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

They can still evict to sell. But if they fail to sell they cant rent it out for a year.

Only half the properties which reach market are selling at all so that is a big risk.

What happens if you decide you want to move overseas?

You are coming across incredibly slow. How many more times do you need it explained to you?

Even when deposits were “only” 5K that was still too much for some people or maybe they were waiting to find a partner to go halves and share the responsibility of maintaining a house or hoping for an inheritance to come through.

Or perhaps they were in the process of still saving up money before house prices shot up. Or they wanted to spend their 20s travelling with all their spare money or were in education doing masters & Phds etc so thought it could wait.

Most of these people didn’t necessarily plan to rent for multiple decades but life happened and the world changed and they became priced out of the housing market.

Exactly, the Op needs to answer this and then they have their answer.

They literally went through the process of renting and saving for a deposit before buying, and yet they can’t comprehend others may be doing the same thing, but just on a longer time scale for various reasons.

OP, surely you know you are coming from a position of privilege. I googled the costs from another poster. £9000 for deposit in 1981 would be about 45k in today's money. Just as hard to afford if you don't have a good paying job or parental help.

We bought because we had help. We had help despite being very well paid professionals.

I get what the OP is saying. I worked with someone my mum's age. She rented. She also took three month overseas holidays every couple of years (being in Australia that's expensive and a good chunk of a house deposit). That's her choice on how she prioritised using her money. However, she's heading for reduced income in retirement and renting. Here rentals are becoming extremely hard to secure and homelessness increasing exponentially. It's not a position I'd like to be in, as women over 50s are leading the way in homelessness here.

Are you 85 and haven’t left your hamlet for 30 odd years?

It’s been a given for a couple of decades in the South East that most young people (who don’t have an inheritance) will never own their own homes. Now the rents are so high, many adult children and grandchildren are moving back in with their grandparents for financial reasons.

There are still a lot of tenant farmers about who rent because decent farmland is unaffordable, or it's still part of the water board's/Lord X's/a very wealthy person's enormous estate.

I have friends who moved out to gain privacy and independence from their parents, to live with partners and start their own families. Some live on their own, so it's much more affordable than a mortgage. Some rent because it's the only way that they can afford to stay in the village where we grew up.

I rent because my house comes with the job. I'll probably stay here, because it's very handy for work, I have no commuting costs, it's rural, quiet, and I like my neighbours. With the way that house prices are going, I don't have much hope of ever being able to afford one on my own.

You said this in your OP:

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

I've read all your subsequent replies and I cannot for the life of me work out what the point of you starting this thread was. What possible difference to your own or anyone else's situation could it make to know why - decades ago - some people didn't do what you did?

I mean it's just 🤨

The Uk is the outlier in this scenario. Renting is much more common in the middle classes across many European countries where security of tenure is much stronger. Renting is also looked upon as a perfectly legitimate form of housing and most tenancies are long term. Unlike UK where there is a pathetic attitude from mortgage payers (people in debt to the bank) that they are somehomw morally and socially superior to renters. Landlords in the UK still imagine they are back in the feudal age and that their tenants are their serfs, rather than their business partners. I post on a landlord forum and the contemptuous way in which many landlords describe their tenants disgusts me. We should begin by outlawing the term "landlord". No one is a lord in 2026. The terms property owner, owner or lessee are perfectly adequate to descrine this kind of business relationship.

OP I can’t really understand why you’re getting vilified. I don’t think you’re being goady I just think you are not using your common sense surely you realise some ppl rent for convenience / cost?

I really don’t know many people who are in a position to buy but prefer to rent, I’d say it is unusual. The one person I do know in that position is just very happy in her apartment she’s been in for 8 years (more?), it’s modern, convenient, safe, quiet and well located (I used to live in that block too - i concur!). Her landlord is a friend and he likes having a trustworthy tenant and she appreciates he charges her under market and so she takes great care of the place.

she could afford to buy it or an identical two bedder in the development but would be paying about 18k more a year in mortgage than rent AND be suddenly responsible for the council tax (landlord / owner pays that in Australia, not tenant, although it is very low compared to UK) AND she’d be responsible for the service charge of about 3k a year (which does tend to be higher in Aus than UK as apartments tend to have communal gardens, pools and underground parking which I find are comparatively rare in UK).

she’s also single and (like me) not very handy. I cant imagine she has any appetite for maintenance.

I assume she sticks the saving of 20k ish away in stocks and shares each month.

she is one of those ppl who should (imo) buy a rental property elsewhere that has a good yield, rent that out to cover her mortgage and continue renting her friend’s place to get best of both worlds, but it’s none of my business.

Why don't the government actually do something to help people get out of expensive private rents and reward long term renters with cheaper homes.
We need a government who can make big decisions and be pro active.
A 2 bedroom house is a minimum of £200000. If you get people out of expensive rentals into affordable homes you are giving them foundations for a happier and less stressful life. It would also end the cost of living crisis for working people.

This is me.

Abusive home. Moved out at 16. I cannot save whilst renting.

I've accepted I'll never own.

Former homeowner here. Divorced at 45, house sold, proceeds drained by renting 3 bed apartment as a single mother of 3 whose ex pays laughable amount in maintenance compared to what he earns and barely any of what was agreed in separation agreement. Paying through the nose for out of school care so I can go to work and have a chance of making rent each month. Zero chance of buying in the future, I imagine. Hope that clears some things up, OP.
Just LOVE renting....

Sorry OP , you seem completely daft and out of touch.

The overwhelming majority of people who could save your tiny £5k deposit “back in the day” DO own their own homes. That’s why home ownership is so high in your demographic - and why the majority of homeowners in this country own outright. That’s right: most people who own in this country have already paid off their mortgage!

