Stigma against people who rent?

I highly recommend Alvin Hall's Your Money or Your Life:

for practical money management in the UK.

I'm quite happy to rent,

A lot of people are, and I think it's great! I did for many years and enjoyed it. However, it is a real shame that many people don't have the option of buying if they choose to.

It was pretty interesting. If you want to listen again it's here: Alvin Hall's Generations of Money.

It's estimated that over half of the UK's housing wealth is owned by the post-war generation of people born in the twenty years after the end of the Second World War. Only around ten per cent of it is owned by people under the age of 40. High house prices have meant families are having to wait until much later in life to get a foot on the property ladder

Thanks!! I enjoyed that!!!

I highly recommend Alvin Hall's Your Money or Your Life:

for practical money management in the UK.

As soon as I can afford it   I'm gonna buy that!  Or maybe I shall see if it's in my public library

I'm fine with renting for a while, but I definitely want to own a home eventually - once I know exactly where to settle and such. I'm with phatbeetle in wanting to be able to paint my walls and decorate a place the way I'd like without fear that it's going to incur tons of extra charges later on!

Thanks!! I enjoyed that!!!

As soon as I can afford it   I'm gonna buy that!  Or maybe I shall see if it's in my public library

It makes understanding money management very accessible!   He's awesome. 

A friend of mine is selling his flat and will not be buying a new place to live.

He will be renting and using the money from the sale to invest in something unrelated to property.

I've just been listening to them talk about this on Radio 4. Apparently the average age for first-time homeowners (without help from parents) is now 37. 

I was 40 and DH was 35 when we bought our house (first for both of us), and we had help from (his) parents!

I like owning our house, but sometimes (maybe because I rented so long) I just feel in over my head!  Keeping it up, fixing things, redecorating, keeping on top of things that break/leak/crack/need replacing etc etc etc - neither of us is very good at it or very organised, such that it becomes a major annoyance actually.  But it's our heap, so.    (the grass is always greener...)

For renters who want to garden, why not look into your local allotments?  We don't have much garden space at our house & we are doing some container veg this year.  But if we wanted more eventually, we would get an allotment.

I think I can say with some certainty that I won't be buying a house until I'm around 40.  I move too much and I'm too broke. 

That said, I still hate renting for pretty much the same reasons that everyone else has mentioned.

Ideally, I would win the Euromillions and buy a few quaint, lovely homes or flats scattered about the globe.   

Ideally, I would win the Euromillions and buy a few quaint, lovely homes or flats scattered about the globe.   

Hehehehehhee me too!

Hah.  My husband just turned 37, and no chance of us buying anytime soon.  We could afford the mortgage repayments, but it would take us 20 years to save the deposit.  I think that housing prices are just out of control and something needs to be done to bring them down to reasonable levels, more in line with people's actual incomes.    

Hiya

Ideally, Yes your are quite right - however, practically it'll not happen, unless theres some catastrophic event that knocks the UK for six and values start plummeting. There's not a real method of purposely bringing property values down on this national scale. Even if there was, the reduction required to make homes more affordable and more in line with the traditional 3X Gross Salary for a mortgage, means reductions in values of at least 50% and in many cases much more. Where would you draw the line in which properties are to be at the 3X salary level? £23K being the average salary nationwide, in London it'd still buy you nothing, whereas in Scotland it'll buy you a 3 bedroom house and possibly more.

The other way is for salaries to rise 3-5 times more than what they are to afford the houses in question, ideally it'd be a mixture of the two, average salaries go up 3 times, and average house prices come down 50%. Niether is likely to happen.

In the long term, 5, 10 25 and 50 years + down the line, it'll be interesting to see just what does happen with lending practices in the UK against property values.

Do remember though, property values are one of the last real ways of asset and wealth creation for many people in the UK. The asset can also be passed to children etc. Other ways of making the same sorts of returns are Stocks and Shares or running a very profitable business. For the 'Average' UK resident what other methods exist to have a return which increases quality of life, standard of living ?

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

There have been several very good articles about the state of renting a home in the UK, mainly because of the Coalition's proposed changes in the housing benefits system.

