It's not just MN that's obsessed with home ownership, it's one of the truly British obsessions that make many people from other countries look at us in bewilderment. The really stupid thing is that monthly rental payments are often way higher than mortgage payments. But because I was paying all that rent, I was never able to save up enough for a deposit before house prices doubled again and those rungs of the ladder were whipped away.
And unless I wanted to find myself behind bars for murder, it wasn't an option for me to live with my parents until I was 30 or over. They were also unable to provide me with the lovely fat deposits from the BOMAD that the Daily Mail and their ilk conveniently hide in paragraph 7 of those articles about "Janet and John managed to buy this lovely luxury penthouse in Kensington by eating nettles and drinking rainwater for 3 years" they keep peddling.
I am just wondering, of course, how long it will be before any Happy Home Owners reading this will come on to point out that as a tenant you're responsible for your own repairs etc; yeah, well, I've rented several properties where the landlords have been so useless I've ended up having to take responsibility for the repairs, so that argument doesn't hold water outside much of Planet Homeowner, I'm afraid.
I now know an alarming amount about tape, screws, minor plumbing and minor repairs. As well as how to make a tiny, tiny, tiny space liveable. Ikea, I love you. Especially your "think vertical" approach. Anyway, back to the plot.
I had hoped to be able to buy my own home when I was younger; but property prices more than doubled after 9/11, and I'm now too old to get a mortgage and due to illness my income can be a little erratic (self-employed work, which fluctuates). I've long since given up any idea of having my own house, and have come to terms with it by looking at the things I've been able to do because I rented.
This has included living all round the UK and overseas a couple of times, since I was able to move with ease; it's included living in every type of property you can think of from converted Victorian flats with absurdly high ceilings to converted barns; and it's included learning how to look after different kinds of gardens and what will grow in pots, including edibles. I could also write a thesis on how to clean your landlord's property before you vacate so you get the maximum deposit back. (This was in the days before the deposit scheme.)
Plus the DIY stuff I've mentioned. One house-owning friend has been so reliant on the men in her life her entire life that she doesn't know how to change a lightbulb, never mind wire a plug or turn off the stopcock. Not to mention all of the potted plants in her garden weigh so much she needs to get a team of three men in to shift them, she can't do it herself. Oh, yes, I've also learned about the joy of folding furniture and that all that heavy oak furniture so beloved of the late 19th century is utterly impractical when you're five foot tall, female, and on your own.
What it has also meant, however, is that I have essentially been paying someone else's mortgage all those years, and I have never been able to put down roots anywhere or felt I belonged. And I can't help feeling the "sod you Jack" attitude we're now up against as a society is an offshoot of the fact we all live such temporary lives now, in which the buy-to-let brigade play a major part, whether they admit it to themselves or not.
I have a couple of friends who I really get annoyed with when they seem to think home-ownership is a panacea for all life's ills; they've lived in 4 locations within about 30 miles of each other all their lives, and have been lucky enough to double their money or more every time they've moved. (No, it hasn't all been judgment.) Whenever anything happens that has a financial impact, from a bereavement to a job loss, their immediate response is, "Isn't there a property you can sell?" The fact that they even call their addresses "properties" rather than "homes" or even "houses" tells you everything you need to know. Mind you, they don't watch many fictional dramas but they do also think "A Place In The Country" and the like are the best TV programmes out there and every time they visit a new town the first place they head to is the nearest estate agents' window.
Owning a home is no guarantee of happiness, safety or security. Just ask all those people who lost their homes in Australia recently. As for retirement - well, my generation will either a) drop dead in harness, since old age pensions will be a myth by the time we get there so it's likely I will still be working until the day the Grim Reaper knocks on the door b) die of the coronavirus and its mutated descendants (or whatever else comes along) c) have succumbed to climate change in the interim and be living up a hill somewhere trying to eke a living out of watercress and sheep and/or have been slept away by a flood or other "severe weather event" or d) all of the above.
As others have said, the home ownership thing depends very much where you live though. If you live in London, everybody knows that in most areas house prices are so utterly mad that you need to be incredibly lucky, inherit a house, or have a very large BOMAD deposit before you even start. The days of the doer-upper are behind us, as BTL landlords have snaffled so many of those properties.
In Europe and much of America it's much more common to rent than it is in the UK; in some parts of New York I believe rent protections are still in place; and in Germany the tenancy agreements are much more long-term focused than our ridiculous 6 month initial contracts...our attitude to home ownership says a lot about our parochial mentality as a nation, overall, I think.
Good luck, whatever you decide to do; but bear in mind that even if you do buy a house, you can't take it with you. 