To think people with an average mortgage are still far better off than their renting counterparts

[Theinventoroftoasterstrudel]

I met with a friend today who was moaning about having sorted their remortgage this week and how their payments have increased by £250 a month due to interest rises. She's now paying £1000 for their 3 bed semi and I do fully appreciate how stressful knowing this remortgage was due has been for them this past year and how painful suddenly paying so much more is. I'm not in any way trying to minimise that for my friend or others with a mortgage in this position.

However, I rent and we live in a very similar property in a similar area to her which I had been paying over £1100 for for the past 2 years and a few months ago this increased to £1250. When we were told about the increase we looked to see if there was anything we could possibly find for cheaper and everything comparable was actually closer to the £1400 mark.

I feel like the news has covered the impact interest rises are having on home owners virtually every day since the mini budget last September but renter's have only had a cursory 'and rents will increase due to landlords passing on their increases' at the end of the odd story. And with zero acknowledgement that rents were already so much higher than mortgages anyway and still are. It's not like renting has suddenly become the better option; it's still utterly impossible!

Am I being unreasonable to think there needs to be more outrage and support for renters and not just those needing to remortgage.

It is shit. My eldest DS is in his first proper job and Iooking at the cost of houses and the deposit he’ll need to save, I don’t see how he’ll ever be able to buy. A podcast I listen to regularly called the news agents has covered this issue a few times. It was enlightening but also horrifying listening to not just would be renters but also estate agents and landlords setting out the issues they are experiencing too. The whole system is totally fucked.

Isn't that what people pay home insurance for ? When out hot water tank leaked and caused damage to the lounge we claimed on the insurance.

@Sillysosij yes, but then it's yours along with any equity. Renters get the privilege of handing the keys back. And, there is no long term security. It's unfair. Having a stable home to put down roots and raise a family should be a fundamental right in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Whether it be bought or council/housing association. I feel for anyone private renting. I feel very fortunate to have a mortgage and all of the maintenance costs that go with owning a home.

when you buy a house you pay a substantial deposit 10's of thousands you need to add that to the figure plus the costs of buying like estate agents fees, searches, legal fees, stamp duty, and building surveys and checking the gas and electricity, ongoing repairs insurances for house - and mortgages do go up (for along time they have stayed very low and they are already increasing) if you get unemployed or sick universal credit with housing benefit will pay out for renters for house owners you get a loan which has to be repaid. if you fall back on your rent, you will get evicted but you also will as a home owner and you will have to pay back your whole mortgage not just a few weeks/months rent and believe me, from aclose friends experience, building societies and banks are much more "efficient" at chasing and getting money back than landlords are, There is also a risk of negative equity which happened to quite a few people in the 90's and having to pay this back. so don't rush to assume owners have it so easy or risk free. they don't

@Babyroobs many insurances wont pay the first £500 or so for water leaks and only so much for repairs and they have a wonderful set of exclusions

I think it’s shit for everyone. Don’t get mad at renters/owners. Get mad at the government that has seriously fucked it up for everyone.

Everyone moans about their situation. You are a renter, you worry about yours and if you were a mortgage payer, you would have been worried about mortgage increase.
I am sure a homeless person think he is in worse situation than you but that does not mean you have no right to moan about yours.

The disparity between rent:mortgages is insane.

I lived abroad for years, came home and rented while saving mortgage deposit.

I’m paying LESS now on my mortgage for a lovely brand new house with front/back:side gardens than I was paying rent in a one bedroom flat!

For context - I live in a lovely village and the rental flat is a stone throw away from my new house!

Just to put this comment into perspective, rents for a property worth around 250k are about 1k a month. An interest only mortgage on that amount (plus 2k arrangement fee) at 5% is about £1050 or almost £950 at the current base rate of 4.5%. On top of this, the home owner would have to pay for maintenance, improvements and repairs.

Interest only mortgages are basically just renting the house and it is very difficult to have a mortgage once of retirement age. The main benefit is you can only be forced out of the house if you default or the bank decides to call in the debt and over time, generally speaking, that asset will grow. The downsides are that if the bank does recall the debt for whatever reason, the house may have gone down in value or even if not, the bank may be willing to sell at a loss and try to recoup the shortfall from the mortgage holder.

