What is our fascination with bricks and mortar?

[MrsDoolittle]

Why do we buy our homes?

[Saggarmakersbottomknocker]

I'm not sure why we prefer to buy than rent but I don't get how you can be worse off over a 25 year period. You may have shelled out more cash but you own the house at the end of it

[Feistybird]

it just eems ingrained in us...

[Feistybird]

seems

[Piffle]

Yes but you can't take it with you when you go right?

[Saggarmakersbottomknocker]

No Piffle you can't. The Government will take it off you waaaaayyy before than to pay for your care home fees lol!

[SenoraPostrophe]

well yes, renters who have rented for the last 25 yrs might be better off because they are sitting tennants with legal rights to stay in the property at a reasonable rent. anyone who starts renting now, unless they go with a housing association, could be turfed out at any moment. until they change the law (which they might not do) I think it is worth paying extra to buy. but then i've never bought, only been turfed out of my home by greedy landlords several times.

[Piffle]

I think it realtes strivktly to how much you spend and in most areas rentin is cheaper than buying.
But like people say, depending on when you want to liquidate your assets, renting has less return

[Tinker]

Isn't buying now catching on in Europe? Think I've read that.

[expatinscotland]

i dunno why people buy homes, sometimes i think they're suckers, cuz tbh, there's no WAY i'd get so ripped off for some crap house.

we rent from a housing assocation, although at full market rent, so it's an assured tenancy.

and we're going nowhere fast .

i'm glad i don't own, b/c i see a lot of homes here that aren't worth a damn, and they cost a hella lot to keep up.

unless i were loaded, i wouldn't be able to sleep for worrying what would break next.

no, thanks.

[SenoraPostrophe]

actually people who have rented for the last 25 yrs might well be better off than those who bought 25 years ago even allowing for the value of the house now because that would cover those years in the 80s when interest rates were silly%. doesn't mean it'll be true in future though.

[MrsDoolittle]

Well we rent simply because we couldn't afford to buy the kind of house we live in. To buy we'd have much less space, more hassle and not the same proximity to amenities.
So for £500 less per month and less hassle we rent.

Having said that I have been nagging dh to buy, largely because dparents want us to, so he sent me the link.

[WideWebWitch]

I've only skimmed the article but I've often wondered this. Thatcher certainly had something to do with it, she believed in everyone owning their house and pushed this while she was in power. I have been an owner and a renter and although we've said we'd like to buy again soon we can actually live in a much larger/nicer house if we continue to rent, which seems mad.

The only thing that makes me want to buy is that in theory (if we continue to pay the mortgage etc) we can't be moved on once we've bought and I like the sound of that. It sometimes makes me feel vulnerable, renting, because of this.

As a nation it appears we are also obsessed with actual bricks and mortar though: I looked into timber framed self builds recently and apparently they're not that popular in the UK because we believe brick to be sturdier and stuff.

I wonder when we started thinking about property we live in as an investment rather than somewhere to live? When I was younger it seemed to me that people bought because they didn't want to move for a while and because prices weren't so high houses weren't necessarily considered investments in the way they are today. I remember a Private Eye cartoon of some people at a dinner party and one of them was wearing a t shirt that said 'I don't give a shit what your house is worth.'

[southeastastra]

you can still get those t shirts, i saw them a while back!

[southeastastra]

or rather you can now get them

[mumfor1standfinaltime]

I think it also has something to do with the fact that people can't rely on pensions either. People buy so that they can sell when they retire and then down size. Hopefully leaving a lump sum in the bank.
I do believe that property developers also have something to do with the lack of afordable homes - you know the ones- renting a whole house for a ridiculous price a month - and buying the whole street.
I rent a tiny terrace without a garden (a new build with no garden - the latest trend it seems where I live) with a housing ass, I can't afford to buy a house in my City as the prices of property have over doubled in the last 7 years and I don't have the deposit, and that's without the council tax rises. I only wish that I had bought my council flat a few years ago for £23k, they are selling for £100k.
I wouldn't say I am obsessed with bricks and mortar, my son has a safe home and is happy - that's all that matters to me at the moment.

[cece]

I'm not sure where rent is cheaper than buying but when we rented this winter - before buying another house in the Spring - it was about £200 more per motnh than our previous mortgage and it was much smaller.

For the same money as our rent we now have bought a much bigger house, detached with a massive garden.

So in the South East it is more expensive to rent...

[mumfor1standfinaltime]

Agree on the reting prices cece, perhaps it depends where you live. Very expensive to rent privately where we are. Couldn't afford it!

[cece]

where we are now we could only afford to rent a flat, wheras we have bought a detached house with massive garden for the same money per month

[fennel]

Like cece, we are currently renting a house half the size of the one we own, and paying quite a lot more in rent than we did in mortgage. we're just doing it while moving areas and buying and selling houses but it seems very expensive compared to owning a house and paying mortgage.

[helenmelon]

Wickedwaterwitch - sorry to be boring, but timber frame buildings will catch on, soon. The Building Regs have changed (again), meaning that houses are going to have to be more thermally insulated and have more efficient heating systems. One of the best ways to insulate a house is to have a timber frame inner skin (like they do in Scandinavia). Self builds are great - you can do some really nice houses...

We've bought our current place and spent ages doing it up - and are now thinking of moving!!!! Ridiculous, really, to keep getting properties as you want them, then moving!!!

Have also rented off private landlords for many years - lived in houseshares, so was pretty cheap, and was fairly lucky with landlords.

I just like the security of having our own place - no one telling me I can't have pictures on the walls, etc...

[MrsDoolittle]

I think we have been lucky, we rent a house off and estate. This house has never been owner occupied and it's a thatched cottage.
Our rent, as it stands is £500 less than it would be to buy a three bedroomed house in this area with alot less room.
So we are in the same boat as WWW, I guess.

[MrsDoolittle]

Our landlords have said to us "You can treat it like you would your own home, just don't go knocking any walls down"

[WideWebWitch]

Hi helenmelon, oh, not boring, I agree and so they should. We looked at Huf Houses too, I quite fancy a self build but god knows where we'd find the time.

[Gobbledigook]

Agreed - there's no way we could afford to 'rent our house'. Our mortgage payment is cheaper than monthly rental on a similar house in similar location (I've just searched - saddo). That's probably because we put a large deposit down on this house so our mortgage is not even close to what it's worth.

[Tinker]

Also, rent will increase with inflation so always equal a similar proportion of your income. Mortgage payments stay the same ish so proportionately, usually reduce - after teh first painful few years you start to feel richer.