Its an individual choice, but I'll stick with renting (Buying vs Renting)

Member Name: Fiver29

Product:	Buying vs Renting
Date:	14/01/09 (107 review reads)
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Over the past ten years I have bought several houses and I have rented several houses. So I thought I'd write on the pros and cons of both as I see them.

**Buying a House**

A house is undoubtedly the biggest purchase anyone can ever make. It sounds simple enough, go to the bank or building society, get a mortgage, pick a house and Bob's your uncle you're a home owner, right?

Wrong! In theory it should work that way, and indeed the actual house buying process isn't very complicated providing you are able to get a mortgage. When you are sat there in your rented property, or comparing rents to mortgages whilst still at your parents house, you might look at think, 'I'm paying £500 a month in rent, for that money I could buy a house worth £xxxx, and its mine'. However, that isn't the end of the costs, utilities and council tax payments are obviously going to be the same whether you rent or buy, but there are other bills that homeowners are responsible for that renters aren't.

Firstly a small but significant one, buildings insurance. This covers you not only for disasters, but when you own a house you are responsible for everyone who comes on your property (invited or not), so if a tile drops off your roof on the posties head, you'll need the liability cover that buildings insurance generally includes.

Secondly, in this climate you really need insurance to cover your mortgage in the event of redundancy or illness.

Next you have the repair bills, these can range from a couple of pound to fix the lock on the front door, to several thousand pounds for major repairs. The last house I bought cost us over £5000 in just a couple of months, the chimney decided to collapse, sending 1/2 a skips worth of rubble to the bottom. Which meant a chimney repair and a new gas fire because it had been damaged in the rock fall. Then the roof was damaged in high wind, and it meant replacing the entire roof.

Boilers and other gas appliances should really have regular servicing. I know its not a legal requirement as it is for landlords, but its something that I believe really should be done annually for your own safety.

House transformations; again not as simple as you think. You may think, its my house I can do what I want with it. Correct up to a point, knocking down any load bearing walls requires permission from the council. If you don't get permission you won't be able to sell your house in the future. We only found tis out when selling our house, we'd bought it years before with no problems, but when we came to sell, the buyers solicitor asked for the planning permission for removing the wall between the two downstairs rooms. Obviously we didn't have it, because we'd bought it like that. So in order to allow the sale to go though we had the choice of getting retrospective permission (with the chance the council might say no), or purchase an insurance premium for £250 that would cover the new owners should the ceilings collapse. And when you're paying solicitors fees, estate agents fees and surveyors fees, it would have been one expense we could have done without.

Another expense we never thought about in advance came when we purchased a brand new house. Part of the contract mentioned the installation of Sky dishes, and they could not be installed on the front of the houses without special permission. Of course our house had to be the one facing the wrong way, so the dish had to go on the front, when we requested permission it cost us another £50.

I haven't been very positive so far, so you must be thinking 'there has to be a good point'. Well yes there is, like I said up to a point you can do what you want with your house. That means if you're so inclined you can paint all your bedrooms black, or pink with purple spots, without having to seek permission from anyone else, or grass your front garden, put up a new fence etc (what you can do to the outside depends on the area, particularly if you have bought a listed building).

Of course the biggest pro comes from having a huge asset, if you are buying to make a home rather than as an investment, then you don't have to worry about property market fluctuations, it doesn't matter so much if the price drops because you weren't planning to move anyway.


**Renting a House**

There are certainly positives to renting. You get to live in your home, but don't have the associated costs. If the boiler breaks down you only have to phone up your landlord and the boiler will be fixed. That's the theory anyway, I have to say I've been very lucky with the landlords I've had, they have been excellent. But I have known people who've had to phone and phone, and wait weeks and weeks for their landlords to attend to repairs. And if the repair is minor some have not even bothered to phone, knowing it will cost more in calls, than it would to just repair it themselves.

With my current landlord I am very lucky. He has told me that is I want to decorate the house to my own style then I am very welcome to do so. As he put it 'its my house, but its your home, you have to live here, so you need to be comfortable'. This is a stark contrast to my previous landlord who had painted the entire house magnolia, and wouldn't allow even picture hooks to be put up.

So my current landlord aside, one of the cons of renting is not being able to do what you want to the house, to be able to decorate without permission, or to be able to replace the broken down fence with a decent one.

The other major sticking point for many people is the money down the drain. You could live in the house for 20 years, and at the end of that time you have nothing to show for it, you may still have a home but you'll never have a house.

A point that most people don't want to discuss is housing benefit, but I feel with the current financial climate it is worth a mention. Another benefit of renting is that should you be unlucky enough to lose your job through no fault of your own, then unlike mortgages the housing benefit will either pay your rent, or if you have a partner working they may top up your rent. This leaves you to work on finding a new job, without the added stress of wondering if you are going to be thrown out of your home.

**Which do I prefer**

Having done both, I have to say I fall on the side of renting. Whilst its great to be able to say 'I own my own home', and it gives you a little boost, the costs of owning that home can sometimes be tremendous, especially when repair bills start flooding in.

Renting can be limiting, but knowing that I don't have to worry about repairs, knowing that annually the appliances (both gas and electric) are thoroughly checked and safe, makes my life just that little bit less stressful.

Summary: Not for me to try and persuade anyone, just my take on the renting v buying discussion