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.

Even if you own your home outright with no mortgage, it can still be taken off you. Eg. If you get into serious debt the courts can make you sell your house to pay the debt. Or you could have to sell it to pay for long term care. (Which the benefits scroungers who've never worked will get for nothing)

A mortgage is an investment in your own home. It is owned and will be owned outright at the end.

Rent is investment in someone else's property for which you have nothing to show for it at the end.

It is yours - you should have tried handing the keys back to lender, they would have sold it at auction at low price and charged you legal fees and costs and chased you for years for the money - therefore it was always yours as soon as you signed the agreement

In my circles, background, we know of no family, friends, or relatives that do not own their own homes as we come from a background where the first steps of adult life is owning your own home. It is what it is and not everyone will agree with that. Owners are penailsed via stamp duty, taxes and even care home fees and IHT. So homeowners are contributing to the community in a big way and leaving social housing for those in most need but we all know that is not true some of the time as some are living in social housing and could easily afford their own place and free up the soc housing to those that really need it. Not their fault but the government's fault

You kind of own it, but you're in enormous debt and you have to give up the house if you can't pay that debt, so it's a provisional, precarious sort of ownership.

More to the point, owning a home isn't morally superior to not owning a home, so the judgemental comments are very bizarre.

Even more to the point, the people making the comments are being judgemental as well as bizarre, so are probably not worth your attention.

Doesn’t matter if they’re rising or not (ultimately they will always rise though, even if only slowly) they will still have value and you’re paying off the capital, so your mortgage payment is not dead money. If you do it in a financially savvy way then you’re quickly paying off capital, which is still yours as it’s in the value of the home you’re paying off. Whereas all the rent is dead money, the interest payment is just a “fee” for using the assistance of a bank.

Even if you owe a debt for the purchase price of something, you still own it.

How do other people even know whether your dd rents or has a mortgage? It’s weird that they care so much about her choices

Semantics.

Why did you buy a house OP? Instead of renting and investing in other ways?

I would consider it home owning to be honest. Yes there is a distinction between being mortgaged and mortgage-free but I think if you have a mortgage you are still a home owner.

If I bought a Chanel bag on a credit card I would still own a Chanel bag even if I was still paying the credit card off.

On a side note, yes your daughter would be paying interest to the bank but she would be paying down the mortgage and would own one day.

2nd paragraph. You can having nothing to show for as tens of thousands did in 2008/8 and years before that during financial crashes where people lost their homes or were in negative equity so nothing to show for and bills and payments much larger and end up with a massive debt even if keys were given back to lenders who sold low via autions plus hefty costs.

If you are renting you are paying somebody else's mortgage. Not a choice most would willingly make.

So your DD has enough money to pay a deposit on a home and take out a mortgage but you think she's financially in a better position paying someone else's mortgage off rather than her own? Erm ok.

Yes her rent can go up but so can your mortgage.

True, but mortgages can also go down. Rents only go up.

When I bought I fixed for 5 years and my mortgage has become a smaller and smaller proportion of my salary. If I was renting, the rent would have increased by hundreds over that same period. Rents tend to keep pace with salary increases.

I own part of home and have a mortgage on the part I don't own. If shit hit the fan I could sell up and have money (more than I put in too). It can't be sold from under me and it has my name on the deeds. I own the home.

If you buy a car with a loan you don't say you don't own a car. So a mortgage is no different, it's just a loan to buy a house.

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.

Central London I do see your point.

However we rented for over 10 years and had a few times unwanted moves due to landlord circumstances often at inconvenient times for us. I don't have inspections every x months to work around. I choose how it's decocted and can put up shelves and have pets without worrying. I have option to fix my mortgage so it's the same amount for years and increases are predictable and again over years. I own an every increasing % of my house and within a few years will own it outright. The land registry has the property listed as belonging to me - it will be an asset I own outright eventually which may help me when I need to pay for care or free up money by downsizing.

We bought when kids started school so they had more security - not constant moves or worry about them- there are downsides to owning but many upsides.

Well sometimes renting does make sense. Depends upon your circumstances..I rented for many years as it suited me then. I now do own my home.

An interest only mortgage is rarely more expensive than renting, even in London. Even if it is, it’s very unlikely any amount invested would be greater than equity built up over 20 years just from interest only mortgage. So no, that’s nonsense

You own your home if you have a mortgage. I don't think you understand what a mortgage is OP.

Yes I agree- I have rented at times in my life when it suited me. Nothing wrong with it. In the longer term if you are staying in the same place you would generally be better to buy though.

I somewhat agree, OP (and I have a mortgage myself). Especially early on in the process, when the mortgage term is 40 years and the equity is 5%. It does offer more stability than rent, but it is not real ownership. If I need to agree with another entity whether someone can come and stay with me for more than 30 days, it is not really "my" house, is it.

Op is right, when you pay off the mortgage, your deeds are sent to you in the post, the mortgage company holds them until the final payment.

But it is better to buy tan rent. You pay the mortgage or pension of the landlord if you rent

The average rent has been more expensive than the average mortgage for the last 13 years. Mortgage is now more expensive, but not by enough to make the saving worth while.

But in 10 years time your friend’s kids houses will have likely gone up in value, they will have improved them, they may have chipped away at the mortgage with overpayments. They will have had the freedom to extend and improve. They will be in a position to upsize or move to a better area. I bought my first house in 2008 for £164k, now sat in a million pound house. Between the first house and current house there were two others, which we made hundreds of thousands on. Had I have rented not bought when I was in my 20s I would not be in the position I am now. My husband did the same and bought a grotty flat in a grotty part of town and then we pooled resources. I’m still of the opinion that renting is dead money.

It’s possible in some limited cases you may have nothing to show for paying a mortgage for many years especially in the shorter term. However it’s certain that you will have nothing to show for paying rent.