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Original poster

Is it better to rent or to buy your own home?

167 replies

MerryXmasMrsHenry · 11/12/2009 20:45

DH and I have been discussing whether to go back onto the property market while we still have a deposit or to just go all Continental and rent long-term instead.

We've only been renting for 6 months and would love your opinions on the pros and cons of renting and buying.

TIA!

OP posts:
grenadine · 12/12/2009 18:19

I would recommend buying without hesitation. We have paid off our mortgage and owning every brick in the house is a lovely feeling.

LeoniedElf · 12/12/2009 18:41

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LeoniedElf · 12/12/2009 18:42

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expatinscotland · 12/12/2009 18:50

people seem to think HA/council = luxurious alternative to home buying.

a lot of these properties are on dire estates/buildings in terrible condition with criminal neighbours and total neds.

LeoniedElf · 12/12/2009 18:55

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expatinscotland · 12/12/2009 18:57

i wouldn't buy this place. can't anyway, there's a moratorium on RTB on all tenancies starting after 2002.

i think RTB should be abolished completely, IMO.

like you, however, we'll never be able to purchase a home of our own.

Missus84 · 12/12/2009 19:25

Expat - my HA flat might not be luxurious, but it's a good size, pretty well maintained and in a great location right in the city centre. Yuppies are paying silly money for private flats round here. My neighbours are mostly quiet families. There are some moderately troublesome teens who have been dealt with very robustly by the HA (parent's threatened with eviction) but we're not all criminals .

Hulababy · 12/12/2009 19:31

I like the idea of owning my own home, of having an asset when I am older.

LeoniedElf · 12/12/2009 19:41

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NickeeS · 12/12/2009 19:41

buy don't rent, better off in the long run. Our mortgage was £1500 a month a year ago but has dropped to £360 with rate drops (so temporary, but we are saving the difference). Rent on the same property would be 2k a month.

expatinscotland · 12/12/2009 19:53

'but we're not all criminals .'

Um, in case you missed it, we're HA tenants.

There is no 'council' housing here. It was all taken over by a HA several years ago.

And our downstairs neighbour is a convicted drug dealer who is on the run from gangs in Glasgow.

Who came and paid him a lovely, friendly visit at 3AM this morning.

He wasn't home, fortunately for him.

SausageRocket · 12/12/2009 19:58

expat - I don't think I have met anyone who thinks that being a social housing tennant is the 'luxurious alternative' to home ownership !

SausageRocket · 12/12/2009 19:59

cheaper, yes. Luxurious, defintely not.

expatinscotland · 12/12/2009 20:24

'expat - I don't think I have met anyone who thinks that being a social housing tennant is the 'luxurious alternative' to home ownership !'

You missed a few key, charming threads in the recent past.

SausageRocket · 12/12/2009 20:25

Yeah, I mean real people with proper opinions. Not warped PC pixies who think that everyone is a benefit thief.

Speckledeggy · 12/12/2009 20:29

At around the same time I bought a one bedroom flat and my husband started renting a room for a lot less money (we didn't each other then). Six years on, I sold and pocketed £75k. He had no savings. There is no way in a million years I would have been able to save that amount of money.

We are renting at the mo but looking to buy soon. Owning your own property is a great feeling and much more stable than renting. Also, at the end of it hopefully you will have something to show rather than pouring all that money down the drain.

expatinscotland · 12/12/2009 20:29

oh, they were your typical 'everyone in HA/council housing has a flatscreen TV in every room and goes on 4 foreign holidays a year'.

expatinscotland · 12/12/2009 20:32

'rather than pouring all that money down the drain.'

see, i think this is part of the mindset that makes some people take very extreme risks financially to purchase a home.

shelter is a basic cost.

how can such a basic need ever be 'pouring money down the drain'?

we don't say that about food, which is also a basic need.

or about buying a car - better than spending money on public transport, then you have nothing to show for it and you've poured money down a drain.

instead, people have come to view shelter, a human necessity, as a financial vehicle.

saltyseadog · 12/12/2009 20:38

Wise words expat.

I prefer owning to renting (we're currently renting) as I like being able to feel settled, and not worry about being turfed out with just two months notice. However, for us, renting really hasn't been a bad experience, and I'm just happy to be comfortable somewhere, regardless of whether we own it or not.

cat64 · 12/12/2009 21:13

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expatinscotland · 12/12/2009 21:18

there in lies the rub: if you had the choice.

by the sounds of it, fewer and fewer have.

we're having to look at private renting again because this flat below us is actually turned over the council to use as temp accommodation.

they just throw in criminal after criminal.

so it's live with insecurity or live with criminals and their associated behaviour, which i can tell you is far from pleasant.

jeep · 12/12/2009 21:21

course it's better to own

we bought and sold at the right time.

house prices round here are mad yet people still buy up quickly

Speckledeggy · 12/12/2009 21:41

Well, if I had rented my flat it would have cost the same as paying a mortgage so yes I would have been pouring money down the drain because I would have spent the same with nothing to show at the end of it.

I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I didn't have a lot of money. I was a PA, saved up my deposit, borrowed 4.25 times my salary, drew up a budget and stuck to it. It was one of my better decisions.

As far as I am concerned, my house is my home, that's why I wouldn't want to rent and have a landlord telling me I had to move out because they were going to sell the place.

expatinscotland · 12/12/2009 21:45

'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I didn't have a lot of money. I was a PA, saved up my deposit, borrowed 4.25 times my salary, drew up a budget and stuck to it. It was one of my better decisions.'

Nobody said you were.

But the same choices don't exist for everyone. For example, it's now not possible for many to borrow that many mulitples of their salary.

It worked for you, great.

But saying it's pouring money down the drain, well, mortgage or rent, you've got to put a roof over your head somehow.

And for some, owning or buying isn't and will never be an option.

expatinscotland · 12/12/2009 21:47

Not many of us want to rent, btw.