To rent, or not to rent
For the millions amongst you that’s been waiting in eager anticipation for the return of my Saturday guest post (OK, I might be slightly exaggerating there), I hope that the extra day you’ve had to wait hasn’t caused a major consternation for you. But, as the regular reader of my own blog knows, I’ve got a good excuse. Yesterday, I put on my best hunting jacket to find somewhere to live as of September when I join the hoards of people who do that strange thing called “work”. Successfully too as it happens, but perhaps with a bit of a gamble - due to circumstances I’ve gone into at ‘Bites it was the only property we viewed, and if we hadn’t signed there and then, we’d probably have lost the property.
So, is this part of the evidence that the renting marking is growing and growing whilst the property purchase market is growing slower and slower? Maybe or maybe not - but the figures alone paint their own picture. With mortgages becoming more difficult to obtain, more people are unable to buy. And those that are often trying to “ride the storm”, not wanting to buy when they’ll be plunged into negative equity before they’ve put their key in the door.
However, in Britain we are a nation of home-owners. Renting is seemed as “second class”. Renting is dead money - at least if you’re paying off a mortgage, you’ll have a house at the end of it. But not every country has such a “property snobbery”. People rent for many different reasons.
Personally, there’s a bit of a combination of factors. I’m starting on a two-year fixed term contract - if I don’t continue beyond then, it’s pointless to buy a house. Even if things look good for staying on, I’m going to be new to the area - so need to be living up there to have a look around. Plus, I don’t want to be in negative equity. I’ll probably keep an eye on property prices, and when they start to turn may well move onto the “buy buy buy” factor.
But there’s other reasons for wanting to rent too. A lot of people like the freedom it offers. A lot more flexibility if you don’t like the area / house - you can just move out with considerably more ease than needing to go through an entire conveyancing process.
A lot of people who are now unable to sell their homes are renting out their property instead. It’s a new generation of landlords, a world apart from the buy-to-let landlords of only a few years ago. It could, potentially, result in a more long-lasting change as people discover some of the advantages from renting.
I can’t see things changing enough to replace the existing “become a home owner” mentality. But, with the climate as volatile as it presently is, renting is certainly the way to go…
This entry is filed under A Northern Monkey Speaks, Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I have been renting for ages as I lost my home and business, but to buy this fl;at would be around 800 quid a month on a mortgage and I pay a lot less rent than that…