To think having a house with a mortgage is not 'owning your own home'

[easternuts]

We had a mortgage for 30 years before paying it off recently on our modest home. Now we consider ourselves home owners.

Dd rents because she doesn't want to pay the bank more in interest than the cost of her rent is. Yes her rent can go up but so can your mortgage.

I've had friends of mine make snide comments that dd is going on another holiday when she doesn't own her own home. This is as opposed to their own children who have recently bought with 95% or 90% mortgages in a part of the country where a 3 bed house is less than £150k.

AIBU to think that you don't own your own home just because you have a £15k down payment. DD has far beyond what is needed for a deposit but it makes zero sense in central London at present.

The owners who are named on the deeds.

Exactly my point

I have a mortgage on my house, but it's only for about 15% of the current value of my house and will be paid off within five years. Given I only owe the bank a small proportion of the value of my home, and I am responsible for all the repairs and upkeep I very much feel like a homeowner thank you very much. This feels a bit like reverse snobbery to me!

Unless you’re renting a mould ridden hovel in a rundown area, surrounded by crack dens or similar, but mortgaging a normal home where in the country is a mortgage “significantly more” than renting? Compare rent and mortgage on any property and mortgage will be cheaper unless you’ve got a completely stupid landlord wishing to make a loss

No. It. Doesn't.

There's nothing to "agree". It's not a matter of opinion. You don't "agree", you just don't know the facts. If the bank owns it, why can't it rip out the bathroom, build a lean-to and pull up the hydrangeas?

The Midlands?

Your closer to owning it with a mortgage than paying rent.

It means your in control. No landlord forcing eviction or excessive rent increases. Albeit the bank controls interest rates, you can choose how long to fix for etc.

The true security comes once the mortgage is repaid.

Deary me.

Exactly.
Its not an opinion to agree or disagree with.
The bank do not own it.

But you have to live somewhere. It’s generally not a dissimilar cost to pay rent vs paying a mortgage off.

With the mortgage you also have to maintain the house so it may overall cost you a small amount more per month.

How will that small amount of difference, however well it’s invested, give you back enough of a return to pay your rent in retirement plus the lump sum you can get from selling and downsizing?

We have lower home ownership levels that some european countries and are on a par with some others, I dont know where this myth that the UK is obsessed with 'ownership' comes from. Most people in other countries by and large own rather than rent

But renting isnt a wise choice, given a choice, in the UK and the only reason for that is not about success or failure, its because renting is insecure, its expensive and unaffordable over the long term. If the rental market were properly regulated, with proper rent caps it would be a different situation

Its not about wanting something just for the sake of it, its about thinking about what you want long term.

Of course you own the home with a mortgage. Title deeds specify that.

Great Answer :)

I had to sell my flat for the amount outstanding on the mortgage. Prices had stagnated during the period (2001-2005, London). It was a fixer-upper, so I came away with a large debt for what I'd spent on it. My mortgage payments + improvements cost me a lot more than renting would have.

You aren't guaranteed either permanency or profit, though most people do come out okay as long as they have a stable income. I sometimes think the idea of ownership blinds people to the fact that what they have is a large debt!

At the end of the day, it's a gamble in which your odds get better the longer you can hold on to the asset. I'm not sure I'd advise a young person to commit just now, especially if they can afford to put money into a safe savings vessel. Some investment funds are averaging 10%, which is better than property at present.

Your friends are ridiculous and you are ridiculous.

I own my own home - I still have some of the mortgage to pay but the house is mine. It doesn’t belong to the mortgage company it legally belongs to me. The lender has a financial interest - but I own the house.

Your daughter is entitled to make whatever financial choices she wants without snidy comments from your silly friends.

but you also have an odd view of paying a mortgage. The benefit is at the end of the mortgage you don’t have anymore mortgage payments! If your daughter rents for her whole life she could be paying rent for 60 plus years.

but you need to get better friends. And you need to grow up a bit!

Well you can sell a house if you have a mortgage on it but you can't sell what you are renting...

Nobody likes to mention negative equity on these types of threads. I would rather have rented for the past 12 years than owe £72k on a flat that's now worth £47k so we're stuck here for the foreseeable future in a flat we outgrew 8 years ago and also likely my eggs will have all dried up by the time we move and kids are totally off the cards too.

It's not always all it's cracked up to be.

I was thinking this earlier. Buying and therefore owning a home seems to be the done thing. But you don’t technically own the home until you’ve paid off the mortgage, the bank own it. We bought our flat in 2017 and will probably be in negative equity when we sell, we may be lucky to break even. Plus the extortionate mortgage rates are crippling us. I know rent would have gone up too, but we’d also have the guarantee of when things are broken. I don’t think being a home owner is the be all and end all.

But you don’t technically own the home until you’ve paid off the mortgage, the bank own it.

No. It. Doesn't.

I'll give up soon, but it's getting more frustrating as the thread goes on. Read almost any random page and someone will have explained the facts, which really are not that complicated.

The bank don't own your flat.

THE. BANK. DONT. OWN. YOUR. FLAT.

It may not be your ideal, but I very much doubt you could not keep a child alive and well in your flat.

@K0OLA1D read the terms of a mortgage or any loan, the bank have the right to withdraw it. I have been buying and selling properties since the late ‘80’s and repossessions by the bank’s did happen sadly. Particularly if they felt were over leveraged, LTV. I hope those times don’t come round again, as they cause such misery. But property does tend to go in cycles. It doesn’t matter if your name is on the deeds, the banks will have first charge, until you pay back what you owe.

It's like having a conversation with my 10 year old about how much I don't care he 'needs' the new skins available on fortnite

Oh my life. I still own the pissing house!! They can't just decide tomorrow, oh we're going to sell your house. I'd have to have defaulted, pretty terribly for that to happen.

Until you have paid the last penny of debt you don't own it. I remember the crash in 2008, friends were less than 36 payments from paying off the mortgage off when they lost their house. It can happen to anyone.