Is it better to rent or own a home?

Decisions regarding your home is always a tough one. It affects your entire life including your financial capacity, your lifestyle, your friends and family, and much more. That’s why it’s important that in dealing with renting or owning a home, that you be as prepared as possible.

Let us see the advantages and disadvantages of renting versus owning a home.

First of all, let us define the essence of both choices. Obviously, renting a home means paying a constant bill in order to make use of a house. Meanwhile, owning a home means having the deed to the property wherein you pay the maintenance and bills. It would seem, of course, that owning is better because you won’t have to answer to anyone, you would have absolute privacy to do whatever you want to your house, and you have a better shot at a bigger net worth for the property which you can either set aside as asset or sell for your savings. However, owning a home is not that easy. Some people’s pockets won’t be able to handle the absolute responsibility of owning property. That’s why, it is more advantageous for people to rent first before even considering buying a house and lot. Renting and owning both have their ups and downs that will suit people of all kinds. Let’s see how.

Renting

Myths

- Renting is a waste of money

It’s not. Both renting and owning a home have costs and savings in their own right. For example, if you rent, it’s not your responsibility to conduct the maintenance which may include costly expenses such as property taxes, pest control, water services, property insurance etc.

Finance

- Rent

Predictability

- Renting a home means you are pretty much sure of your monthly budget for your house expenses.

Permanence

- After continuous payment and you decided to leave, you would feel that you paid for nothing.

-  You are not tied to any one place and you have flexibility over your place of residence. This means that you are not stuck at one place if you want to work while travelling, etc.

Owning

Myths

- Ownership builds wealth

Although it is true that most real estate appreciate in value over time, that is not always the case. There are properties that devalue over time. Some reasons for this include bad reputation of your neighborhood, significant population decline, and recession.

Finance

- Mortgage Tax

- Maintenance and Repair

- Monthly Bills

- Furniture and Appliances (if not fully furnished)

- Insurance

Predictability

- Every month you will have to pay tax and bills. If some unforeseeable circumstance happens such as a leaking pipe, then you would have to pay extra.

Permanence

- You’ll have a sense of stability because you own what you are paying for.

- You can bequeath such properties to your next of kin

- Real estate is one of the surest investments

Whether to rent or own a home is entirely up to you, your financial capacity, and your plans in life. Life circumstances are entirely different for each one of us so do what best suits you both financially, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.