My obsession with not buying in UK - Prove me wrong

newsgroupmonkey_

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

As I said there are always exceptions but I'm sure you accept that all other things being equal someone paying their own mortgage will be financially better off in most cases than someone paying their landlord's mortgage - how can it be any other way?

Property ownership per se may not be important to some people but family stability and security is important to practically everyone and owning your own property is one obvious way of achieving that.

Whether you are earning minimum wage or millions, being forced to leave your own home against your will be something most people would want to avoid at all costs so given a choice (and the millionaire is more likely to have that choice) it's pretty obvious why someone would want to own.

No I don't agree. I don't place such emphasis on property ownership in my life. Sorry 🤷‍♀️

And yet you own your own property...

they don't make me feel secure.

I think you must be using a different definition of "secure" to most other people; in the context of house buying and renting it is shorthand for "security of tenure". What do you mean by secure?

With home-ownership you have security of tenure, you know you can live in that same house in that same area for as long as you keep making your monthly mortgage payments. When renting you have no such security and, regardless of whether you wish to keep making monthly payments or not, if your landlord decides you have to move out then that's what you have to do. 

As has been said numerous times before, for most people being forced to move out of your long-term home is devastating so why anyone would choose to take that risk when they don't have to is beyond me.

Of course not everyone has that choice; some people will have to rent for lots of different reasons but when you do have the choice I'm struggling to understand why you would choose such a fundamental risk with your long-term home?

Seriously, I think we are going round in circles here. I do not place as much security on home ownership as you do. I do not think you need to own your home to have family/emotional security, and I think you can build financial security in many different ways. To me, a home is when I am with the people I love, and that can be my rented, mortgaged or owned outright house (and all of which will never always be mine as any home I'm in will be someone else's one day), my brother's house, a caravan, a tent, my mate's shed. To my daughter it is a shared rented flat with friends and a job she loves in a city she thrives in. To my husband security is definitely having money in the bank so that he can run his business. It can be community of any size to which you belong. It can be the pet by your side, your knitting club, the colleagues you work with, your business. You can feel secure on your own and in your own space. You can feel secure with owning your house or with having the freedom to move around. To some house ownership is important and to some they have become wealthier from it. To others house ownership has been a hindrance and they have lost money. 

You use the term "all things being equal". That can never, ever be a real comparison with human beings. You also say "for most people" and I would agree that most people on a house buying thread want to buy. But if you went to a forum entitled "travelling round the world for ever" then house buying wouldn't be important quite so much.

Having rented for a decent chunk of my adult life, I can honestly say I hated every moment of it.

Worrying about breaking something, or scratching something, or being "told off" for not mowing the lawn properly, or not weeding the flower beds, or having dust on top of the door jarm.

That's fine if one of you is home all day or at least works part time, but when you're a family of 4 with 2 adults working full-time (1 often working away), it's not always easy to keep on top of things. I wouldn't say I was a slob or that we live in a tip. Far from it, but when you have your 3 monthly inspections and the guy doing it keeps commenting about dust on top of the kitchen units and so on, it gets very tiring.

Plus when the boiler goes, and you're entirely at the whim of when the landlord's nephew has time to pop round and have a look at it. Or when the cooker breaks.

Or when the windows fail and the unit you had in front of it gets so damp that it rots and falls apart. We called it out so many times, but the landlords felt it wasn't really necessary.

Or indeed in one place, when the snow melted and created a hole in the roof. That was fun. Our insurers refused to cover our losses, because they said the problem was caused by poor maintenance. The owners insurance refused to pay out, because they only covered the building. Deep joy. Our alternative was to sue our landlords - not a great idea when you actually like where you live. Oh and we lost our no-claims with our insurers, because despite refusing to pay out, we'd "made a claim".

And in case you wonder if we really are slobs, we rented 3 different properties over 14 years and got 100% of our deposit back every time with glowing references from agents!

