Own or Rent?

[jusbnme]

What's up Sly Bros?  I was just wondering what everyone else's point of view is on renting vs. owning.  My personal opinion is to rent, at least at this point in my life.  Just for my own personal reasons.  It's been said to me many times that any time you rent you are just throwing your money away and not investing in something.  But I hate being committed to something like that.  I like the fact that if I want to just get up and go within a years time I can do just that.  I hate yard work and having a big yard.  Another great pro to renting since most places have a yard service to take care of the yard work.  I'm not a "Mr. Fix It" kind of guy by any means.  Changing a light bulb is about my extent in being a handy man if you know what I'm saying.  So for me it's a big pro to rent because, again, most places have on call maintenance.  Then there is the up keep which comes completely out of your own pocket when owning a place.  My indifference with someone telling me that owning a place saves money in the long run is this...If you own a place you have to pay all the up keep for the house, take care of your own yard, pay taxes on it, etc...The up keep alone could end up costing you thousands every year depending on what needs to be done.  Or depending on if you have an unexpected problem with your home.  While renting a place all the up keep gets taken care of for you as does the yard maintenance.  By the time you pay off the extra interest on a home way down the road, unless your rich, doesn't just about equal out anyway.  Plus by the time people pay off a home, if they stay there for the entire mortgage, they are ready for a new place anyway.  Since most people don't look that far into the future they usually need to sell their home because they have gotten to old to "keep up" with the home they just paid off.  Or a place ends up just too big for people that had a family at one time.  Ok, so what's your opinion and why? 

[SLYinKC]

Lance, Great topic.  I own and have since I was in my mid-20's.  Back when I was single, I bought a house and had a room mate to help make the house payments and share all of the other expenses.

Even with the current housing market, I think that owning is the best use of money from a financial standpoint.  But like you said, there are alot of other reasons to consider.  Many people choose to not have the responsibility of owning a home and depending on your financial situation, owning may not be the best option.  I just find a certain amount of satisfaction of having a place that I can call my own.

[JDog]

I would love to own my home one day, and I will. However real estate in Australias largest Sydney borders on criminal. I live in an area of Sydney where the median starting price is around 600-700K, and this is a 60 year old knockdown.

I can buy a brand new home back in Ohio on 2 acres with 5 bedrooms and 2 car garage for 300-400K

[PigPen]

Currently own, and plan on keeping it that way for a while. We really need a bigger place, but some of the houses for rent around here are more than a house payment. Once the wife is working again we'll look at moving into a bigger place. May have to move soon too, the city just sent us a letter saying that they are re-zoning everything around us for more industrial use. There is quite a bit of industry around us already, but nothing extremely loud and annoying.

[Timmay]

I have owned our house since 1996.  Actually this is the 3rd house we have owned.  We  plan on staying here for a while. Although we did have it on the market about a year ago because we thought we wanted a larger house.  I know that the price market varies with the region you live in but I will say we purchased this house under $50g and we had it appraised about a year ago and we have tripled the value.  I would love to see what the value of it is now that we have put vinyl siding on it.  I think we have had a good investment.   I wouldnt rent a house....but when you say rent...im thinking slum lords.  There are very few nice homes around here for rent. 

[TheSlyBear]

Own. And endlessly working on it...

[tomgallagher]

Own, renting is just a waste of money.

[Mikekoz13]

We own.... we were lucky though. We bought just before housing prices soared back in 2000. Our house has more than doubled in value and now I wouldn't be able to afford to buy it.

[jusbnme]

Got some good feedback on this topic.  I've always known that if you can do it the best thing is to buy and own a home.  It's just that some of the reasons I listed held me back from doing it.  Then when we finally did back in 2005 we were only able to stay in it for 8 months.   We moved out to live here with my grandmother to help her.  I do have to admit while living there I did have a sense of pride that I never had before from "owning" my own place.  It was also nice to be able to pull up in my OWN driveway and not here other tenants running up and down their stairs.  Another thing I have to admit is the profit we made on it was awesome.  But we did get lucky in the way it all happened.  I don't think we would have made as much if we didn't get such a good deal.  When we bought it the owners were older and looking to retire in Hawaii and didn't want to hassle with anything.  So they had an agent here in the area doing the work for them.  Basically they told him they didn't want no hassle.  Give it to the first decent offer he gets.  They were selling it $20,000 under what the rest of the houses were going for in the area.  So we jumped on it and got it.  We invested about $8,000 into within the 8 months we lived there.  When we sold it we got the $20,000 back in profit.  After reading the post of some of my Sly Bros and thinking on it some more I think I may be taking a different route.  It's sort of opened my eyes.  I can't believe I never thought of it before.  We could stay here at my grandmother's, paying barely nothing for rent, save up a good amount to put down on a new home.  Thanks for the feedback again bros.  Sometimes it takes an outsiders view to jog the old brain.   

