it if they want

• illegal evictions are common

• if you lose you job/income landlords and housing associations/councils evict much quicker and over smaller arrears than mortgage providers - as little as one months arrears- mortgage holders can rack up thousands in missed payments/a year of non payment before they are evicted

• mortgage holders getting better interest rates for other debts, saving thousands

• some renters maintain their property (for their landlords benefit) but it is often easy to tell the rented house on a street (landlords don’t keep the outside of rental properties as nice as homeowners tend to eg windows/roofs /gardens)

There is no advantage to renting to anyone who can afford a deposit to buy except on a temporary basis.

How do people know whether you own or rent your house?

God knows @Chatwoo when we moved in together we literally had a, definitely seen better, days hand me down sofa. We had to buy literally everything else you’d need in a home.

When we bought we just needed needed to buy new sofas (obviously she wasn’t going to buy us those).

Another friend gave me advice on how to set up bills and let me know that I could call up the utilities before we completed.
I looked at her like 🤨😳 and she did have the grace to apologise and say “sorry, yes you’ll know this from when you moved in to this rented house”

We weren’t even clueless kids, we’d both rented separately for all our twenties so had experience of sorting plenty of bills

I’ve had this too. Not with family and friends, but with neighbours. I’ve rented for 12 years, in two different properties.some people think that if you move in to rent next door to them that you’re going to be noisy and trash the place and have a scruffy garden, maybe due to previous tenants being that way. They don’t say it outwardly but you can sense it just by the way they are with you. I’ve been a homeowner before, but due to divorce etc I found myself renting. I can definitely tell the difference.

Yes, that subtle surprise from neighbors that the 'rental family' next door:

• Aren't going to punch them in the face soon as look at them,
• Can string a friendly coherent sentence together (when you pluck up the courage to answer their greetings),

- Never seem to lay pissed in a pool of vomit on the pavement,

• Do not have fist fights,
• Do not have loud sweary arguments,
• Do not keep their white goods on the drive,

and after a while:

• Do not have the police called to the property,
• Are a working family paying the bills themselves,
• The mum is SAHM by choice and they can afford this,
• Are on friendly terms with the landlord,
• Seem to be able to grow flowers and mow the lawn,
• Have nice cars, own them outright, and appear to know how to fix them themselves,
• Will help neighbors in an emergency and (amazingly) have professional skills and are willing to use them to help out too,
• Have owned property themselves in the past.

Their reluctance to acknowledge us for the first few months followed by the whispered hints about their surprise about the above meant that we (the renters in question) thought the neighbors were all rather thick, snobby cunts. However, unlike them we were too polite to share our inner thoughts and continued to exchange daily pleasantries with them anyway

How do people know whether you own or rent your house?

They can look it up on rightmove!

"I wonder if those that rent imagine an attitude that isn't there"

Yes the Grenfell survivors totes imagined the attitude KCTMO had towards them

there are loads of threads on here where social housing tenants are told they are getting something for "free" and should be grateful.

And there are shitty attitudes towards tenants from within the sector itself.

"SOME tenants are horrendous, take absolutely no care of the house because it's not theirs - from drying laundry on radiators to trashing the place, refusing entrance to fix things and so on. There's a thread at the moment where tenants refuse to give access to allow the gas inspection"

Ha. You have obviously never had to deal with Robert Heath Heating Swale Heating or Liberty Gas.

Several no shows in a row from engineers then letters sent out to tenants accusing them of denying access.

I suspect the reluctance to put CCTV in some estates is due to the fact it will catch the HAs workmen and engineers NOT turning up when they are supposed to as well as the cost of installation.

Would you be happy with your childs teacher or childminder having to keep taking time off work for repeat appointments where workmen keep not showing up?

We rent because my job means that DH has been up until now a trailing spouse due to the niche job I do. However, that's become a little more evened out and now I need to consider his needs which means either renting in a city I live and convenient for both or buying in a city where we get more bang for our buck but in a city I hate. I chosen a city I hate because I think that we individually make great money just now, the work is very labour intensive so we need to plan that in 10 years that we'll be on one salary. I want to buy now after fighting against it for so many years but it's only now I'm thinking that I don't want to have the hassle of finding rental accommodation that accepts those on pensions, and over inflated rates that we just couldn't afford on our pension (what little we e put aside)

I never thought I'd say it, but if you can, buy now for security if you can.

I don't look down to anyone who rents be size the nature of my industry but I wish I'd done more.