To think renting as opposed to buying is not throwing your money away ?

[Usemyname123]

I am a single 29 year old and do not own a home. I have been told that renting is essentially 'throwing money down the drain' and other words to that effect.
I admire those who are able to save for a deposit as I have a hard time doing so. I think it will take me several years, and I'm single so will potentially be buying something alone.
I think owning a house and being able to have your mortgage paid off so that you can live rent-free in retirement age is the main reason I would buy one.
But sometimes I feel, especially in the UK, that there is this thing about buying a home in order to be complete and fulfilled in life, along with getting married.
I think renting shouldn't have a stigma attached to it, not everybody wants the financial commitment of a house. Personally, I like the fact that I have the freedom to move elsewhere, or that my landlord is responsible for paying for a new washing machine etc.
I don't think that 'just' renting should be seen as some sort of failure, and should be a more celebrated choice as it has many advantages.
However I can also fully understand wanting to purchase a house. It must be a great feeling to know that you are the owner.
Interested to hear others' thoughts.

The problem with renting is that the rent keeps going up. Renting is v expensive in the city I live in, its getting ridiculous.

I rented for op over a decade before being able to buy my own home.

Renting suited me at a point in my life where I wanted to be flexible and able to move easily. It suited me when I wanted to be free of the responsibility of repairs and maintenance.

I did then get to a point where I was desperate to own, but couldn’t afford to. I wanted to create my own space that I could decorate and renovate as I pleased. I was sick of being at the mercy of a rental agency who made demands to inspect my home and would on occasion send an employee (or give keys to random workmen!) to just let themselves into my home when I wasn’t there. One of my friends had a workman appear in her rented flat unannounced when she was sat in her house half dressed.

Owning my own home makes me feel more comfortable. It’s mine to do as I please. No one can dictate if I have pets or not or if I want to screw things to my walls. It does have a much higher level of responsibility though....I have to pay attention to gutters and roofs and pointing and all sorts of things I never had to care about when renting.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

I understand what your saying and probably fits with your generational thinking. However when I bought my first house it was £35k. I sold it for £65k. The next house was £85k and I sold for £300 k. You can't get that from renting! Plus I won't be paying for rent or mortgage in a few years.

There are pros and cons to both OP.

But I agree there does seem to be a stigma attached to it. But some people WANT to rent, and that is why I don’t feel bad about being a landlord. The private rental sector needs landlords to provide housing to people who don’t want to buy.

I definitely don't look down on anyone who rents, it isn't an easy thing to save and buy a property. I'd think it odd if someone was financially able to buy and didn't though.

I dont know anyone who think buying = success and renting = failure.

I bought my house. my best friend has a HA house. I bought because it was substantially cheaper than renting here. Unless you get HA. The waiting list is years long.

It was a choice I made when I got divorced that suited my circumstances. Had I been able to rent a HA (cheaper and more secure) I would have done that.

Both me and my best friend made choices that suited us at the time.

YANBU. And I am a homeowner.

I also think people overestimate the savings to be made, usually the equity part of your mortgage is a very small proportion and many people piss far more than that away on repairs and improvements.

That said, I’d suggest that if you’re not planning on buying a house you make sure your pension contributions are amazing to account for having to pay private rent as infinitum. Or consider buying an investment property somewhere with good ROI which is likely to grow so you can benefit from some of the capital growth, should you ever want to buy a home later in life.

But generally, no, I dont think it’s throwing money away any more than electricity, gas or food is. It’s a living expense.

DS hasn't bought a house and won't just yet, he is 27 and has got a small deposit, he had a small inheritance but prefers to rent as then he can live in a city centre flat which he likes and suits his lifestyle and is near his work but would not be his choice to buy that sort of property. He is also of the mind that you do need to buy something for when you retire but is not interested in home ownership at the moment.

YANBU OP

DP and I rented for the last 4 years and my DM would make similar comments, I can see it from her point of view that we were paying someone else’s mortgage without any longer term benefit however we had somewhere that we liked to live so it was worth it for that alone, DM wasn’t meaning it in a nasty way she was just concerned about the financial side as she was right in thinking that a mortgage would be cheaper per month then then rent.

