Long term Renting? What do you intend to do in the future?

[Mrspitt3]

I'm horrified at some of my friends that have been renting for 20+ years and are in their 40s, and most don't Paul into a pension. I'm mid 40s and got on the property ladder when I was 20 and had a partner (I know prices have changed and I was working didn't have uni fees etc, but had no help from parents). I'm curious to know how long term renters intend to keep a roof over their head when they can no longer work due to age??

The problem of lifelong renting (with the demise of council houses) is a big concern to the government (and should be to all tax payers). The housing benefit bill will have to keep going up and up, basically with the money being transferred directly to landlords. This is a big reason why the government is so keen on help to buy! The other option would be to build more council housing...

Bubble , isn’t the point that our mortgage will be paid off but you will surely have to pay rent for ever on social housing ? Or am I missing something? Do you get it free after 65?

Not you.. Just hypothetically

imjessie- I think in most circumstances housing benefit would cover this so no better or worse off than a home owner. No potential 'nest egg' or inheritance for the kids I guess

Imjessie for a pensioner without sufficient income, housing benefit will pay the rent.

But monthly bills are very significant regardless of housing cost- council tax, food, utilities etc. Owning a home doesn't help you pay that

Long term renter here, and like a pp said, I live for the day. I have a very good job, but no inclination to buy whatsoever. Tbh, so long as I have something to leave my kids (which I do, in the form of investments, my business etc) I'm not stressing about my own long term future.

Lots of people I know with family homes, plan to sell and downsize before retirement. This then frees up money (in some cases hundreds of thousands) to fund retirement, travel etc. That isn't an option in social housing or when renting obviously

Bit judgy a post, but I’m glad your all set for a comfortable retirement.

If house prices were what they were in the 90s we would all have lovely houses we’d have paid off by the time we were 40 wouldn’t we? And have you actually looked at shared ownership or help to buy? It’s a time bomb waiting to happen.

I’d just say count your own blessings and worry about yourself

I tried to buy a house when I was 21, a single parent on my own wage with a deposit saved. In 2008....

You never know what life is going to throw at you. I was married at 22, on the property ladder at 23, NHS pension, planning to start a family and doing very nicely thank you.

By 30 i was divorced, been told I couldn't have kids, penniless (spent everything we had on private infertility treatment and then sneaky ex-Dh screwed me royally by being massively in debt which i knew nothing about but had to pay half of). Set off and travelled the world, in doing so met DH #2. After a few years we managed to get on the property ladder in the US, were doing very nicely, large house, two new cars, two full-time incomes, pensions yada yada. Also had 2 kids despite being told it was impossible, but that's a story for another day...

Another 10 years goes by, now DH is out of work and has MH issues so can't get back into the workforce, I'm working 60-70 hours a week to keep the roof over our heads and can't get a decent job in my speciality because the US doesn't recognise my degrees and masters degrees so I'm stuck in basic-level low-wage jobs. For this and several other reasons, we sell up, just about breaking even, and head for the UK.

We've been renting for just over 3 years, scrimping and saving another deposit, and have just now managed to get a toe-hold back on the property ladder here (we complete next month). I'm still the breadwinner and always will be due to DH health issues, so our new house is half the size of the last one we owned, but I can afford to pay for it out of my earnings and to over-pay so the mortgage will be paid off in around 15 years.

When i bought my first home at 23, there is no way i ever imagined I would be 'starting over' again in my mid-40s. I assumed I would be mortgage-free and living the high life by now. I see one of my oldest and closest friends, same age as me, house was paid off yonks ago, both kids left home, every FB post is another exotic holiday or a new car, planning retirement at age 55. And I wonder what happened....

I once read that 'life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.....'

That is so true, you never know what life will bring.

The undertone here seems to be that you feel like long term renters are ripping of tax payers by blithely failing to plan for their futures. We are a 50% tax paying family and then you can add to that the tax my landlord pays on our rent The gap in understanding of today's housing situation by people who bought their properties 15 years + ago is staggering and insulting and I wish people would stop starting goady threads about it. You own your home, I rent mine - that in no way makes you better than me, got it?

That’s what your pension is for though? ( not state obviously)

Bluntness,
I wouldn't want to live in identical boxes either. But I do think that house value should refer to house cost and that in a better society it would not be a market for accumulation of wealth. Again I'm not too sure about how to legislate to achieve that and how to protect current home owners such as myself. Perhaps one way is to impose regulation such that houses can only be sold for their purchase price plus cpi or that additional monies are passed to the treasury. New builds being cost plus a percentage profit, with adjustment to "current market" going to the treasury until such times as adjustments are nil. I'm not saying it's achievable but I do think it would be a far better society.

you don’t see pensioners sleeping on the streets
Probably because they get killed off by the cold

High fives jimbobjovi

My partner and I are in our early 50s, and have rented all our adult lives. Neither of us were born in the UK; neither grew up with the concept of a “housing ladder”, which we regard as pernicious. We’ve spent the last 20+ years saving, and could probably just about afford to buy outright a not-very-nice house in our area. The problem is, when you’ve painstaking saved a pile of cash, rather than being gifted it via inheritance or by selling a house which has benefited from massive inflation, you develop a particularly acute sense of value for money. There is precious little of that on Rightmove. And we’re not keen on handing it all over to fund somebody else’s comfortable retirement.

To answer the OP’s question, our plan is to hope interest rates go up to something more historically normal, like 5%, which would be enough to pay our rent. Not an ideal plan, I know, but meanwhile we’ll keep saving and living in a place we love with professional landlords unlikely to kick us out. Personally I’d rather have spent many years in a dream house we don’t own than decades moving from one dreary rung to another. How many people end up in their dream house by playing the housing ladder game, anyway?

I don't usually bite at these threads because I don't feel that arguing with strangers over the internet is a constructive use of my time. The wide eyed "concern" which is actually thinly veiled Benefit bashing/"stop buying avocados and coffees and you could afford a house like we did" has tipped me over the edge.

Jimbobjovi

^ I agree

@Jimbobjovi

There’s no 50% income tax in the UK.

I live in the SE so can see clearly why people don’t and can’t buy their own home. It baffles me though that some of my colleagues opt out of their public sector pension. I do think they will love to regret that.

*live to regret that

this really worries me. i did get on the propery ladder at 20 but when my marriage broke down in my 40s . i am not in a position to buy again as my credit rating took a battering following the split. even though i earn decent ish money i wont get a mortgage now. i dont know what ill do in old age. i currently live with a home owner but am very aware i dont have any assets to my name any more and im in a precarious situation.

i started a thread once asking what long term renters where thinking of doing.
someone on there said suicide was their only option. please think op. you are lucky you bought when prices and circumstance allowed.

i will never get another mortgage as long as i live. its not possible for me.

wherewithal - surely as renters you ARE currently funding someone’s ‘comfortable retirement’? Am I missing something, your post has confused me