I love to be able to paint my house whatever colour I like and repaint it when I scuff it. Or be able to fix my own front gate when it breaks. Or be in control of the things that go wrong in a house. And be able to completely change the garden so that we can have a vegetable plot. Or take down a fence so that we can comfortably get 3 cars on the drive.

Or indeed in 2 cases, USE THE LOFT! (2 houses we were told specifically that we could not use the loft for storage).

lookstraightahead

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

As I said there are always exceptions but I'm sure you accept that all other things being equal someone paying their own mortgage will be financially better off in most cases than someone paying their landlord's mortgage - how can it be any other way?

Property ownership per se may not be important to some people but family stability and security is important to practically everyone and owning your own property is one obvious way of achieving that.

Whether you are earning minimum wage or millions, being forced to leave your own home against your will be something most people would want to avoid at all costs so given a choice (and the millionaire is more likely to have that choice) it's pretty obvious why someone would want to own.

No I don't agree. I don't place such emphasis on property ownership in my life. Sorry 🤷‍♀️

And yet you own your own property...

they don't make me feel secure.

I think you must be using a different definition of "secure" to most other people; in the context of house buying and renting it is shorthand for "security of tenure". What do you mean by secure?

With home-ownership you have security of tenure, you know you can live in that same house in that same area for as long as you keep making your monthly mortgage payments. When renting you have no such security and, regardless of whether you wish to keep making monthly payments or not, if your landlord decides you have to move out then that's what you have to do. 

As has been said numerous times before, for most people being forced to move out of your long-term home is devastating so why anyone would choose to take that risk when they don't have to is beyond me.

Of course not everyone has that choice; some people will have to rent for lots of different reasons but when you do have the choice I'm struggling to understand why you would choose such a fundamental risk with your long-term home?

Seriously, I think we are going round in circles here. I do not place as much security on home ownership as you do. I do not think you need to own your home to have family/emotional security, and I think you can build financial security in many different ways. To me, a home is when I am with the people I love, and that can be my rented, mortgaged or owned outright house (and all of which will never always be mine as any home I'm in will be someone else's one day), my brother's house, a caravan, a tent, my mate's shed. To my daughter it is a shared rented flat with friends and a job she loves in a city she thrives in. To my husband security is definitely having money in the bank so that he can run his business. It can be community of any size to which you belong. It can be the pet by your side, your knitting club, the colleagues you work with, your business. You can feel secure on your own and in your own space. You can feel secure with owning your house or with having the freedom to move around. To some house ownership is important and to some they have become wealthier from it. To others house ownership has been a hindrance and they have lost money. 

You use the term "all things being equal". That can never, ever be a real comparison with human beings. You also say "for most people" and I would agree that most people on a house buying thread want to buy. But if you went to a forum entitled "travelling round the world for ever" then house buying wouldn't be important quite so much.

Having rented for a decent chunk of my adult life, I can honestly say I hated every moment of it.

Worrying about breaking something, or scratching something, or being "told off" for not mowing the lawn properly, or not weeding the flower beds, or having dust on top of the door jarm.

That's fine if one of you is home all day or at least works part time, but when you're a family of 4 with 2 adults working full-time (1 often working away), it's not always easy to keep on top of things. I wouldn't say I was a slob or that we live in a tip. Far from it, but when you have your 3 monthly inspections and the guy doing it keeps commenting about dust on top of the kitchen units and so on, it gets very tiring.

Plus when the boiler goes, and you're entirely at the whim of when the landlord's nephew has time to pop round and have a look at it. Or when the cooker breaks.

Or when the windows fail and the unit you had in front of it gets so damp that it rots and falls apart. We called it out so many times, but the landlords felt it wasn't really necessary.

Or indeed in one place, when the snow melted and created a hole in the roof. That was fun. Our insurers refused to cover our losses, because they said the problem was caused by poor maintenance. The owners insurance refused to pay out, because they only covered the building. Deep joy. Our alternative was to sue our landlords - not a great idea when you actually like where you live. Oh and we lost our no-claims with our insurers, because despite refusing to pay out, we'd "made a claim".