We weren’t in a position to buy however have just bought our first home this month, the difference in rent-mortgage is around £300 cheaper so we can afford to make a regular overpayment on the mortgage and as it’s ours we no longer have 3 monthly inspections as we did in the last place we rented for 2.5 years (no idea why they were so frequent we kept the flat lovely and promptly reported any issues but it meant I never felt fully able to relax as i knew it wasn’t ours and the agent made that clear)

Downside is that we no longer live in a listed building but council tax is cheaper and we have more space

As others have said if there was more security in the rental market it would be much better, our first flat after 18 months we were given 2 months notice as we were on a 6 month contract which became rolling the stress of moving quickly and finding something suitable wasn’t good, fairer rents too, we only ended up buying because our LL wrote to inform us of a large rent increase so that’s when we seriously looked at figures.

Buying isn’t the be all and end all and comes with its own problems, a better rental system would be better for everyone

Another one here who doesn’t judge someone on their home ownership status but owning definitely has to be the preferable option, it’s cheaper than renting. Surely you can understand why people think that?

I actually rent a property out and the rent I receive is almost double the mortgage I pay. Of course if you can’t get a mortgage, then renting isn’t throwing money away, you need a roof over your head. But if you are in a position to buy and don’t then you are definitely just wasting your money.

Thing is you will rent forever but we will love rent and mortgage free so although it's choice n my mind if you can choose then surely you would choose to buy ?
I don't judge or care what anyone else does but you can't argue it's not money for nothing !

Personally, I like the fact that I have the freedom to move elsewhere, or that my landlord is responsible for paying for a new washing machine etc.

In the UK market this is because you are young and single. Realities of private renting for families:

• landlord can give you notice at any time. You then need to find somewhere else, often meaning dc end up moving schools
• rent can be raised at any time. You may not be able to afford the raise and have to move, see above
• a lot of landlords refuse to let to families at all
• over years it is more expensive. The costs are only based on the first few years, 10 years down the line your mortgage is cheaper. In the end you've paid it off so are saving enough to buy a new washing machine every month
• it's beyond me what happens in retirement, I doubt most people will have pensions that cover private rent.

The earlier you buy the better as you start building equity, buying property Young is of the major differences between families that are financially secure and those that aren't. Unless you can get HA or council, but many people just don't meet the criteria so end up renting privately long term.

But if you intend to continue moving around then it's less advantageous, that said I agree with your DM largely although clearly if you are living somewhere short term you need somewhere to live.

I agree there shouldn't be a stigma, I own and bought on my own but had to compromise as a lot of people do on some things. If I was renting and not saving up I probably would have lived in a fancier place and better area. For me the main reason was being rent/mortgage free from mid 50s.

The only time I've seen stigma or rudeness is when a friend (early 30s) started banging on at a party about how stupid homeownership is and how a home is a liability (because of the mortgage) not an asset.
She said that everyone had to pay for somewhere to live but that as a renter she had freeedom and less responsibility.

When another friend pointed out the benefit in retirement she just shrugged and said the government would pay anyway or would take the homes people owned for care payments

She came across very rude and condescending to those who had bought there own home and didn't acknowledge the benefits of owning only renting. There were a few snide comments at the party. Apart from that incident though I've only ever heard people acknowledge how hard it is to get on the property ladder.

I prefer the security of owning my own home and of course there are no silly rules about what I can or cannot do , and nobody comes and inspects it at various intervals.

If you actually do the maths buying with a mortgage is probably one of the stupidest financial decisions a person could make. But rental housing stock in the U.K. isn’t always secure or readily available so some people have no other option. We rent (no intention to buy unless we leave the country). Our property is owned by an old estate and they’re never going to ask us to leave so that they can sell, the rent us very cheap for the kind of property it is (much cheaper than a mortgage repayment would be), they lest us decorate how we want, everything gets fixed quickly, and so on. It would be madness to buy. But I know someone who has bought a second home on a mortgage because there are no rental properties in her area that are suitable for a family and within her price range and she couldn’t sell her first house due to negative equity. She had the choice between taking on more debt and paying a stupid amount of tax or living in a tiny flat with an arsehole landlord. In that instance I can see why it’s worth the risk and the financial loss. She will probably (assuming she meets repayments) have two properties at the end of it but her pension will be minimal (she can’t afford to service it properly) and it’s not clear if she’s be able to afford school fees for her kids. That’s just what happens when policy over inflated house prices and discourages large landlords.

The answer is it depends on the circumstances.

