House ownership - Selling yourself into a lifetime of servitude

Conrad

debtistheft wrote: »

If you have to get yourself into hundreds of thousands of £'s worth of debt just so you can have a pet or throw a bit of magnolia around then you probably deserve to spend your life in debt. Looks like the bears win again!

C'mon Man, play the game. Your being disengenious (sp:p), you keep using this tactic of dismissing the benefits of home ownership.

.

Shelter and self autonomous territory is a vital key component for all organisms, it really is that deep. Any nature documentary is witness to the never ending struggle for territory. You are talking about a DNA level Darwinain survival imperative honed for some 4 billion years.

You seem to think in terms of monetary considerations when considering dwelling imperatives but for many of us a home of our own (yes albeit in cohorts with a Bank) has many life enhancing benefits.

So I'd rather be 25% poorer in my life yet own my own home, that 25% richer having rented for life.

nembot

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Hmmm, there are currently 241 viewers of which: -

1. Not all are tenants (some are buyers and some are renters)
2. Of those tenants, not all are being evicted
3. Of those being evicted, not all will be because their LL is being repossessed.

Please tell me this is not your proof that it has a significant impact as a proportion?

Of course if you mean individually it can have a personal impact, I can agree, I'm just questioning how many and what the percentage is.

In brief, far larger numbers in the last few years - hence the change in law in Oct 2010 to protect vunerable tenants from being evicted with little or no notice - why are you not aware of things like this?

I manage keep up with current events and we're both landlords, you seem a little behind the times to be honest.

LittleMissAspie

debtistheft wrote: »

just so you can have a pet

This is vitally important to a lot of people, actually. I grew up with cats and so did my boyfriend. When we moved out of home and into rented, there was a period of about 4 years when we didn't have a cat, and I missed having one desperately. It was a big reason for us moving rentals, to find somewhere that would let us have a cat. You have a very poor choice of rentals if you have pets, it's even worse if you are a dog person or if you have more than one pet.

Pets are priceless if you ask me, who cares if they cost you thousands, they are worth it.

debtistheft

Conrad wrote: »

C'mon Man, play the game. Your being disengenious (sp:p), you keep using this tactic of dismissing the benefits of home ownership.

.

Shelter and self autonomous territory is a vital key component for all organisms, it really is that deep. Any nature documentary is witness to the never ending struggle for territory. You are talking about a DNA level Darwinain survival imperative honed for some 4 billion years.

You seem to think in terms of monetary considerations when considering dwelling imperatives but for many of us a home of our own (yes albeit in cohorts with a Bank) has many life enhancing benefits.

So I'd rather be 25% poorer in my life yet own my own home, that 25% richer having rented for life.

I was playing the game (giving my opinions, providing factual evidence to support my stance) but all I got was insults and "Well, in my small circle of 5 friends no of us has ever moved house and we have never paid stamp duty so your proof (provided by Abbey) must be wrong" type discussion.

Let's be honest, if you want to have pets and you want to put a personal stamp on a property then most landlords will allow it, especially if you are a good tenant and provide long-term rental. I've never had an issue and often the landlord will supply the materials and labour if I mention changing a few things. We lived in one let for 5 years and had everything very comfortable. The landlady loved my wife's decor ideas and they spent hours deep in discussion (over several glasses of wine) designing it all. She even got a new kitchen fitted for us.

I assume that most people's experiences of renting are the dives they rent at college or Uni where price is the overriding concern or the dives they rent while saving up for a house deposit where price is again the overriding concern.

Naturally we will now see post after post of Bulls stating they lived in Buckingham Palace style lodgings where they were waited on hand and foot by servants included in the rent, but they just didn't find it as nice as their studio apartment because they didn't 'own' it.

IveSeenTheLight

debtistheft wrote: »

If you have to get yourself into hundreds of thousands of £'s worth of debt just so you can have a pet or throw a bit of magnolia around then you probably deserve to spend your life in debt. Looks like the bears win again!

If you say so...

Got to disagree with the life in debt part though.
Generally at some point owner occupiers will own outright, have cleared their debt and have no further regular monthly outgoings to secure their place of rest

A common terminology for owners for some in here is debt junkies.
Would the same people consider renters debt junkies when compared to those owner occupiers who own outright?

pinkteapot

Debt is not theft. Interest is the cost of having money that you want now instead of later (the time value of money as economists would say). If you want something, you can save up and have that thing later on, or you can pay interest in order to have it now. People are paying a cost for a service. How exactly is this theft?