[BALDANDRE]

Got some good feedback on this topic.  I've always known that if you can do it the best thing is to buy and own a home.  It's just that some of the reasons I listed held me back from doing it.  Then when we finally did back in 2005 we were only able to stay in it for 8 months.   We moved out to live here with my grandmother to help her.  I do have to admit while living there I did have a sense of pride that I never had before from "owning" my own place.  It was also nice to be able to pull up in my OWN driveway and not here other tenants running up and down their stairs.  Another thing I have to admit is the profit we made on it was awesome.  But we did get lucky in the way it all happened.  I don't think we would have made as much if we didn't get such a good deal.  When we bought it the owners were older and looking to retire in Hawaii and didn't want to hassle with anything.  So they had an agent here in the area doing the work for them.  Basically they told him they didn't want no hassle.  Give it to the first decent offer he gets.  They were selling it $20,000 under what the rest of the houses were going for in the area.  So we jumped on it and got it.  We invested about $8,000 into within the 8 months we lived there.  When we sold it we got the $20,000 back in profit.  After reading the post of some of my Sly Bros and thinking on it some more I think I may be taking a different route.  It's sort of opened my eyes.  I can't believe I never thought of it before.  We could stay here at my grandmother's, paying barely nothing for rent, save up a good amount to put down on a new home.  Thanks for the feedback again bros.  Sometimes it takes an outsiders view to jog the old brain.   

Lance if you can.... do it!...The next year will be a great time to get a real good house too...

"owning" is best, if you can swing it ...you owe it to your son to try... real estate and a bank account is one of the few things we can pass on, well maybe good or bad genes too, hee hee.... if you get it under value it can be an asset, if over market value, a liability...

Now it could def. be a asset and also it could give you a lot of pride to own your own home again...

But if rent fits your family for now, more power to you...save what you can during this time and you'll be that much more ready to purchase when the time is right...

Just my opinion!

[Marz]

I own my house (well, the bank owns about 1/2 of it) but I stopped paying rent about 10 years ago to own.

One of the main reasons... Equity.

Why throw 7-800 bucks a month in someone else's pocket when you can pay a little bit more and have one of the best investments there is?

It is a commitment and it isnt for everyone.

[jusbnme]

I definitely hear we're both of you are coming from. 

Great advice BA and from the rest of the bros.  I'm listening and taking it all in.  I may even learn from it.   

[Argyle]

We own our own place.  The housing market in the UK has been pretty mad over the last few years.  I bought my first house in 2003 for 70k ($140k) a modest two bed house in a suburb of nottingham.  I sold it two and hald years later for 140k ($280k).  Things continued like that but now it seems to be going the other way.  I am luck becasue i bought when i bought, lookinh at some guys trying to buy houses now i have no idea how they did it.  When I bought it was about 2.5 times my annual salary.  On the same basis now it would be nearer to five times with a mortgage that took up around 50% of my annual salary. 

However property to rent i think is a great investment.  We have a second house that we rent out and by having an interest only mortgage are getting a pretty good return even though the market is in major slow down. 

Horses for courses i say.  I like having my own home that i can do with what i want, but sometimes when water is pouring through the ceiling i can see why renting would be a great option!

[herronm]

Lance, owning has always been the right answer for us.  We've paid off 2 houses and all cars during our marriage and are currently debt free.  Leasing or renting was never something we considered.  You have to do what is best for your situation, just be sure to check out all options.

Max

[StumpyDave]

I also own my house (or 65% of it).
I live in a rural area with not much employment (although I work for a large company) so house prices are very low compared to the rest of the UK.

Home ownership compared to rental in the UK is higher than a lot of other countries