Here's another from the Guardian:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/15/renting-buying-home

"...the biggest issue facing private renters is the fact that in the UK landlords tend to offer short-term tenancies of six months to a year, with a two-month notice period."

This has been my biggest issue with renting in the UK and given that it is so insecure, renting will always be regarded of as less then.

I'm glad to see this issue highlighted and discussed more.

Without having read every response in this thread, I have to say the main thing that keeps us from just renting indefinitely here is the fact that we can be turfed out of the house seemingly on a whim of the landlord.  We were given a months notice to find a new house a couple of years ago when the owners decided to sell (well, two months, but it was the beginning of summer so of course we had a holiday booked for the last half of the notice period.) 

You often seeing rental figures quoted from other European countries such as Germany, where home ownership is only around 40%.  However, these countries also have much more tenant-friendly laws.  Once a homeowner has entered into a contract to become a landlord, they need to give quite a lot of notice before they can sell that house if they decide to.  I believe it might be somewhere from 6 months to a year? 

(and yes I suspect the laws here in the UK are similar to those in the US, but I don't have any experience with the rental market in the US, so I can't comment there.  However, I HAVE rented in a few different EU countries, so that's where I'm drawing my comparison from.)

I can't speak for the rest of the US, but I am from New York City, where the laws are very different, and lived in apartments there all my life until I moved to the UK.

There is rent control, one or two year leases are the norm, and your lease is guaranteed to be renewed unless you do something that violates your agreement (like you damage your apartment or don't pay your rent).

Landlords are required by law to provide hot water, and heat when the weather goes below a certain temperature. There is a city government hotline you can call if you don't have heat or hot water.

If there is any problem with your apartment, the city will send an inspector  to check it out and fine the landlord if the problem is not corrected within a certain amount of time. (I have personal experience with this.)

New York City has an entire court system that is devoted entirely to landlord/tenant relations.

(These rules are only applicable for large dwellings though. I don't know the rules for landlords who rent to only one, or a few, tenants.)

I can't speak for the rest of the US, but I am from New York City, where the laws are very different, and lived in apartments there all my life until I moved to the UK.

There is rent control, one or two year leases are the norm, and your lease is guaranteed to be renewed unless you do something that violates your agreement (like you damage your apartment or don't pay your rent).

Landlords are required by law to provide hot water, and heat when the weather goes below a certain temperature. There is a city government hotline you can call if you don't have heat or hot water.

If there is any problem with your apartment, the city will send an inspector  to check it out and fine the landlord if the problem is not corrected within a certain amount of time. (I have personal experience with this.)

New York City has an entire court system that is devoted entirely to landlord/tenant relations.

(These rules are only applicable for large dwellings though. I don't know the rules for landlords who rent to only one, or a few, tenants.)

See, that's the problem in the UK. Buildings with several owners and thus several landlords. There's no consistency. I can't even imagine how some landlords don't even live in the UK! Wha? How can they even respond to any problems? Do the rules you posted above even exist in the UK? I really am very scared about finding something decent/secure there. As much as I may complain about some of the people in the office at my apartment complex, I am happy to have someone to ask (in person) if there's a problem.

I agree that the tenancy laws are much less tenant friendly over here, but I think it is possible to have a reasonably secure tenancy if you're willing to be a bit discriminating about who you rent from.  We negotiated a 2-year lease with our (private) landlord and will probably sign up for another 2 years once it's up for renewal- we refuse to go month to month because then they can just give you 2 months notice to move in that case and that's not acceptable to me.

I think fortunately there's no shortage of reasonably priced 2 or 3-bedroom rentals in our area so we can afford to 'turn down' a landlord if they don't meet our requirements- it might mean it takes us a bit longer to find a house whenever we decide to move, but since we know we're going to be long term renters I think it's worth the extra hassle.

I can't even imagine how some landlords don't even live in the UK! Wha? How can they even respond to any problems?

My landlords (a couple) live in France, and to be honest, it hasn't been any extra hassle.  They're always accessible by email or phone and when we have a problem with the house, they send someone out to deal with it within a couple of days.  Also I think one of their good friends that live in the area has a spare key to our house if ever we should need it.  And they do visit once a year and do some work on the house then.  I love our landlords!