It can be a very personal choice, and depend a lot on your circumstances. Do you prioritize having an owned asset later in life? Do you want more reassurance that you can't be thrown out of your place on short notice? Do you prefer having control over more aspects of your residence? Do you like moving from place to place, or have circumstantial requirements that lead you to do so moderately often? Do you prefer major problems to be the financial problem of someone else, with them being legally obliged to fix it at their own cost?
I've both rented and owned, and (as mentioned upthread) there are definite pros and cons to each. Rentals, here, tend to come with inspections every three months or so, so owning meant never having to have that on my plate, or keep a property up to particular standards (grass length in the yard etc). However, renting had the advantage, when I moved around a lot chasing career opportunities, that I could pack up and leave for another city or another state on short notice, and not worry about the cost, effort, and hassle of trying to sell a property and buy a new one. That was a kind of freedom in and of itself.
Ideally, I'd like for there to be some kind of government arrangement where all rental payments are either paid through or recorded in some fashion, and you get credit for them which can go towards buying a house in future. So if you live somewhere that costs $2000 a month, and you live there for ten years, that's $240,000 credit you can put towards a house. Basically, every rental payment you make, anywhere, counts as a mortgage payment. Similarly, if you've been paying a minimum amount of rent for five years, you should be able to get a mortgage where the repayments are that amount. If private banks don't want to have to do that, fine; the government can provide that service too.
08 Jun 2022, 3:25 pm
