Should You Buy or Rent a Home?

Choosing your new property is far from the easiest decision you’ll ever make. For some people, it’s the only time they will ever move house having lived with their parents and now they’re making the move into their own property with a partner and could, feasibly, make that their home for life.

Choosing to buy settlements or rental properties is a huge talking point, do you spend all of your money in one go, getting a mortgage and owning your own home; or do you spend certain amounts each month on renting a property from the local council or a landlord, saving the money away for a future investment in your own home? It’s a discussion that many couples have on many an occasion when they talk about moving in together or moving to a new location, but what are the pros and cons of each that get so many couples arguing?

When you buy a property, you have that feeling of stability. You own your own home, all of the contents and you don’t have to worry about replacing anything you’ve broken before the landlord comes round at the end of each month to check the place out. You can have friends and family over, keep pets, anything you like. It’s your house and they’re your rules.

Another plus to buying is that you’re effectively investing for the long-term, building up equity so that you can live rent and mortgage-free when you’ve finished your payments rather than what many see as “pouring money down the drain” in the form of renting where all your savings go straight to the landlord.

There are also a number of benefits to renting, however, with one being that you can move according to the notice in your tenancy agreement. Some landlords will only require a month’s notice of your intention to leave the property, so if you find somewhere else you would prefer to live – or you’ve managed to save up enough money to buy – then you can be moving out in a month. This is also the perfect solution for those working on short-term contracts or who choose to leave their jobs, as they don’t have to worry about selling their existing property first.

Renting actually makes it easier for you to budget your finances for the month. You can establish exactly how much you need to set aside for your rent each month, and from then on you will find that you’re automatically making savings elsewhere and planning for the rest of the month, whether that’s to allow you to pay off credit cards or to start putting money aside for your next holiday.