And in case you wonder if we really are slobs, we rented 3 different properties over 14 years and got 100% of our deposit back every time with glowing references from agents!

I love to be able to paint my house whatever colour I like and repaint it when I scuff it. Or be able to fix my own front gate when it breaks. Or be in control of the things that go wrong in a house. And be able to completely change the garden so that we can have a vegetable plot. Or take down a fence so that we can comfortably get 3 cars on the drive.

Or indeed in 2 cases, USE THE LOFT! (2 houses we were told specifically that we could not use the loft for storage).

I don't doubt your experiences but mine were the exact opposite. I owned a beautiful cottage that was in need of work doing to it at the same time that my marriage broke down, which forced a sale as I couldn't afford the upkeep. Whereas when I rented my landlords have been exceptional (lists of plumber, electrician etc that we could directly contact with problems, things mended or replaced etc). I suppose perhaps it's because more recently I haven't had to rent because of lack of money, it's been a choice (which is where my point really lies).

I have to say throwing so much equity into my house now was a bit unnerving for me. I felt so much more vulnerable than when I rented. I never felt threatened by a landlord (maybe that's because having debt in the past together with the possibility of repossession along with an divorce was ten times worse).

it is lovely to do my house up. Albeit a very old quirky house. But if I rented again I don't think it would be an issue for me. I don't want my house to be what makes me financially secure, as I don't trust a house to be that thing as it tore my life apart and took me ages to get back on track. I'm acutely aware of how house ownership can swallow up money and yes, if everything goes according to plan you can end in profit. But if it doesn't go to plan, it can be a huge issue. 

RobHT

onylon said:

RobHT said:

Probably you don't get it well.
If you lose your job, you lose your house too.

Or you get another job, invest the redundancy money and come out considerably better off. It's not always doom and gloom.

The redundancy package in UK is ridiculous, it's just about your last salary (which is due anyway), plus one week worth of salary capped at 500 pounds, which means 5y of work = 2500 pounds...

Reading the website right now, it slightly changed:
If you were made redundant on or after 6 April 2021, your weekly pay is capped at £544 and the maximum statutory redundancy pay you can get is £16,320. If you were made redundant before 6 April 2021, these amounts will be lower.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/redundancy-pay 

These are coins in the London zone and surroundings, up to Birmingham just as an example...

Forget about redundancy mate.

RobHT

AFF8879 said:

RobHT 

Yes, no equity built, but I don't mind, I have space for savings, investments, additional pension, cryptos etc...

So basically gambling that people online are telling you is “investing”…?

I do it by myself, no gambling. Cryptos is not gambling, but it's obviously riskier than investing in an index fund .
Plus, I said crypt investments, I don't do trading on cryptos, that's very risky, quite near to gambling if you just hope for the best.

RobHT

MobileSaver said:

RobHT said:

MobileSaver said:

I just don't think that's true; as a tenant you will be reminded every six or twelve months that you have to agree to new terms if you want to stay in your property - I'm not sure that instils security when you know one day you might receive a S8 or S21 instead of an invitation to renew.

No, it doesn't work in that way. ... I politely reminded them that after 6 months, it would have been a rolling contract as stated in the contract

Of course, that's the one main advantage of renting but it's a double-edged sword - if you don't agree to new terms then the landlord can just give you two months notice that they want you to leave.

I'm still waiting for anyone to explain how the landlord being able to force you to leave your home against your will is security in any shape or form?

RobHT said:

Who cares about 4 walls which will become of a sad colour soon, smelly due to old carpets and full of problems .

Your rented home sounds more and more like a bedsit in an undesirable part of Edinburgh...

RobHT said:

that person you mentioned probably couldn't run his business from the location where he wanted or could purchase, simple.

Huh? My business was based on a business park in a vibrant greater London town and my home was in a desirable village 20 minutes away - both were perfect and I've no idea what point you were trying to make there?!?!

