Is renting ever a good bet?

Belfastbelle

Just wondered,
Is renting ever a good idea?

leftieM

I'm no expert but I'd be surprised if it made a difference to your chances of getting a mortgage in the future. Are you looking to buy another house and want to be chain free? If you are it's a pretty awful time to get out of property - the house prices seem to be rising at a much much faster rate than your equity in a savings account would. If you're in no rush to buy again and are content to take a punt on the market slowing down then that's more understandable.
Renting has the up of having few financial obligations but the down of insecurity of tenure. Landlords can turf you out or raise the rent with little notice. I personally don't have great memories of renting - landlords were very slow to do repairs and most thought the deposit was a wee bonus for themselves (we had to send a solicitor's letter to the last guy to get the deposit back!)

DavidN83

Renting is not ideal but for a great deal of people it's the only choice!

I cannot comprehend how any ftb's can afford a house in Belfast these days.

dmxdave

DavidN83 wrote: »

Renting is not ideal but for a great deal of people it's the only choice!

I cannot comprehend how any ftb's can afford a house in Belfast these days.

Too right we bought for £29,950 in 1988 3 doors down is now up for sale at £269,950

We just could not afford to buy at the current prices.

We have never rented so maybe I am not up to speed on this, but I have always thought of renting should it be a pushbike, car, hotel room as a short term thing as long term is money down the drain, I know as DavidN83 stated for some people (or a lot) there is no other choice but if you can buy do so.

leftieM

East Belfast seems to have gone completely nuts. It must be an investor feeding frenzy over there. I made the error of looking to see if we could afford to move and saw ex HE houses and 2 bed mid terraces on at 250k. We could sell our 4 bed ex HE house in Finaghy and move to a 3 bed house in the Braniel and add 40-50k to the mortgage. I'm so depressed!

IvanOpinion

The only thing I would say aboout renting is that you lose what is potentially a very important investment opportunity (i.e. equity in your prpoerty). You would need to weigh up the differences between what you would pay in rental versus mortgage and equity

ivan

belfastgirl23

Do you ahve any other reasons to want to do this? I can't really see the point of it myself...but of course only you can decide if it's worth it in your circumstances.

On the plus side, selling up before buying is lower stress in that you aren't in a chain (tho my experience is that chains in NI are not as bad as in England) but higher stress in that you have to find both a rental property and a buying property within a short space of time and move twice with all the costs that might incur. You might also have to put furniture etc in storace. My impression too is that rental is not cheap (I know a room in a shared house in south belfast won't come in at less than £200).

You can look around pretty easily while you're still paying your mortgage. You could get your house valued to see what it would fetch and you can ask estate agents how long it would be likely to take to sell. Again in South Belfast I know someone who had 9 viewings within the first couple of days of the house going on the market, even before it went on the website. But not all areas move quite as fast as this.

Belfastbelle

belfastgirl23 wrote: »

Do you ahve any other reasons to want to do this? I can't really see the point of it myself..............

My house is too big for me now- so thinking of selling. Thought I might be in a far better position to buy- whilst NOT in a chain.
Only a passing thought......