I never want to rent again!! (Buying vs Renting)

Member Name: Krystles

Product:	Buying vs Renting
Date:	21/03/09 (199 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Buying a house is fab...

Disadvantages: renting one isn't!

Just to give a little overview of my experience, I have rented 3 different properties in Greater London over the last 2 years, but prior to this I have rented in Australia. My husband I also own a house in Australia which we have lived in and currently rent out. I consider us to be good tenants, and good landlords in that as tenants we always pay rent on time, we look after a place as if it were our own and have always left places in the condition we moved into them in. As landlords we've always made sure routine maintenance is paid for so that repairs don't crop up, but if something needs fixing all a tenant has to do is ask and we've always organised repairs as quickly and with as little disruption to the tenant as possible. We've always respected tenants' privacy and given at least a weeks notice if we need access for repairs. In return we have had a few good tenants, but unfortunately we've also had one who would have been more suited to living in a barnyard somewhere. It seems to sometimes just come down to luck with what kind of tenants' you'll get though.

BUYING
The biggest set back to people buying property is the cost, and at the end of the day this is always going to be the biggest set back. I'm lucky in that with a little help my husband I were able to secure a nice 2 bedroom house in Australia which we spent just over 3 years living in before having to move for work commitments. If all you've ever lived in is rented housing, you will not grasp just how liberating it can be to have your own place. This is certainly what I have found, and given that we're planning on going back to this house in the near future, I'm extremely excited.

I guess for a lot of people it's all about priorities, but for us we like living somewhere where on a whim we can decide to paint a room, a put a new garden in, or even do simple things like putting a few picture hooks up. They sound like small issues, but for me this is where you can truly individualise a house and make it a home.

I guess the other big bonus is that if something breaks, it's easily fixed. There's no need to deal with real estate agents, or landlords and it seems a far easier process to get things done without all the other people that are involved with renting. The downside to this is that you have to have the money there to pay for repairs, which may not be a big deal if it's a small repair, but for bigger issues it may become a little more difficult.

RENTING
Now as for renting, I've gone from always being a little negative about renting to outright hating it. I don't know if our experience is common, but we seem to have an awful lot of bad luck in terms of getting horrible landlords. Since coming to the UK we have lived in a shared house which we were lead to believe would be us with another couple, and a single. When we moved in we learned there were more people moving in over the coming weeks, which would end up totalling 8 adults (one who was the landlords daughter and expecting a baby). For 8 adults, there was one bathroom. This we dealt with, but eventually there ended up being a rodent problem as there were a few household members who seemed to think they didn't need to bother with cleaning. The landlords daughter seemed to get the only vote with household issues, despite not paying anywhere near the same rent as everyone else and she was such an animal lover that she'd rather have a decaying rat fall from the exhaust vent onto the hob than place baits/traps. I'm no animal hater or anything, but I draw the line at living with rats and mice, so we moved out.

We then moved into a small one bedroom flat which we found on gumtree. Everything seemed to be going well until we had a few issues with the supply of electricity. EDF came out a few times and then on one of their trips out they discovered our entire building was wired illegally. It appears that the house next door was feeding off our building and not paying anything, whilst we paid extra. Given that the 4 flats were all prepaid electricity there was no way of proving this and claiming a refund, or if there was EDF certainly didn't want to discuss it. Anyway, on this trip out EDF dug a large whole out the front and cut off power to the entire building and told us we would not have power reconnected until everything was rewired. Given that it was the middle of winter we headed for a local hotel, and spent the next 2 or 3 days just trying to get in contact with our landlord. He eventually got back to us and proceeded to tell us numerous lies about when he was going to fix the problem, meanwhile we racked up hotel bills with no real knowledge of whether we'd be reimbursed or not. In the end we spent 15 days in a hotel, and our landlord did take this cost off our next months rent, but then proceeded to try and make us feel guilty about it every time we saw him. So it wasn't all bad in the end, but it was extremely stressful and could have potentially cost us a lot. We also ended up having a problem with water leaking through the roof, which we told the landlord about every month for 3 or 4 months but he had no intention of fixing it. When we moved out the wallpaper had come away from the wall and the wall was starting to go mouldy.

From there we moved into a larger flat which we found through a real estate agent. Since moving in we've had continual issues with our landlord being extremely rude, and telling outright lies. For 4 months she continued to tell us our deposit was in a protection scheme, and got extremely annoyed when we kept asking for proof and details of how we can claim it at the end of the lease. She seemed to think her word was good enough, as it turned out it wasn't. She didn't deposit the money in a scheme until 4 months after the start of the lease. We've recently had an issue with our shower leaking through the roof into the downstairs flat. In the process of getting this fixed the landlord and her husband have been hear no less that 5 times in the space of 10 days. After this they decided it might be worthwhile actually paying someone to find the problem. During this time they have shown up completely unannounced, and have even entered the property without bothering to call. I was in bed on one occasion and got a complete shock to be woken by someone coming through the door. I cannot express how rude I think this is. She did not offer an apology for barging in and not trying to get in contact as she seems to think she owns the place and can do as she pleases. She seems to think it's completely acceptable to speak to me like a child and insist my husband and I call her Mrs ..... Normally I wouldn't have a problem with this, but I see calling someone Mrs a sign of respect, and people cannot just demand respect, they should earn it through treating others respectfully.

Anyway, this is turning into a bit of a saga. That's has been our experience of renting in the last years, and for me there are a lot of negatives. One of the biggest seems to be landlord not wanting to spend any money on houses. Whilst I can understand wanting to carry out repairs at a small cost, I think landlords need to acknowledge there own capabilities. Disturbing tenants continually because you're too stingy to pay a professional is just bad form.

Apart from all the actual living issues that can arise, the biggest downside of renting is the fact that you're paying off someone's mortgage. This is effectively dead money, but there are obviously lots of reasons for throwing money at rent instead of buying.

Ideally when renting you should not have to worry about the cost of repairs. In reality, you may have to put up with issues for a lot longer than is ideal though. The other positive of renting is the temporary factor. In most cases, even if it's a 12 month lease, at the end of that you're free to move out and find a better landlord/place. For people who don't mind the process of moving or who like to try lots of different places I guess this would really suit.

WHICH IS BETTER?
For me personally, I cannot wait to not have to rent. There are lots of crappy landlords out there who just want to collect there rent and never spend a cent on the property. Of course to counter this there are lots of terrible tenants too, so there are always going to be risks on both sides. Living in a bought place is just far simpler and easier for us, and I hope we never have to deal with another dodgy landlord again.

Congrats to anyone who's made it to the end of this. I hope I haven't rambled on too much.

Summary: Would never rent again if I didn't have to. Will have to see what the future holds though.