The landlord loves me, I always pay in time, I can't say the same for all the people that I know in UK, stats aside...
In fact, I see too many rusted BMWs in the wrong hands and landlord complaining that people don't pay rent, do you spot the analogy?

The landlord wants me to pay, he doesn't care about the commas in the contract, after 2y, but even after 1y, what kind of idiot landlord would push me out because of some little change in the contract.
In this case though, I didn't change anything.

You see, you had a business in a specific place, I don't, you probably made the correct choice, a business park doesn't move .

I always rented around the London zone, most of the houses were horrible, I just have been in one old place though, I would never buy something like that, but the house was worth 280k........
I should have replaced everything inside that place if I wanted to buy and make it my home.

RobHT

Sistergold said:

Just as a by the way real life example. In the last recession(Northern Rock 2008) straightaway my husband lost his job. Luckily our mortgage was such that you could withdraw with the click of the button any money paid towards capital. So if the original loan was £230k and balance was now £190k you could withdraw up to £40k to bring it back to original loan of £230k. Anyway as I was only one working from time to time if I was short of money to pay mortgage for instance I would withdraw necessary amounts of money from the mortgage to pay the mortgage or buy food or meet other direct debit. It was a tough 4yrs for us as a family(4 children) as was on one income. Not once did I need to talk to the bank about my mortgage and no we did not lose the house and no I did not need to miss payments despite not enough income. I could withdraw modest amounts to pay bills when I got desperate. 

There are so many different mortgage products to suit different people but I am not sure what products or arrangements there are in rental? 

Most homeowners and renters are sensible adults who know that you need to pay to stay. This again is not to say there will be no repossessions or evictions. Also repossession and evictions have been happening even without recession. Hard times do just hit sometimes I guess with what’s going on now hard times will be widespread. 

Interesting, but what you mentioned is unknown to me.
Certainly there are many mortgage products, but you know, I'm not lawyer or a professional real estate lawyer that can check all these things, plus in my country for example this would be seen as a attempt to trick the bank, with bad consequences because the bank still owns the house and you can't trick them .

In any case, no bank or financial institution in UK told me such thing before, so yours is one of a kind...
Thanks for the tip though, I'll try to find such mortgage, I'm pretty sure is much more expensive or it has some other weird downside.

newsgroupmonkey_

lookstraightahead said:

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

As I said there are always exceptions but I'm sure you accept that all other things being equal someone paying their own mortgage will be financially better off in most cases than someone paying their landlord's mortgage - how can it be any other way?

Property ownership per se may not be important to some people but family stability and security is important to practically everyone and owning your own property is one obvious way of achieving that.

Whether you are earning minimum wage or millions, being forced to leave your own home against your will be something most people would want to avoid at all costs so given a choice (and the millionaire is more likely to have that choice) it's pretty obvious why someone would want to own.

No I don't agree. I don't place such emphasis on property ownership in my life. Sorry 🤷‍♀️

And yet you own your own property...

they don't make me feel secure.

I think you must be using a different definition of "secure" to most other people; in the context of house buying and renting it is shorthand for "security of tenure". What do you mean by secure?

With home-ownership you have security of tenure, you know you can live in that same house in that same area for as long as you keep making your monthly mortgage payments. When renting you have no such security and, regardless of whether you wish to keep making monthly payments or not, if your landlord decides you have to move out then that's what you have to do. 

As has been said numerous times before, for most people being forced to move out of your long-term home is devastating so why anyone would choose to take that risk when they don't have to is beyond me.

Of course not everyone has that choice; some people will have to rent for lots of different reasons but when you do have the choice I'm struggling to understand why you would choose such a fundamental risk with your long-term home?