If you can't afford a mortgage and have no option of living with your relatives, you have to rent. Nothing wrong with that, it's a basic need. However, as you say, if you wish to own in the future, saving up whilst renting won't be easy (I've been there too). Once I met DH, together we had enough and bought a house. Within 2 years, our mortgage was less than the rent we paid on a small flat 2 years earlier. There is absolutely no comparison between the two properties, we now have a great size house and garden and live in a really nice location. We bought a fixer upper because it cost us less, didn't have to strip everything, but we've done a lot of work to it. It was hard financially for the last 2 years for that reason. But the house is lovely and up to our taste now. The freedom of making it your own is great. We now have our pets which we were not allowed to have when we rented. Again, incomparable. As I said, we actually pay less monthly now than we were renting. And most importantly, we've built up equity and increased the value of our house, so whenever it comes to selling it, we'll be able to afford to buy our forever home - which will be a much more expensive one, bought as an investment - for retirement and inheritance purposes for our future children. Common sense tells you that's a much more secure way of doing things if you're planning to settle down/have a family. And of course unless you fail to repay your mortgage, the home is yours, you'll not be evicted by anyone.

If, however, you're not settling down at the moment, the freedom of renting is totally justified. You can go for different jobs in different locations, move if you fall in love or simply get bored, or your current place is no longer suitable for any other reason. Like you said, no worries about any repairs, which can be very expensive (although it's true the cost is included in your rent in reality, but it doesn't hit you with few hundred extra out of the blue - not a bad thing). It's great.

The answer depends on the circumstances.

@Usemyname123 My mum sold a mortgage free flat about 10 years ago and says it’s her biggest regret. I begged her at the time not to do it but the stubborn goat wouldn’t listen. Now DH and I are having to extend our mortgage to buy somewhere with a granny flat because she’s struggling so much to work 80 hours a week self employed from home. She’ll be dead in a few years if we don’t.

Is it me or is Mumsnet being played? It seems there are a lot of threads on here just lately all around the theme of defending the status quo and defending Britain's economic and political directions, no matter how much it provably (empirically demonstrable) increases inequality and disadvantages women, no matter how many people it throws under the bus, no matter how many people fall off the system into homelessness.

As you say op, the advantage of buying is that it means at some point you will be able to stop paying rent. You will have an asset, an asset of value in practical terms, that fulfils the basic human requirement of shelter. That can be used for you or for whomsoever you choose.

Those are huge financial and practical advantages to have. In the baby boomer years, more people were able to buy their own houses and were paying them off by the age of 40 - 50, typically. It enabled their retirement. It enabled them to give money to their kids, where that happened. It enabled them to guarantee a roof over their kids' heads - so many people assume that as some kind of automatic right that everybody has, without ever considering where it comes from or realising how very privileged it makes them.

The advantage for the economy as a whole is that the state will not have to support ageing people who can no longer work as well or as long as youngsters. It enables the flow of generations to slip past each other more sociably, without building up the rancour we're beginning to see when certain generations are advantaged beyond others.

It's true there are certain risks to taking on a mortgage, which is the only way of owning for most given that we don't all have family homes or wealth. But the asset stays, and no matter how 'the market' fluctuates in the short term, the value of having an asset that fulfils one of the three basic human needs cannot be understated.

I do not know why people cannot see the value of practical resources any more. Well I do, our entire economy has shifted towards the ultimate make-a-few-people-very-rich scheme, rentier economy: and our entire culture is being loaded with propaganda to facilitate it.

That was long. Sorry!

@SuperMeerkat wheres the money? Surely she has that?

I think @Reginabambina is right to a certain degree. If you can get good low cost, secure rental then renting is a great thing.

In my area I would pay nearly twice as much in rent, than I do paying a mortgage. And most rentals arent secure.

You have to look at your own circumstances and make the choice that's best for you

For me, a mortgage is sensible because one day, it'll be paid off and we'll own our home, whereas renting is forever and I don't want to be paying rent out of my pension.

But I don't look down on people who rent - I did it for years. Having a roof over your head is a good thing!

If you become I'll it's better to be a home owner than a renter.

If you become I'll it's better to be a home owner than a renter.

Not always. I was diagnosed as ptsd after my divorce. Leading up to that my depression and anxiety meant I had to take some time off work. The only way I could get help with my payments was a loan.

My exh rented, was self employed and got help towards his rent. He thinks UC is great.

About moving around. Isn't it a little bit weird that everyone is having to move around so much more than they used to - and yet geographical mobility in Britain, real geographical mobility across regions, is slowing to a stop? In fact, it's fallen, apparently, among the group traditionally the most mobile, which op falls into - renting, under 35, educated. Renting in practical terms therefore appears to be a bigger trap than buying, which is rather counter-intuitive. It's not a subject that's in the news much in Britain, I had to go hunting for something covering it to confirm my memory. www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2017/08/Get-a-move-on.pdf

Personal/financial choice, you're paying someone else's mortgage by renting and have nothing to show for it