Why do people prefer to rent rather than buying a house?

[Cocktailglass]

Genuine question, AIBU to not get that in the long run you pay off mortgage, own your home to pass on to your DC and rent, especially with the high rates now, is dead money?

I do of course understand getting a mortgage is harder now and house prices, I'm talking about people who have been renting all their lives.

Unless having rent paid for on benefits, I don't get why anyone working hasn't got on the property ladder, less to pay every month with a long term mortgage, eventually nothing to pay unlike rent.

As I said, not talking about now, but decades ago. You showed your earnings, were offered the best deal of what you could borrow, bought your first home within these means, a starter home with the intention of paying far less for payments than rent, property goes up in value, you buy your next home without too much of an increase, still less than renting. So the upgrading continues and initially you just get what you can afford to get on the ladder.

Renting does give you the benefit of any problems being the responsibility of the landlord but all depends on how good they are! With council properties in a much better position as houses are upgraded and issues dealt with (hopefully) more quickly.

Plainly speaking, you work, give a significant part of your income to someone else just to live in their house, pay bills and CT. What's the benefit of this rather than knowing you're paying straight into a loan for your own property, a financial asset, it's yours? Xxx

Renting allows me to live exactly where I want to live.

My apartment to buy would be about $2m. I can’t afford to buy in this neighbourhood, but it’s where I want to live, so I rent. It’s as simple as that. 😊

Well yeah. And what is a 5k deposit gonna get you today?
Except shared ownership etc. Which not be right for various reasons.
Some people have to rent for multiple reasons
Some choose to rent because the buying compromise eg location etc does not work for them. For a short or long time.
Do not diss other people for renting.
It is not dead money ...you paying for a roof and maintaining that roof.
Now, availability and cost is another story..
Bring back more social housing/ more affordable secure rentals

A lot of people who rent will have children who think that renting is a perfectly normal way to live. It offers flexibility. There's still quite a lot of social housing around and that means a secure tenancy and (usually) less problems getting repairs done. There's no unexpected costs.

This really is the basis for my question, my own experience, decades ago, which I made a point of saying because it's different and harder now.

But this basis has little relevance now, because it is MUCH harder now to buy.

Did you rent for 6 years? Why did you not buy earlier?

Really? You honestly don’t know? Ignorant.

I think this is a very different situation to most people who are renters and can't afford to buy and don't have a choice. But maybe the OP was thinking about people like your DB and not people who don't have the means to buy.

mortgage for cheapest property I could afford, repossession with light fitments ripped out, mouldy carpets, back garden a jungle. It was mine, worked hard to make it better

Well well done you!
But that might not work for many reasons....

And maybe you got unexpectedly preganant with twins or a child with disabilities or expected to work away three nights a week meaning a jungle reposession is not realistic vs a walk in ready rental.

Maybe a rental you dont have to clear mouldy carpets and jungle is better option right now for 2 or 3 or 12 or 20 years...

The OP said:

As I said, not talking about now, but decades ago.

Well decades ago, I got a 100% mortgage and didn't need a deposit, just a £250 reservation fee. Every time I moved, I got a bigger house & used my buyers deposit as my deposit. I now live in a house worth 5 times what my original house is worth, and haven't had a mortgage for a decade or so.

Different times.

And decades ago, there were also people who couldn't afford to buy, just like there are now. It's only a mystery to people who cannot fathom that some people have less money than they do. I suppose you will now wonder why these people don't just get a better job.

I know some people who rent because they work globally and/or can afford to rent the place they want to live in for now, not tied to it by debt and no need to deal with maintenance.

The money that others feel they should've put towards buying property? Invested. It's more profitable by many standards, and a great deal more liquid.

LMFAO. The majority of renters have it from the government? Where the rent is paid for you?
The vast majority of renters do so privately because they can’t afford to save for a deposit and/or don’t earn enough for a mortgage in the area they live in.

You do understand that if it was possible, a lot of people who rent would buy their own homes, what do you think prevents this ?