Seriously, I think we are going round in circles here. I do not place as much security on home ownership as you do. I do not think you need to own your home to have family/emotional security, and I think you can build financial security in many different ways. To me, a home is when I am with the people I love, and that can be my rented, mortgaged or owned outright house (and all of which will never always be mine as any home I'm in will be someone else's one day), my brother's house, a caravan, a tent, my mate's shed. To my daughter it is a shared rented flat with friends and a job she loves in a city she thrives in. To my husband security is definitely having money in the bank so that he can run his business. It can be community of any size to which you belong. It can be the pet by your side, your knitting club, the colleagues you work with, your business. You can feel secure on your own and in your own space. You can feel secure with owning your house or with having the freedom to move around. To some house ownership is important and to some they have become wealthier from it. To others house ownership has been a hindrance and they have lost money. 

You use the term "all things being equal". That can never, ever be a real comparison with human beings. You also say "for most people" and I would agree that most people on a house buying thread want to buy. But if you went to a forum entitled "travelling round the world for ever" then house buying wouldn't be important quite so much.

Having rented for a decent chunk of my adult life, I can honestly say I hated every moment of it.

Worrying about breaking something, or scratching something, or being "told off" for not mowing the lawn properly, or not weeding the flower beds, or having dust on top of the door jarm.

That's fine if one of you is home all day or at least works part time, but when you're a family of 4 with 2 adults working full-time (1 often working away), it's not always easy to keep on top of things. I wouldn't say I was a slob or that we live in a tip. Far from it, but when you have your 3 monthly inspections and the guy doing it keeps commenting about dust on top of the kitchen units and so on, it gets very tiring.

Plus when the boiler goes, and you're entirely at the whim of when the landlord's nephew has time to pop round and have a look at it. Or when the cooker breaks.

Or when the windows fail and the unit you had in front of it gets so damp that it rots and falls apart. We called it out so many times, but the landlords felt it wasn't really necessary.

Or indeed in one place, when the snow melted and created a hole in the roof. That was fun. Our insurers refused to cover our losses, because they said the problem was caused by poor maintenance. The owners insurance refused to pay out, because they only covered the building. Deep joy. Our alternative was to sue our landlords - not a great idea when you actually like where you live. Oh and we lost our no-claims with our insurers, because despite refusing to pay out, we'd "made a claim".

And in case you wonder if we really are slobs, we rented 3 different properties over 14 years and got 100% of our deposit back every time with glowing references from agents!

I love to be able to paint my house whatever colour I like and repaint it when I scuff it. Or be able to fix my own front gate when it breaks. Or be in control of the things that go wrong in a house. And be able to completely change the garden so that we can have a vegetable plot. Or take down a fence so that we can comfortably get 3 cars on the drive.

Or indeed in 2 cases, USE THE LOFT! (2 houses we were told specifically that we could not use the loft for storage).

I don't doubt your experiences but mine were the exact opposite. I owned a beautiful cottage that was in need of work doing to it at the same time that my marriage broke down, which forced a sale as I couldn't afford the upkeep. Whereas when I rented my landlords have been exceptional (lists of plumber, electrician etc that we could directly contact with problems, things mended or replaced etc). I suppose perhaps it's because more recently I haven't had to rent because of lack of money, it's been a choice (which is where my point really lies).

I have to say throwing so much equity into my house now was a bit unnerving for me. I felt so much more vulnerable than when I rented. I never felt threatened by a landlord (maybe that's because having debt in the past together with the possibility of repossession along with an divorce was ten times worse).

it is lovely to do my house up. Albeit a very old quirky house. But if I rented again I don't think it would be an issue for me. I don't want my house to be what makes me financially secure, as I don't trust a house to be that thing as it tore my life apart and took me ages to get back on track. I'm acutely aware of how house ownership can swallow up money and yes, if everything goes according to plan you can end in profit. But if it doesn't go to plan, it can be a huge issue. 

Fair enough. As many others have mentioned, I don't want to be retiring and worrying about rent.
I am pretty financially secure and have a decent pension. Even if something happens to me, I'd like to think that my wife wouldn't have to pay rent. She doesn't have much of a pension and arguably would struggle to afford even a 1 bedroom flat around in the nearby large town - we live in a nice village that's not remote, but quiet.

