To Rent Or To Buy Your Home
Renting vs buying can seem a difficult question to answer, especially if you don’t know all the facts. Read our guide to learn about the benefits of renting.
Owning your first home is a goal of most everyone, representative of taking control of your future and solidifying your status as an adult. But In recent years, the proportion of young adults who own homes has decreased from 54% to 37%. While aspirational, there is a lot of uncertainty that surrounds the question of whether or not to rent a home or buy. Owning a home necessitates a lot of planning, financial stability, and an ideal housing market. There are pros and cons to both renting and buying, and deciding which option is best suited to you and your future can seem daunting. This guide will be your key in addressing these uncertainties so that you will have a key to your future home.
Benefits of Renting
One of the major benefits of rental properties is the flexibility it provides. With the flexibility of short term rentals and long-term contracts, you can move flat, move country, move in and out at a pace a lot quicker than buying and selling a home. Nicer London boroughs tend to have not-so-nice price tags, meaning that with renting you are more likely to be able to afford to live in a flat in a more prestigious area. The UK average monthly payments are likely to be higher than your monthly mortgage payments. Contrary to this, in London the reverse is often true, making it more affordable to rent a property for the short-term. Especially since you won’t have just shelled out a lot of money on your deposit. Renting also provides peace of mind that buying doesn’t. You won’t be checking the housing market worried about the fluctuation of housing prices and any mishaps or necessary repairs and property taxes are not on you but your landlord. Overall, renting is a great option for students and young professionals, who are then able to better predict their rental costs while also not tying themselves to one location.
Drawbacks of Renting
If you’re renting, you’d better cross your fingers for a lovely landlord. A bad landlord can make any tenant's life miserable, with unanswered calls, tenancies cut short and undealt with repairs. Agencies can be used to help find you a flat with a professional landlord, although utilizing an agency will come with more fees. While you’re renting, a drawback is that your rental fees are contributing to solely enriching your landlord. This can be demotivating in comparison to making your mortgage payments, wherein in the end, you know that you will own the property outright. Therefore, you should also consider how you will feel in later stages of your life, such as retirement when you’ll be having to make rental payments out of your pension fund. Lastly, from an aesthetic perspective, rented properties can be strict about renovations and cosmetic adjustments making it difficult to feel at home.
Benefits of Buying
The major benefit of buying a home is that all of your mortgage payments are contributing to you owning your home outright so you can live there ‘rent’ free. Contrary to renting where the money can be seen as ‘going down the drain’ to aiding your landlord in paying off his mortgage. Home ownership will provide you with the flexibility to make any adjustments or renovations as you see fit, to tailor the space to you personally. Any money spent on home improvements is also considered an investment, as it’s likely to increase the value of your property if you ever decide to sell. Your home is also a great financial investment if you ever decided to rent it out to others or sell it in the long run for profit. Lastly, owning a home is likely to strengthen and deepen your ties to the community in which you live.
Drawbacks of Buying
Before you make the decision to rent or buy a house, you need to take a sound look at the state of your finances.The UK Office for National Statistics estimates the average house price for £501,320.Saving enough money for a deposit and mortgage payments can be cumbersome, with missed mortgage payments putting you at risk of losing your home. The cost of buying a home is a long-term financial commitment that continues even once your mortgage is paid off. Insurance costs, legal fees, furnishing, repairs, are some of the other costs that need to be considered before you purchase a home. No longer will repairs such as a broken oven fall to the landlord, but you, so make sure you account for the unexpected. If you purchased your home as an investment, there is no guarantee that the plan will pan out. The housing market is volatile, and it might be many years before you see the value of your home increasing. Owning a home exponentially increases the difficulty of moving. Unlike renting apartments where you can simply give notice, now you must find a new buyer, which can be a tedious process.
Join Gravity!
If the idea of buying has intimidated you or you’re not financially able yet to purchase a home then co-living is a great alternative. Co-living is a form of flat rental in a shared community. Co-living helps you avoid all of the drawbacks of purchasing a home, while you reap all of the benefits of renting. Co-living offers high levels of flexibility, with the option of signing a contract for any duration upwards of one month. This means that you can move out or move between any of our four locations located in Camden Town, Camden Lock, Finsbury Park or Hounslow with ease. Our professional staff and our community manager, available 24/7, ensure that at Gravity Co-Living you need not ever worry about difficult landlords or the standard of your accommodation ever again.