Absolute nonsense

A lot of people just are not a clever as you OP. Or they choose not to work as hard. Or they prefer to spend their money on smartphones and avocados and flatscreen TVs. Or they stupidly chose to study Micky Mouse degrees. Or they are just plain lazy.... Is that what you wanted to hear?

We rent because it’s cheaper and because if anything goes wrong I don’t have to find the money to pay to get it fixed if we bought we wouldn’t be able to afford the maintenance. Owning a house isn’t just paying the mortgage it’s everything else on top. I don’t drive for the same reason it’s cheaper to get the bus where I live than to run on a car.

But you’re not at the mercy of someone else deciding they want to sell your home when they feel like it? Unless you’re talking about social housing, which is really not abundantly available to most nowadays.

My deposit was 58k for a 2 bed flat. A 15% deposit..not everyone has that

I can't afford to buy but even if I could, I like not having to pay for and deal with maintenance. I'm not in the UK, though. I don't have to renegotiate staying every year. That would stress me out.

Will you please stop with your buying with £5K deposit that you got together by working hard and scrimping and saving nonsense.
How many people in the UK in 2026 can buy a house with a £5K deposit?
And even if they could, for those on a low wage, paying today’s utility bills and rent and food prices, how do you think they would be able to save anything towards that ridiculously low deposit of £5K that was enough to buy a house.

That changes next week. No landlord will be able to evict a tenant because they feel like it. Rents are falling as well, so iin some ways t's a good time to be a renter.

In large swathes of london its cheaper to rent than to buy esp if you invest your deposit. And if you are talking about retirement, given demographics (ageing population) , it would not be unattainable to buy a small home in the north when you reach retirement age if you have been saving and investing for 40 years. So what would be the point of moving to a commuter town, travelling 1.5 hours daily one way just so you have somewhere to live in rent free when it would mean tying up your net worth in 1 property.

Or buying in london where the mortgage is more expensive than rent. I own a 2 bed flat in z3 london, mortgage/service charge is around £500 cheaper than rent but thats only because my flat is small and cheap (400k) and i also have 40% equity and the rent/buy analysis tends to stack up better for cheaper properties. If i wanted a more luxurious and spacious property it would be cheaper to rent. But i cant afford one anyway and i cant afford more than 1 child so it works out..if we earned more and had more money and had more security in earnings, we would definitely rent. The reality is we are too poor to rent. I can see why its so tempting for higher income earners to rent until they are in the stage of their life where they are so senior that they have more flexibility on where they live (so they can buy something with a smaller mortgage) i.e. if you work mainly internationally, you just need to live within driving distance of an airport and go into office couple of times a month, can afford nanny to watch the kids for long days in the office. We will never be in that position, we would use nursery (needs to be in a convenient location to work) and we also rely on public transport. So buying in london also makes sense as well as having a fixed mortgage for budgetting certainty (less of a concern if you have a lot of money). My mortgage is now the equivalent of a room rental in london but for most rich people who own in london, their mortgage is likely to begin with a 4 unless they plunked a huge deposit.

Failing that, its not like they would be priced out of an average uk property when they retire (if they have that in investments they can liquidate).

The people I know who rent but likely could have bought prefer to have the freedom to move easily (quite a few back to their home countries) to not have the worry of upkeep and to live somewhere they could probably not afford to buy in (e.g. centre of Cambridge). For them it's not a 'lesser than' option, it's an active choice in the same way some people choose to spend £40K on a car.
Some don't have children or partners to consider.

Yeah, we all know that. And you clearly know that your experience decades ago is not possible today, so what's your question?

Tbh the uk housing market has had its heyday and is not a good investment these days. Other countries might be at a different stage of the housing cycle. Many eastern europeans i know who rent here have homes in eastern europe they own (and plan to retire to which solves the retirement question).. if you ask me to bet on a terraced house in SE or an apartment in warsaw, i would probably choose the latter given the booming polish economy