RobHT

MobileSaver said:

RobHT said:

Probably you don't get it well.
If you lose your job, you lose your house too.

No, it's definitely you that doesn't get it and you are talking complete and utter nonsense yet again.

Over 500,000 people lost their jobs during the pandemic, less than 10,000 lost their house so 98% of those losing their job did NOT lose their house!

Obviously while completely true that figure is skewed by Covid laws so let's check the financial crash of 2008 as well; 728,000 people lost their jobs that year, only 40,000 homes were repossessed, so again even in the darkest of times, well over 90% of those losing their job did NOT lose their home. Obviously statistics can be presented in a multitude of ways but what is utterly undeniable is "If you lose your job, you lose your house too" is demonstrably untrue.

Yet again your assumptions and calculations are fundamentally flawed and I'm afraid if you carry on like this then you really are going to end up celebrating your 55th birthday alone in a bedsit in Edinburgh (complete with smelly carpets.)

If I were to offer some advice, it would be to stop trying to convince yourself that your decision not to buy was the right one and instead concentrate your efforts on finding a boyfriend or girlfriend. By reading this thread, deep down you must know by now that almost all your thinking was wrong but sometimes you still need someone you care about and who you trust to actually bring those subconscious thoughts to the fore so that you can act upon them.

I've seen bad places only in the London zone, I'm not sure why you keep mentioning Scotland .

Your post may stand, but I'm single and the government would have never helped someone like me, they help only cracked down families with children.
Plus, in covid period, the help from the government was up to 60-80% of salary and capped at 2k if I'm not wrong, definitely not enough for me, or barely enough to pay my expenses.
This was also for people that lost the job with redundancy, not me for example (less than 2y in a company).

I would have been probably able to get some sort of universal credit, but again, it would have cracked me down anyway because I own a car, that amount of money gives you a room and some food extremely outside London, nothing else, you need to rely anyway on your savings.
I don't want to be greedy, but it's a fact, here's the life is expensive.

RobHT

Elliott.T123 said:

I think we can all agree from a financial position only buying beats renting over a long period of time for 99% of people.
Yes there are situations where it doesn't and if you are a very conservative individual who is scared of any form of risk then buying a house is not for you.

From this thread I think we can make a fair assumption that RobHT is very risk averse, he has mentioned he has a fairly high income and high level of savings but is still worried about the risk of losing his house if he were to buy it. This leads me to assume either he is in a career that has a very high turn over rate, is unwilling to take on lower paid work if he were to lose his job or is risk averse.

So rather than trying to convince him that his obsession with not buying is incorrect I think we should be saying that in 99% of situations people should buy (if only looking at it financially) but in his particular situation no he should not buy as emotionally it is the wrong choice for him personally.

You got an important point, high pay jobs have high turnover.

I explained above what you would lose if you need to sell for emergency, all your customizations and improvements would be gone.
If you had to sell in the first few years, you are done, it's the majority of your equity.

RobHT

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

lookstraightahead said:

MobileSaver said:

As I said there are always exceptions but I'm sure you accept that all other things being equal someone paying their own mortgage will be financially better off in most cases than someone paying their landlord's mortgage - how can it be any other way?

Property ownership per se may not be important to some people but family stability and security is important to practically everyone and owning your own property is one obvious way of achieving that.

Whether you are earning minimum wage or millions, being forced to leave your own home against your will be something most people would want to avoid at all costs so given a choice (and the millionaire is more likely to have that choice) it's pretty obvious why someone would want to own.

No I don't agree. I don't place such emphasis on property ownership in my life. Sorry 🤷‍♀️

And yet you own your own property...

they don't make me feel secure.

I think you must be using a different definition of "secure" to most other people; in the context of house buying and renting it is shorthand for "security of tenure". What do you mean by secure?

