Is it time to be content with renting and not have notions of buying ?

handlemaster

this opinion piece certainly makes sense for the renter brigade. why strap yourself down.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/far-better-to-be-a-generation-of-renters-than-falling-victim-to-negative-equity-31144042.html

Nucular Arms

Not if you plan on having kids in my opinion.

A large part of the attraction of home ownership is to have 'something to pass on' when you pop your clogs.

shruikan2553

Renting is all well and good but it stops to lose its charm when the LL still won't fix something and you are getting fed up with the crap furniture they stole from their grandmothers.

Sure you can buy your own furniture but then the LL has to store their stuff and when the rent goes up at the end of your lease you have to find a way to transport it to the new place.

Youngblood.III

^ i agree very much, like my situation, LL keeps talking about selling, no security for long term renters.

handlemaster

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Renting is all well and good but it stops to lose its charm when the LL still won't fix something and you are getting fed up with the crap furniture they stole from their grandmothers.

Sure you can buy your own furniture but then the LL has to store their stuff and when the rent goes up at the end of your lease you have to find a way to transport it to the new place.

surely not all LL are like that.

jon1981

Until they can introduce legislation to cover long term leases and some sort of rent control ... No

Dardania

jon1981 wrote: »

Until they can introduce legislation to cover long term leases and some sort of rent control ... No

Highlights the problem in one. People are driven to buy from a sense of security that they can't rely on from renting. If they had the same sense of security through renting, we would see a swing towards more renters.

Type of mindset change that would take a generation or two to happen however...

zl1whqvjs75cdy

Give me a binding 10-20 year lease with predictable and capped rent increases and I'd be delighted to rent long term. Now it's shakey one year leases that aren't worth the paper they're written on, rent increases that seem to be largely picked out of the air and constant threats of sale of the property as the accidental landlords claw their way out of negative equity.

jon1981

Nucular Arms wrote: »

Not if you plan on having kids in my opinion.

A large part of the attraction of home ownership is to have 'something to pass on' when you pop your clogs.

More importantly, it's the assurance that you don't have to uproot kids from schools if the landlord decides to sell up or ask you to move on..

beauf

Nucular Arms wrote: »

Not if you plan on having kids in my opinion.

A large part of the attraction of home ownership is to have 'something to pass on' when you pop your clogs.

All you'll end up doing is giving it back to the govt in nursing charges and tax. You'll be forced to downsize so there will be nothing left to pass on.

Grandpa Hassan

beauf wrote: »

All you'll end up doing is giving it back to the govt in nursing charges and tax. You'll be forced to downsize so there will be nothing left to pass on.

This.

If anyone thinks that buying now will create a nice little pot to pass on to their kids is naive in the extreme. Just look at what the age profile of the population will look like in 40 years time.....how else is that care going to be paid for?

That is a bad reason to buy IMO

Diarmuid

Grandpa Hassan wrote: »

If anyone thinks that buying now will create a nice little pot to pass on to their kids is naive in the extreme.

Not to mention that by the time most people die and are in a position to pass on the house, their "kids" are in their 50's.

ted1

jon1981 wrote: »

Until they can introduce legislation to cover long term leases and some sort of rent control ... No

Along with the ability to turf out tenants who are in arrears of only a short while.

Along with ability to get swift payments from tenants for damage and breach of contract. E.g Breaking leases.

jon1981

Diarmuid wrote: »

Not to mention that by the time most people die and are in a position to pass on the house, their "kids" are in their 50's.

Agreed, i'd like to think we have moved on from this traditionalist way of thinking...

Im certainly not working for the sole purpose of some inheritance to leave, if there happens to be some inheritance than so be it... but it ain't my driver in buying a home.

It's long term security and some element of control over the costs with the freedom to make my home a "home" with nobody telling me where i can and can't hang a bloody picture frame!

The current rental system in Ireland can not provide these two basic things: security and repayment certainty.

Ok you can argue that a mortgage can increase due to lending rates hikes... this is true but it's not at the whim of a landlord.

ted1

donkeyoaty0099 wrote: »

Give me a binding 10-20 year lease with predictable and capped rent increases and I'd be delighted to rent long term.