A capital repayment mortgage on 250k plus 2k arrangement fees is a little over 1100 over 40 years at 4.5% or just over 1200 a month at 5%. If interest rates continue to rise, so will mortgage rates. It is cheaper to rent than to buy right now, which was not always the case.

@Madwife123 thats not going to happen to you every month though is it

Exactly this!

My father in law has just had to pay £11000 for a new boiler after it broke down.

He was ripped off

He is in the south and it was complicated by the fact the old boiler was in a bedroom which no longer meets legal standards so he also had to pay for the loft floor to be reinforced so it could be moved up there and new pipework etc

He was still ripped off. I'm in the south and I had a completely new kitchen, all appliances, wall knocked down AND a new boiler for less than 10k. The new boiler is half the size of the original, fits on a wall in a cupboard upstairs, new piping and flue through the roof

Haha thank you. When it comes to housing I’m basically a communist. I realise what a privilege it is to be able to buy a home in this economy, and it shouldn’t be. I don’t think housing should ever be a profit-making asset. People talking here about “to buy a home you have to put tens of thousands down as a deposit!” as if that’s a great hardship need to listen to themselves, having tens of thousands in the first place is a huge privilege!

That’s sad to hear. That he was ripped off. He’s a vulnerable 80 year old and likely accepted the first quote he was given.

I was shocked at the price but I’ve not yet had to replace my boiler plus I’m in the North so put it down to higher cost of living in his area and the additional work involved.

I'm currently selling my house. And I plan to go in to rented, despite being able to buy a new house. I just don't want to be responsible for the maintenance. Boiler breaks - find someone to sort it, they don't turn up, call somebody else they can't fix it, find someone to install a new one, pay £££ for it. Shower breaks, find a plumber, he can't do it, need an electrician, they're like hens teeth pay £££ to sort it. I just can't be bothered with it ay more.

@Haveallthesongsbeenwritten what would rent be on a two bed house though? You were better off before but you were only renting a one bed flat vs the two bed house you bought? Just curious how different the rent and mortgage would be if you compared like with like.

He wasn't necessarily ripped off. Depends on the boiler. We've paid £7k for a new one - needed moving, extra pipework and a second pump to maintain water pressure up 4 floors. We could have paid more for a better one as well or for a heat pump one. Very much depends on type of boiler, size of house and complexity of install.

I’m a homeowner after many years of renting and couldn’t agree with you more, things are far rubbish for renters than homeowners in so many ways.

YANBU. We fixed a low rate about 2 years ago and my mortgage is half what I would pay if I rented out my property, minimum.

Renting is extortionate now, it's awful.

@Madwife123
That’s sad to hear. That he was ripped off. He’s a vulnerable 80 year old and likely accepted the first quote he was given.

That's such a shame. We used to try and get MIL to make appointments when we or someone could be with her for just those reasons as she would have done the same.

It depends OP. If you have a mortgage, sometimes the rent, management fee, maintenance means there's not really any profit after and you have to rely on the house/flat going up in value to cover. Our mortgage has gone up £500 on the interest alone. Our kids share a room.

What? Our dodgy boiler sprung a leak, last month, and it cost just short of £2000 to have it replaced. Either your FIL has a mansion to heat or he's been ripped off.

Sounds like to had the same bodge job as our neighbour's house. They've done nothing about te various sources of water ingress but they have barely trained monkeys working on making it look presentable for a few months.

I feel so frustrated that we are supposed to live in a representative democracy, where we pay lots of taxes, why don't we get governments capable of managing this stuff? Other countries have ways of dealing with this. See Singapore (yes).
Last time we had a proper house building project was 1945 ffs. Why does the government leave it all to private companies when its obviously not working?!

I pay £13000 a year to house myself and my child.
I’ve been renting for 10 years, since I left home at 18. If I want to keep living in the same (poky 2 bed) house until I die, I will have spent £800,000 on housing. And I will have nothing to show for it. What will my child inherit? What will we have to show for almost a million pounds spent, other than someone else’s mortgage paid off twice over?

All arguments aside, i cannot understand how anyone can argue it is financially better to rent. I want something to show for the two mortgages I’ll have paid off. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to make themselves feel better by avoiding the uncomfortable reality that renting is currently hugely exploitative.