With home-ownership you have security of tenure, you know you can live in that same house in that same area for as long as you keep making your monthly mortgage payments. When renting you have no such security and, regardless of whether you wish to keep making monthly payments or not, if your landlord decides you have to move out then that's what you have to do. 

As has been said numerous times before, for most people being forced to move out of your long-term home is devastating so why anyone would choose to take that risk when they don't have to is beyond me.

Of course not everyone has that choice; some people will have to rent for lots of different reasons but when you do have the choice I'm struggling to understand why you would choose such a fundamental risk with your long-term home?

Seriously, I think we are going round in circles here. I do not place as much security on home ownership as you do. I do not think you need to own your home to have family/emotional security, and I think you can build financial security in many different ways. To me, a home is when I am with the people I love, and that can be my rented, mortgaged or owned outright house (and all of which will never always be mine as any home I'm in will be someone else's one day), my brother's house, a caravan, a tent, my mate's shed. To my daughter it is a shared rented flat with friends and a job she loves in a city she thrives in. To my husband security is definitely having money in the bank so that he can run his business. It can be community of any size to which you belong. It can be the pet by your side, your knitting club, the colleagues you work with, your business. You can feel secure on your own and in your own space. You can feel secure with owning your house or with having the freedom to move around. To some house ownership is important and to some they have become wealthier from it. To others house ownership has been a hindrance and they have lost money. 

You use the term "all things being equal". That can never, ever be a real comparison with human beings. You also say "for most people" and I would agree that most people on a house buying thread want to buy. But if you went to a forum entitled "travelling round the world for ever" then house buying wouldn't be important quite so much.

Having rented for a decent chunk of my adult life, I can honestly say I hated every moment of it.

Worrying about breaking something, or scratching something, or being "told off" for not mowing the lawn properly, or not weeding the flower beds, or having dust on top of the door jarm.

That's fine if one of you is home all day or at least works part time, but when you're a family of 4 with 2 adults working full-time (1 often working away), it's not always easy to keep on top of things. I wouldn't say I was a slob or that we live in a tip. Far from it, but when you have your 3 monthly inspections and the guy doing it keeps commenting about dust on top of the kitchen units and so on, it gets very tiring.

Plus when the boiler goes, and you're entirely at the whim of when the landlord's nephew has time to pop round and have a look at it. Or when the cooker breaks.

Or when the windows fail and the unit you had in front of it gets so damp that it rots and falls apart. We called it out so many times, but the landlords felt it wasn't really necessary.

Or indeed in one place, when the snow melted and created a hole in the roof. That was fun. Our insurers refused to cover our losses, because they said the problem was caused by poor maintenance. The owners insurance refused to pay out, because they only covered the building. Deep joy. Our alternative was to sue our landlords - not a great idea when you actually like where you live. Oh and we lost our no-claims with our insurers, because despite refusing to pay out, we'd "made a claim".

And in case you wonder if we really are slobs, we rented 3 different properties over 14 years and got 100% of our deposit back every time with glowing references from agents!

I love to be able to paint my house whatever colour I like and repaint it when I scuff it. Or be able to fix my own front gate when it breaks. Or be in control of the things that go wrong in a house. And be able to completely change the garden so that we can have a vegetable plot. Or take down a fence so that we can comfortably get 3 cars on the drive.

Or indeed in 2 cases, USE THE LOFT! (2 houses we were told specifically that we could not use the loft for storage).

Thanks for the message.

These things don't happen with an agency, unless some crappy agency that I avoided at any cost, especially in London and managed by the usual people...

I was also of that idea of having the house, take care of it, customize it, do what I want there... I lost my will after I felt very comfortable and free with renting, plus zerop responsability.
You see, that snow issue wasn't yours, the owner should be insured on such things, and if the insurance doesn't cover, it's his problem. You move out if is dangerous and actually, in such case you get the right to receive a fix, or a sum to get out of there without paying by yourself, so called cost associated with moving out.

I know !!!!!! happens man, but it happens also if you own it, I don't see any advantage, you just took your path, I hope it goes well for you.