Is owning a home important to you?

kk20

My first purchase was a shower so I could at least shower inside. Then i worked up to saving for an extension for a proper bathroom. Those were the days (in winter going out to the toilet with a brush stale to break the ice)

superted187

Owning a home wouldn't be important to me if Renting in the UK was more tightly regulated, and if longer team leases were more common where you could change the decor or improve the property.

I presently seek to own a home now because it means that I will not have to deal with money grabbing letting agents, that WILL steal my deposit, try to put my rent up at every opportunity, will dodge any repair work (e.g. broken boiler), and will boot me out with 2 months notice.

If I am to Rent another place, I have to accept that what I find will not be 100% suitable for me. E.g, I might find a place that is in the right location and in the right price range, but it may be instantly obvious that the have a go Land Lord has only bothered to tile the bathroom up to hip height.

I can winge and rent the place, typically as the impending homelessness takes priority, knowing that each time I use the shower I'll probably make the wall damp, and over the course of a year this will probably cause damage, knowing that they will deem this my fault and charge me for it. But there's nothing I can do apart from bend over and take it.

This is why I seek to own a property. If there is anything wrong with the property, I get it fixed promptly and I can do work to the place if I see fit. Dealing with a bank is probably still pretty bad, but it must be marginally better than dealing with some dreadful letting agent.

geoffky

I could rent for ever but my wife hates it..but the poor women did wait years and years for us to buy the right house..but i could easily sell up and go into rented as owning is not a money thing for us.

jesus i bought in 1982 and paid 21k for a brand new barrets house (what a mug i was but only 18 at the time)

SuzieSue

Yes owning my own home is important to me because I don't want to pay rent when I am retired and I want the freedom to decide where I live and the type of property I live in and not have it decided for me by the amount of LHA I am entitled to.

I know that I will have little more than the state pension to live on when I retire as I don't work in the public sector, so I wouldn't be able to afford to live in a decent area if I didn't own my own home.