It would have taken me 12.5 years to save up the amount that I borrowed on my mortgage, assuming that I saved my current repayment amount each month. I chose to buy the house now and take the mortgage, with the associated interest cost. That was my choice, I understood the cost and I'm happy. As I've already said, I've got no problem with anyone who rents a house and is happy. Why can you simply not accept that some people are happy owning and happy to choose to spend their hard-earned money on it? People are different and want different things.

Who exactly is stealing from me? Where is the theft?

debtistheft

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

If you say so...

Got to disagree with the life in debt part though.
Generally at some point owner occupiers will own outright, have cleared their debt

Yes, often just before they retire from work and drop dead after a lifetime of drudgery in jobs they 'settled' for in order to pay down the millstone mortgage. Many more are entering their retirement with mortgage debt and the rest of us are paying for their homes with our taxes. The majority of people receiving mortgage assistance are pensioners. How lovely for their sense of dignity to know they live in their homes because of the generosity of others.

If only they had not poured all their money into a single asset that does not allow them to withdraw that money without getting into debt and into a dubious equity release agreement with deals that diddle them out of the very homes they worked so hard to pay off.

No, I would rather spend my time and energy investing in a wide range of tax efficient investments and have a comfortable retirement in a home that is maintained by the landlord than pour my money into one asset and then wonder where the money is going to come from to replace those rotten windows, get rid of that damp or replace that knackered boiler.

Still, some people put a great store by having their own knackered boiler and damp house. Idiots.

SandC

The selling off of council properties has surely got a lot to do with the mindset that has evolved. With council properties you can do what you like with them - or not, your choice. The people I know who had them would spruce them up exactly how they wanted it because they considered it a home for life, or at least until major lifestyle changes. There was a sense of pride in their home.

Then came selling them off and some years later those who had been able to buy at a reduced price being free to sell up and get their more desirable property in a 'better' area. Nothing wrong with that per se but the council houses were not replaced and the ones who would have been happy to rent all their lives with freedom to do what they liked with the property were now on that ladder we speak of. It's a bit like dangling a carrot I guess - offer things we didnt want and all of a sudden it's desirable.

So you've then got the situation where the people who needed 'more affordable' rental than private rental are now home owners and a whole generation has an attitude shift.

I don't know when it was that so many LLs started making such rules about decor etc. but I know my next door neighbour for about 8 years was long term renting and was allowed to decorate exactly how she wanted and had a good relationship with the LL which worked both ways - she didn't ring him up for trivial stuff and would do things herself, he was happy too. Since she left there were people in for 18 months, out, then someone for 6 months, then out - and eventually when he had a long period of nobody living there he sold up. It seems it's often tenants who are the ones wanting to move on more these days - but is that because they are not allowed to make their houses a home? Difficult one.

I do have one friend though who has a long term rental agreement on a beautiful old farmhouse and he even does restoration work on it and can do the decor how he wants, have pets etc. Seems there needs to be an element of trust on both sides from the word go but if one or both parties have been stung in the past it becomes an issue - rather like all relationships eh?

The point of this post I have kind of lost so I'll shut up there... but attitudes have changed on both sides, from what I can see and it wouldn't harm to revert back to a bit of leeway from LLs and tenants alike.

LittleMissAspie

debtistheft wrote: »

I assume that most people's experiences of renting are the dives they rent at college or Uni where price is the overriding concern or the dives they rent while saving up for a house deposit where price is again the overriding concern.

debtistheft wrote: »

No, I would rather spend my time and energy investing in a wide range of tax efficient investments

How much do you earn? How can you afford to rent a non-dive AND have money left over for investing? I don't think many people can afford that.

My takehome pay is £1250 per month. May's mortgage interest will be £217.74. A house identical to mine in my street has just rented out for £650 per month, as did a different one six months ago.

If I had to support myself and my boyfriend on my salary alone (eg if he got made redundant) then I would not be able to rent us the same house we bought. But I can easily afford the mortgage interest and bills by myself until he found another job.

Pete111

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

How much do you earn? How can you afford to rent a non-dive AND have money left over for investing? I don't think many people can afford that.

My takehome pay is £1250 per month. May's mortgage interest will be £217.74. A house identical to mine in my street has just rented out for £650 per month, as did a different one six months ago.

If I had to support myself and my boyfriend on my salary alone (eg if he got made redundant) then I would not be able to rent us the same house we bought. But I can easily afford the mortgage interest and bills by myself until he found another job.

Look that's all well and good but you are just not getting it Mmmmkay?

If you have a mortgage on a house then it AUTOMATICALLY and TOTALLY impinges on your ability to jet off on a whim to go scuba diving with monkeys in the red sea whilst simultaneously teaching Japanese to disabled albino orphans from Peru.

GOT THAT!!!???!!