Psychology of Home Owning

seven-day-weekend

Psychology of Home Owning
1

1) How did you feel when you moved in to your first place?
We were only in our mid-twenties, had just got a run-down house at a bargain, could afford it easily and were just pleased we'd got our own at last. Also it was just round the corner from some friends, so we liked that too.

2) Has owning a home limited your choices?
No.... if we'd had no mortgage to pay we'd have had to pay rent, so no different really. If anything it has given us more choice as we have been able to take in lodgers when times got tough.
3) Has owning a home enriched your life, or do you imagine it would?
You can keep pets, you can decorate it and do the garden how you want, it' will always be a home for our son if he wants it.
4) How did you feel when you paid off your mortgage?
Relief - no-one can take it away from us and we don't have to earn enough to pay the mortgage.
5) Any other good/bad things about owning that I've missed but you'd like to share?



Although we now live half the year in Spain, we still have this first house bought in 1976 - lived in by our son, his girlfriend and a lodger . We share it in the months we are in the UK. You couldn't do this with a rented house. So more choices, not less.

[Deleted User]

wageslave wrote: »

Your idea of a worry- free retirement is paying your own nursing home fees?

Elaine, please tell me your lying

wageslave, lol, you will understand when you are older. It is about having the assets to give freedom of choice

Davesnave

kittie wrote: »

wageslave, lol, you will understand when you are older. It is about having the assets to give freedom of choice

....And I think she may have meant 'retirement home,' which is a different ball game. They are the ones you might still choose for yourself, if you have the money to choose!

I've been in a [STRIKE]few[/STRIKE] lot. They range from 'Help, I've woken up in East Germany circa 1975!' to 'Hey, this is decidedly reasonable.'

baileysbattlebus

1) How did you feel when you moved in to your first place?
petrified - we bought in 1982 interest rates were 12%, we bought a 3 bed new build, we bought on a "wing and a prayer" - so no extra cash - the first thing that dropped through the door, about 3 days after moving in, was a bill for nearly a whole months mortgage that we hadn't expected.

2) Has owning a home limited your choices?
We were destitue for about 4 years - so there were no holidays let alone long holidays. It took us all our time to pay the bills and feed and clothe the kids.
It hasn't limited job options - well not for OH - he has been with the same company for 30 years.and moves he has had have been company moves. It did for me though - I was offered a job with Aston Martin a few years ago and I turned it down because the travelling was over 80 miles each way (I knew it was quite a distance but until I went for interview I didn't realise how carp the journey would be)- thinking about it, it wasn't the house that stopped me accepting the job - it was the kids - they were all still at home - and we couldn't have thrown them onto the street - kids are much more of a tie than a house.
3) Has owning a home enriched your life, or do you imagine it would?
I don't think owning a house has enriched our lives other than to give us security in the place we are living - the one thing it has made us is better off finanancially - we don't live in the original house we bought - we have a 5 bed house - we moved into it in 1993 - if we were renting this it would cost us around £2000 a month - the mortgage repayments are less than 20% of that. We couldn't get a room in a shared house around here for our mortgage repayment.

4) How did you feel when you paid off your mortgage?
We haven't paid it off yet - it has a few years to go - but we will be in a position to pay it off completely at the end of next year if we want to. I can't imagine feeling any different when it is paid off than I do now - if the payments were a huge amount of OH's income (as they were in the early days) I would be putting the flags out, but the payments are probably the equivalent of a loan for a decent car - I won't say insignificant - but in the scheme of things the payment is very small compared to income now. It's not as if we will feel like a huge weight will have been lifted or anything. Because it won't.

5) Any other good/bad things about owning that I've missed but you'd like to share?
You have all of the repairs & maintenance to pay for, plus any improvements you want to make - we put in double glazing, new kitchen, put right stuff the previous owners had managed to screw up (the house that Jack built didn't cover it) and are going to change the bathrooms next year.
It is no different to renting - except your rent usually increases every year and potentially could stay the same proportiion of your wages over time - your mortgage will reduce as a proportion of your wages over time (usually). This is assuming you have pay rises and rent rises.
Security of tenure when you have kids -

thriftybabe

Mr_Matey wrote: »

Hi all,
I have a few questions for those of you who are home owners, and those who aspire to be. I think it'd be interesting to see how owning a property changes people's perspectives. I'm not talking £, although some of these points may influence how much you'd be willing to pay for a place.

1) How did you feel when you moved in to your first place?
Very excited as we were just married!
2) Has owning a home limited your choices?
TBH this was the most important thing for us. Cars, holidays were secondary. Owning our home was our priority.
3) Has owning a home enriched your life, or do you imagine it would?
We are in our 3rd home but TBH it is my kids and husband that have enriched my life. Our home comes straight after that though!
4) How did you feel when you paid off your mortgage?
Fantastic! Relieves especially as the recession has progressed and we may have lost it if we had to pay the mortgage that we once had.
5) Any other good/bad things about owning that I've missed but you'd like to share?



TBH I am a home bird. I love my home to look great and I am a bit of a neat freak (so sad!). I am really happy with it. However, my friend is a free bird and she does not want to own a house. She is not one bit interested in her house and does not bother about it being tidy or done up. It is a great way to be but not me.

If you want to travel and do other things then a house may not be a priority. Everyone has different outlooks and opinions. I hope you find your answers!

