should we buy or rent?

DVardysShadow

Whitesatin,

Tawse and artful give good advice. Essentially artful is saying 'decide!' - in this sort of situation, telling relatives you will stay for a year is vastly preferable to telling them you 'might rent' and staying with them for 2 years. If they are not up for it, they can tell you that they are not up for that.

Knowing a little of your situation across your threads, I think a good plan would be to stay with relatives for 6 months and then rent in Jan or Feb, when you have taken more of an opportunity to look at what the areas have to offer. If you are not settled in an area at 6 months for whatever reason, you can shuffle off somewhere else and give that a try. Once you come to terms with the area, then you can look to buy.

property.advert

My view is that in trying to pick the perfect point to re-enter the market you risk everything. In fact, the only way you can benefit from this strategy is if you cannot today buy what you want and need prices to fall in order that you will then be able to pay the asking price.

If you rent, you cannot do so indefinitely. At some point you will be left behind and then it is game over.

If you buy and prices fall then you simply wait. If you do not intend to stay put for some considerable time then why buy in the first place given all the associated costs ?

If you pay rent then you might as well pay a mortgage. At least you can repaint when you choose.

If you rent you are at the whim of a landlord whose objectives may be far removed from your won.

Say you buy now at £300k and it falls to £200k and then in 5 years it is £400k then did you lose when prices fell ?

Even if it falls to £0.50 and then rises back to £300k, you have lost nothing.

Prices may fall but they may not. I think there will be a prolonged period of near stagnation in real terms with prices hovering around the +-5% range.

You need a home, renting is not your home. You have to attach some "value" to that. It is not all about making money on your home.

sonastin

MadnessOfHPC wrote: »

Renting is officially dead money

Who made it official? And on what authority?

poppysarah

MadnessOfHPC wrote: »

As I've said before they aren't making any more land.

http://www.gizmag.com/go/3310/

hth.

mjdh1957

This is getting off topic, but....

Martin Lewis himself says that renting is not 'dead money'. You are paying for a service, so getting benefit for it.

Mortgage interest is as much 'dead money' as rent. And interest rates can go up, and in the past have been much higher than they are now.

As for the original question, my opinion would be to rent for now and see what happens over the next couple of years. I think it's unlikely that real houseprices are going to rocket soon. However, if inflation takes off, who knows....?

Out,_Vile_Jelly

property.advert wrote: »

You need a home, renting is not your home.

As a tenant, I can assure you that I have a "home". A very nice one actually, that I could never afford to buy.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

tawse57 wrote: »

Westlondonbuyer has a point Hamish - today the Mirror, Independent, Telegraph, Guardian and Moneyweek all have long articles on UK house prices falling, growing lack of confidence from surveyors and apparently the numbers of buyers are amongst the lowest since March 2009 - .

Moneyweek has articles on house prices falling all the time, even when they are rising. It's the "capital economics" of the media world.

The Mirror, Indy, Telegraph and Guardian all had long articles on UK house prices falling back in February and March 2009 as well..... And we all know what happened to house prices after that.;)

des_cartes

whitesatin wrote: »

We are just about to move out of our house, having reduced it to such an extent that it had to sell! Anyway, we are moving in with relatives with a view to taking the stress out of trying to combine selling with buying. We are moving to Hertfordshrie which is generally expensive so we may consider going into Bedfordshire if we need to.

It would appear from the emails I receive from estate agents, that property is not selling as well as it was, the prices are still too high, even though they are being reduced slowly but surely.

We don't want to pay more than around 300k although are looking at properties ten per cent higher than this with a view to making an offer when we find something.

We can stay with relatives for as long as we wish (or until we begin to get on each others' nerves) so can take our time. Now we are wondering if we would be better renting for a year to see what happens, knowing that the money is easily accessible should something suitable come onto the market.

Buying or renting, I expect it is a common dilema right now.

If you look at any of the recent surveys on house prices or read any of the economic commentators in the newspapers they are all saying that the price of houses is falling and will keep falling as far as the foreseeable future. If you have been lucky enough to get out of the housing market and have cash then you would be better investing the money sensibly and getting some interest whilst at the same time watching house prices fall. I did this 4 years ago and apart from the Labour pre election mini boom, prices of houses have fallen since whilst my capital investment has grown. With a new government and no election for 5 years it is very unlikely that this government will interfere with house prices following their natural path down to affordable levels in the way that Gordon Brown did so you have plenty of time to wait and see before buying again.

des_cartes

MadnessOfHPC wrote: »

when you become a homeowner with a mortgage.
.

You become a prisoner.

sinbad182

des_cartes wrote: »

You become a prisoner.

:rotfl:

Good God!