Own or Rent?
Conventional wisdom seems to dictate that it is better to own your home than to rent it. I’m here to debunk that wisdom. Owning SUCKS. Here’s why.
When we rented, if we wanted to move, we moved. End of story.
When we rented, if two of the burners had gone out on our stove, the landlord would have bought a new stove. For us, we had to wait until we could afford a new stove, and suffer with the old one for awhile.
When we rented, if we wanted to move, we moved. Did I mention that one before? Sorry. It’s at the top of my mind right now.
Owning is better than renting, they say, because it’s such a great investment. OK, but that’s an investment on paper…the only way to get money out of the investment is to sell the investment, which means moving, which WE CAN’T SEEM TO DO. And unless you move to another market altogether, you have to put all of your ‘profit’ into the new place, anyway.
When we rented, if we wanted to move, we didn’t have to pay someone tens of thousands of dollars to help us do so. Just the movers. And we could even get friends to help, and pay them in pizza and beer.
When we rented, and we wanted to move, if the place we were leaving was somewhat out of date, like with kitchen cabinets and bathrooms, etc., we could move anyway, not have someone tell us that we should pump $20,000 into fixing up the place so someone else might be willing to rent it after us.
When we rented, and we wanted to move, we didn’t have to ‘stage’ the place, moving furniture this way and that, buying drapes and artwork to show people how cool and yuppy we are, so that they would be willing to rent it after us.
When we rented, things like the sub prime market going down the toilet, or jumbo loan rates shooting up, didn’t affect us. Heck, if we wanted to stay here, they wouldn’t affect us. But because we want to move, and we’re in a stupidly expensive part of the country, and we own a condo (i.e., first home for most folks these days), they affect us GREATLY.
Can you tell that I really want to move, and this whole selling in a down market is really getting me DOWN? Muh.
14 Comments
Ml
The market does SUCK right now! I’m so sorry you guys are having a hard time selling your place. It’s just a bad time at the moment.
Linnea Heinrichs
Unfortunately, I have to agree. Renting beats out owning any day of the week. We bought a house in the country and it’s been nothing but trouble. Among the list of tragedies are sink holes developing in the driveway at the exact moment you drive over them, a basement that floods in spring (no one told us) coupled with a sump pump that was turned off so the water was literally too deep to walk in without those fishing waders, a chimney that at first leaned off the side of the building and then fell in a heap on the ground from winter snow load and bats that kept getting into the house through the chimney. Try selling a house like that!
Linnea
http://www.linneaheinrichs.com
Py Korry
Who knows, owning property could be the one of the biggest cons. 😉
It does suck sometimes, but sometimes it’s kind of nice not having to deal with a crappy landlord. Of course, if one is ever stuck in a crappy landlord situation…you can just move.
Gina
Boo for the market going into the toilet just as you are ready to move!
I feel your pain!
Autumn's Mom
Funny you write this today..I feel like I’ve gone from home owner to renter in a breath and now I have a crappy landlord who won’t fix anything! The door going into the garage has a broken door knob, it won’t turn easily and sometimes I get stuck and can’t get in or out. And he won’t fix it!!!!
I guess I’ll see the benefits of ownership whenever I finally get a freakin check. Until then, I’m with ya.
Beenzzz
Yeh, the market sucks right now. Selling can be a pain as well. We sold our condo seven years ago and I remember how stressful it was to keep it clean and perfect all the time because you never knew who would be popping by to see it. It sold relatively quickly (3 weeks) but the market was hell a better then than it is now!
Hang in there. It has to budge sooner or later.
lalunas
I had a dream you spiffied your house up and then you did not want to move anymore. By the way in my dream, you remodelling looked fantastic.
kookiejar
Thank you J. Everyone tells me that we should buy a house, but it seems like such a monumental hassle, I just wish everyone would leave me alone about it. I can see that many of my fears are not unfounded. I think we’ll continue to stay in our beautiful, huge, comfy apartment.
Maya's Granny
Well, there are problems with renting, but at least I’ve never been unable to move if I could afford the first and last and the U-Haul.
Wanderlust Scarlett
You make a very good point.
I travel a LOT so owning doesn’t make a lot of sense for me. Renting does. If something goes wrong while I am gone, someone else is there to take care of it.
If I am gone for an extended period, stuff can go into storage, I can gad about the world, and pull it out of storage and set up home again when & wherever I am ready to do that.
Good post.
By the way… there’s something for you over at my page.
Scarlett & Viaggiatore
Joan
You do make some good points. I know a few people who are heavily into real estate and suffering. They thought prices would continue to rise, doing interest only mortgages – ouch!
Katie
Yes, I will agree with you at this point!! Luckily, I found a buyer seconds before the market took a nose dive, but I feel your pain of “staging” and keeping it clean and buying stuff for a place you are leaving!! They say moving is the NUMBER ONE stressor even before divorce. I wholeheartedly agree. I wish you good luck in selling. Have you tried “space clearing”?? I had NO LOOKERS until I did that. Keep your chin up. You will sell soon! I’m sending you all my good house selling vibes!
ally bean
Good luck. I feel your pain and understand it. The anxiety of selling/buying/moving can get to you. Been there. At least you’re in the place you want to sell and not living far away relying on the words of others about how things are going with your sale. You know for sure what’s happening, or not.
Mike
I hear you… We moved here from Portland, OR late ’03 and I’ve been scared to buy, but have really been enjoying the rental thing! We rent a great condo in Downtown Walnut Creek and if anything breaks, it’s taken care of!
Great Blog… My fiance Aimea (www.aimea.com) and I have sushi once a week.. it’s our thing. Usually we go to Miraku but I was researching other places for variety’s sake… I ran into your blog by researching Nama Sushi (do you still like it?)… What a delightful tangent to find on an early Sunday AM web excursion!
Good luck to you and your family!