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Some very interesting answers- thanks all.

Does anyone ever worry about problem neighbours/area decline? I say this as I am still scarred by the 6 months I had to live with a screaming baby on one side of paper-thin walls, and a screaming toddler and chav mother (regularly yelling at her kid to "shut the f up") on the other. It was such wondrous relief to know we could clear out at our 6 month break clause and the LL would be left with this duff flat that nobody in their right mind would stay in for long. I'm also mindful of how to my eye Wimbledon seems to be going downhill a bit; a lot of empty retail units on the Broadway and main shopping centre, increasingly chavvy bars and a new shop just opening- not quite a Poundland, but one of those plastic tat shops that sells cheap rubbish. If I was a homeowner paying inflated SW19 prices I think I would be rather nervous about this possible decline. I'll just move to Putney or Fulham if they try and put my rent up when my contract gets renewed.

Harry_Powell

We move in to our first place this Friday so I can't answer whether being a home owner will change my life or is everything I dreamed it to be. As in most things in life I'm sure I'll have mixed feelings and mixed emotions about being an OO. Only on MSE are things completely black and white, with no shades of grey.

However I can state that I'm feeling extremely relieved that we'll no longer be at our landlords whim (we've had a pretty poor experience of renting and have had several moves and a few crappy landlords) and happy that we can decorate to our own tastes. I'm strangely looking forward to renovating the house (see, watching all those DIY TV programmes was not a waste of time after all!)

I do have reservations about lack of mobility, but to negate this a little we moved somewhere with good links to Central London (I have no interest in working anywhere else and London is a large enough place to cater for my career aspirations).

All in all, I think I'll simply feel more secure as an OO than I did as a tenant, however if we had had a better experience of renting, perhaps we would still be doing it right now?

bernard_shaw

The only thing one can truly possess is one's own experience. Everything else is just ephemera, just 'things'.

Arcaine

1) How did you feel when you moved in to your first place?

Have been a renter for about 15 years and bought about 4 years ago so have seen it from both sides. I certainly felt a sense of achievement when I got the keys. I have never felt superior to renters though, as far as I was concerned I liked renting to keep myself mobile until my career started to settle down. Also at the end of the day it is an Asset, that one day may provide in one way or another, it was never just about owning the bricks and mortar.

2) Has owning a home limited your choices?
Not yet, in fact we fixed the mortgage for 5 years enabling my wife and I to have a long stable period of payments to start our family. So from this sense it has increased our choices.

3) Has owning a home enriched your life, or do you imagine it would?
Dont think of a house like this on a day to day basis. My family and the things I do enrich my life not the things I own.

4) How did you feel when you paid off your mortgage?
I bet this is a nice feeling, will let you know in 20 years time!!

5) Any other good/bad things about owning that I've missed but you'd like to share?
I also like the fact that at the end I will have something to pass to my son after my Wife and I have gone. Although I have learnt I am useless at DIY but I am learning fast, managed to change a light fitting on Friday without any serious injuries at all. I do like the fact I can change things as I want them.

Jennifer_Jane

Will describe how I felt with this house - not my first house in South Africa.
1) How did you feel when you moved in to your first place?
Felt elated, being back to being in charge/not having to share a house (was lodging for 2 years before I got a permanent job and could buy); felt I belonged to the UK more; was able to get my own things around me which, again, made me feel like I belonged and was back in charge.
2) Has owning a home limited your choices?
* Delayed things you really wanted to do (e.g. a long holiday): perhaps, but I was able to go on holidays and things as was on interest-only mortgage, and as rates dropped, I was paying out a cheaper amount per month than had I been renting.
* Missed out on job opportunities because you'd have to move: no, moved to where I am because to be close to the job.

3) Has owning a home enriched your life, or do you imagine it would?
* You can change things to your taste: Yes, but more than that, it's simply the freedom.
* Sense of stability for you and your family: yes, see above (ps: no family)
* Or has it been a source of angst / worry: oh yes, that too, although I owned houses in South Africa, the complexity of UK houses compared with South African ones is immense - central heating going wrong; boilers etc. I have no idea where hot water comes from in South African houses, now I know about different boilers, worry about whether the gas is leaking; have several plumbers' phone numbers, and emergency insurance. I don't think I actually had house insurance in South Africa.

4) How did you feel when you paid off your mortgage?
* Sense of accomplishment? - Yes, this. Paid off mortgage after 9 years. When I started it I wasn't entirely sure how it was all going to be paid off, but a combination of canny saving/South African (NB poor exchange rates on these) pension money and South African endowments (and, yes, they didn't pay out what had been the prediction when I took them out), and finally, I saved huge amounts in tax-efficient AVCs in my last year of work to build up the final pay-off.


5) Any other good/bad things about owning that I've missed but you'd like to share?
I have been so lucky with lovely neighbours who helped out when the central heating was flooding my ceiling and so on! They are quiet and just great. I live in a great little town with virtually no crime, but good library/leisure centre/U3A and other things which are important.

I am now retired and sitting in the sitting room in the house I love (yes, I do want to move/downsize - but not because I don't like my house - it's probably the most beautiful place I've lived in - to me - so it certainly does enrich my life). It's warm, comfortable, light and mostly worth the maintenance anxiety!