The average deposit now is between £50k and £75k depending on what part of the country you live in. Which is why people rent.

Another former 'owner' here, who learned when shit went wrong that the owner was actually the bank and 'my home' was in fact 'my enormous debt'.

The subsequent years were very hairy, largely due to the additional debts I racked up trying to claw back the right to live in my bank's asset.

Now I am old and broke ... living in a perfectly nice retirement flat owned by a housing association, affordable rent and lifetime tenure guaranteed.

Frankly, I would've done better to rent instead of buying (sorry, I mean borrowing) and stashing all the money I spent on home improvements in a tracker fund.

Bloody hell, 75,000 was almost the FULL PRICE of my first place in the late 90's, a Victorian terrace! Haven't lived in the UK for years, but house prices where I live are just as abysmally out of reach now.

I suppose one advantage is maintenance. Of course eventually you will own the property and stop paying a mortgage. But for 20 years or more (for most normal people) you are paying "rent", and that money goes and you have to maintain and pay for everything else.

Paying £700 a month and maintenance of property, drains, roof, plumbing, electronics, gas, boiler, hose insurance etc being all included is a lot different to paying £700 a month, then having to pay separately for all those things on top.

Just looked that up. UK estimates from various trade and property pundits vary widely. Google gives a fair average:

"UK homeowners should budget 1% to 3% of their property's value annually for maintenance, averaging roughly £1,500–£5,000+ per year depending on property age. Over a 30-year ownership, this can exceed £100,000, covering essentials like new roofs (£6k–£10k), boilers (£2k+), and windows.

"Period properties can cost over £700 a month in upkeep."

By contrast, my windows are replaced whenever condensation appears and I'm getting a new boiler next month. When I rang up to find out what kind of hinges I needed for the loo seat, they sent someone round to fit a new one. I never have to think about the gutters, and I don't pay buildings insurance.

Not everyone can afford to buy a house - that’s the most glaringly obvious reason!!!

I’ve done both, owning and renting and have decided to go back to renting.

I’ll explain our thinking with the rough numbers.

I’m in a high cost of living area - Bayside Melbourne, Australia. A house costs $3-4m but rent is $4-5,000 per month. Rental yields are very low for investors.

Prior to having children we bought a 4 bedroom townhouse with a small land size for $1.6m with a $1m mortgage, that mortgage costs approximately $6,000 per month.

We decided to sell the townhouse for $2.5m, pay off the mortgage in it’s entirety and live in a house with a big garden that we prefer that better suits our growing family worth $3m if we were to buy it, but only 4.5k per month to rent.

We invested $1.5m into the sharemarket, and kept a 200k buffer. We generate about 65k passive income through dividends each year. When we had our first child my husband and I decided to have one parent at home, and the other to work part time. The passive income allows us to live on a lower salary whilst providing enormous quality of life boots for myself as a mother and to our children by having such present parents.

We can’t have both a large mortgage and a stay at home parent. We could have owned an apartment outright and had a stay at home parent. We could have had two working parents and a large mortgage. We decided on a third option - stay at home parent and investing in shares instead of property to earn a passive income to replace a second household income, whilst keeping a strong cash buffer so we can ride out any volatility in the sharemarket.

I also much prefer renting to owning with a mortgage. I enjoy the maintenance not being my responsibility, and psychologically not holding any debt and being able to see my net worth steadily rising along with the share market makes me feel safe. It’s hard to explain but I didn’t feel like my mortgaged house was truly mine, in the same way my rental doesn’t feel like my own.

Ideally we would both own a house outright and have investments in shares, but that’s not our reality and I’m well aware I’m extremely fortunate compared to most who struggle to invest in anything at all.

This path, along with likely inheritance, will enable us to buy a house outright before my husband retires but for now I’m totally content renting. I expect the vast majority of renters would much prefer to own, but don’t have the capital or income to purchase a house without significant compromise/sacrifice.

Having just shelled out for a new roof, I am firmly in my Wish I Was Bloody Renting phase. It won't last though.

Flexibility, mostly.

Good income now, might not continue and it’s much easier to downsize if needed from rent. Feels risky to take on a big mortgage.

Conversely, expectation of a windfall or substantial salary increase in the not too distant future would allow to afford a house without so much risk or afford something much better. Waiting for the forever home rather than wanting to buy something that will only be suitable for a short while (it’s peculiarly British to prioritize early home ownership so much).

Career and income maximization require moving around, or at least benefit from being able to. Especially relevant before kids but even after it’s not always easy to commit for long enough that buying is worth it.

Also career focus means that home maintenance is an undesirable drain on time and energy. Easier to know it’s all someone else’s problem.

There are other ways to invest savings than in a house deposit, some with higher expected returns and almost all more liquid. Often when people say it’s cheaper to pay a mortgage than rent they’re not including the opportunity cost of tying up the deposit (or the additional maintenance and insurance costs).

Honestly the main downside to renting imo is that many rental properties are not decorated nicely and it’s more difficult to make it match your own taste or preferences. And that it’s yet another way of continually funneling money from workers to those who already have capital. Although mortgage interest has the same effect anyway.

I own my house (well the bank & I do 😂)

you are being unbearably smug & goady.

Strange that you don’t have perspective on a different situation to yours. You know not everyone has money? . I live in Australia, it’s so expensive. No chance for me.

This. And the 'I scrimped and saved and worked soooo hard to get £5K for a deposit on a house' line is just ludicrous. NO-ONE is buying a house with a £5K deposit in 2026. NO-ONE.