NOW CLOSED: Is it still a home if you don't own it? Make your voice heard and discuss this topic with Barclays - £150 John Lewis voucher up for grabs

[AnnMumsnet]

Hello - you may have seen that this week Barclays have a big campaign to get people talking about home buying and money topics.

Yesterday we discussed "When are you too old to ask your parents for financial help?".

As stated before - the team at Barclays say "We want to know what Mumsnetters think about home buying and money dilemmas.

So our second question is "Is it still a home if you don't own it?""

Please share your thoughts on this thread - there are no right or wrong answers and the question will mean different things to different MNers.

Add your thoughts below and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one winner will get a £150 John Lewis voucher.

Look out for one final thread on Thursday where we'll be asking one more question.

Thanks MNHQ

PS Please note your comments  along with your MN name may be used on the Barclays pages on Mumsnet and elsewhere.

[helendebs]

I grew up in a rented farm house and it was my 'home' even after I grew up and moved out it was still home for many years. I have rented many properties since but now have my own property. Home is about being with your friends and family and being happy it's not about bricks and mortar.

[Shenanagins]

I rent out my flat which was my first ever home. it is no longer my home but my tenants but is still my flat. when i moved into my partners home it became our home but his house. now we have a lovely home and house together.

So in my mind a home is where you live and is your refuge from the outside world. a house is just a property.

mind you when i go to my parents, i am going home but haven't lived there for 20 years!

[BikeRunSki]

I work for an organisation that owns a lot of land all around the country. You try telling some of our 4th or 5th generation tenant farmers that their house is not their home!

[fallingandlaughing]

Of course it is a home if you don't own it.

I wouldn't fancy renting because of the insecurity factor, but I cringe when I think how much we have lost in terms of house "value" due to the recession.

[aftereight]

Yes, a house is still a home, even if you don't own it. I'd imagine very few families own their homes outright, with no mortgage. And a rented house is still a home to the people living there.
A home is the place of sanctuary to which family members return at the end of the day, and live their lives with their posessions around them. That could be a caravan, a house, a boat..

[BabysPointlessPocket]

I have always owned the properties I've lived in as an adult.
However, I grew up in rented council houses. They felt very much like home. Parents decorated however they liked and we always felt secure living there.
I know several people that have rented privately, to be notified a few months later that the LL wanted to sell even if that wasn't the LL intended purposes when they signed to rent for x months or x years. This would make me very insecure, if it were my home and would make the next house less like home too incase it happened again.

[stephrick]

I've rented the same house for just over 8 years, with little social housing this is my only option as a working single parent, it took a while to feel secure, but is always at the back of my mind that I have to move within a few months notice. I did spend my married life in MOD married quarters and had to move every 2 years, but I always made it to feel like home, you have to for children.

[hotCheeseBURNS]

My answer is yes. We bought our first home a year or so ago but it doesn't feel more like home than our previous rented homes. We haven't been able to afford to decorate and renovate our home so it's no different to renting really, except we have to stress over fixing things when they go wrong. I miss having a landlord to phone!

[Neena28]

Yes this is my home and my children's home too. I still own half of my ex-p's house but the location of that house made it more sensible for me to move than him. Originally it was a trial separation but has now been 3 odd years. I am happy in my home now, I have a lovely landlady who understands my position and is grateful that I can't be bothered to house hunt and buy when few houses come up in the area I live in. I am a regular income for her and I am allowed to basically do as I please. The house is now probably in a better state than when I moved in as I am cleaner and also more house proud than she is! I do understand I have been very fortunate to be in that position though and can afford to pay rent without help whilst my owned house remains my investment.

[TrillsCarolsOutOfTune]

"Is it still a home if you don't own it?".

Yes.

I see posts on MN where landlords have been unreasonable, but I also see posts where tenants have unreasonable expectations.

[whatagreatname]

Yes I think that whether you own or rent a property you make it your home.

[ClothNappyQuestion]

Yes it's still a home if you don't own it. I have always rented and some landlords have let me decorate to suit myself, which really helps me feel at home. I am always aware though that the house isn't mine. I would love to buy my own home and have the security that comes with it and the freedom to decorate/make more substantial changes.

[racingheart]

To me, any place someone pays to live in as their main dwelling is their home and they should feel the right to call it that and make it how they'd like it. But in reality, I never really felt that way until I owed my first flat, and now we live in a family house we love, that feeling of home is even stronger.

When we rented the garden was a jungle but we were told we couldn't cut the shrubs back as the owner, who lived abroad, preferred it that way. So our small children had to clamber through bushes to get to the lawn.

A friend just moved because she's pregnant and knew the owner of her house might return from abroad and claim it back any day. She's still renting but a more permanent company let.

It's personal, but for a place to feel like home I need to own it.

[JugglingMeYorkiesAndNutRoast]

Many people around the world have to make a home for themselves and their families without owning though. Like the families on a TV programme I watched recently living on a beach in India where they were under constant threat of having their homes bulldozed.
Owning your home is a luxury not everyone has.
I wonder, around the world, what proportion of families are renting their homes ?

[Wallison]

Yes yes other people have it worse and so tenants in the UK shouldn't be pissed off that they are treated as second-class citizens.

Meh.

[helenlynn]

It's your home, but it's your home where you can get into the shower in an otherwise-empty house and get out of the shower to hear a number of strangers conversing downstairs after the estate agent has let themselves and the next lot of prospective tenants in unannounced for a good look round your un-done washing-up and your private papers spread out where you were working on them and your knickers hanging on the clothes horse.

[AnnMumsnet]

thanks for all the comments: trikken wins the £150 JL voucher...well done.

[trikken]

Thank you! Best thing I've won ever.

[VenusRising]

Oh didn't realise that this was finished.
Do I get a lollipop for taking part!