The banks would need to offer realistic an fixed APR to the landlord and the government would need to stop adding additional taxes and charges on to the land lord.
E.g in recent years they've added PRTB, LPT , USC, and no one is still sure of the water meter situation.

jon1981

ted1 wrote: »

Along with the ability to turf out tenants who are in arrears of only a short while.

Along with ability to get swift payments from tenants for damage and breach of contract. E.g Breaking leases.

I think the discussion is more about why people prefer to buy over rent, which is more the view point of the tenant as to how they see the rental market...

the challenges landlords have in respect to getting paid is a different discussion...no?

The_Conductor

jon1981 wrote: »

I think the discussion is more about why people prefer to buy over rent, which is more the view point of the tenant as to how they see the rental market...

the challenges landlords have in respect to getting paid is a different discussion...no?

It may be a different discussion- however, if the legislation is being amended- all outstanding deficiencies in the 2004 Act- need to be addressed.

ted1

jon1981 wrote: »

I think the discussion is more about why people prefer to buy over rent, which is more the view point of the tenant as to how they see the rental market...

the challenges landlords have in respect to getting paid is a different discussion...no?

One poster highlighted the issue of renting is the inability to get long term fixed leases. I explained why landlords are reluctant to offer them

jon1981

ted1 wrote: »

One poster highlighted the issue of renting is the inability to get long term fixed leases. I explained why landlords are reluctant to offer them

Is it the landlord's reluctance? OR the flexibility to change the rent or sell the house?

Also I would be interested to see the number of "forced landlords" vs "career landlord" and their opinions on that

Sleepy

I think the greatest motivation to buy is security, other factors imo would be the freedom to decorate/renovate as one sees fit, the likelihood of your mortgage payment being reduced by inflation over it's lifetime versus the certainty of rent increases in the same duration (as benefited the generation who bought in the 80's to a massive extent) and the security of knowing that should your pension fail etc. you'll always at least have a roof over your head once the mortgage has been cleared.

KomradeBishop

There is absolutely no reason why we can't have a reformed housing market and banking regulatory system, with affordable housing and expanding public transport to service areas better for expanding housing, and without the banks/financial industry turning housing into a gigantic speculative bubble again - keeping prices affordable instead.

So, we should only be content with renting being the only option, if we never want to see those problems fixed.

beauf

jon1981 wrote: »

...Ok you can argue that a mortgage can increase due to lending rates hikes... this is true but it's not at the whim of a landlord.

Its at the whim of a bank.

http://utv.ie/Blogs/2015/04/13/Real-Money-Why-are-variable-rate-customers-paying-so-much-35366

A LL is constrained to one increase a year to market rates.

However the market is manipulated by govt policy, or lack of policy.

NewDirection

That is one of the worst articles I've come across on the independent. Reeks of a mix of bitterness and smugness, especially this line:

it seems that us house-less ones are the smart ones. The view from the property ladder isn't so great right now.

The statistics she uses are just staggering, especially how she derives her own conclusions from survey results that just don't add up.

28pc of them said that, actually, renting sort of suits their lifestyle

28% of renters say that renting sort of suits their lifestyle, mean 62% of renter said that renting does not suit their life style. This would tally with the other figure of 54% who want to own their own home at some stage.
But we are clearly moving away from the idea of owning?

Even owning the latest album of your favourite band feels a lot less appealing when you can stream it immediately on and offline with a Spotify pro membership

Can someone explain to me what point she's even trying to make here??

I've stopped thinking about buying a house at all, not only because it would be financially impossible for me to buy the kind of place I would like to live in, but because I'm just not sure I care about owning my own home at all any more. Renting allows me to live in an area that I really like, but definitely couldn't afford to buy into.

I'd argue, she probably can't really afford to rent in the place she lives. Granted she's making her rent payments, but you really should have something left over either to put towards a house later in life, or towards pension contributions to pay for her rent after she retires.

Naturally there are downsides to being an eternal renter, but I'm hoping for a sensible future government which will introduce mild rent regulation of the sort that works so well in Germany.

Well that seems like a good plan for future financial planning. There I was putting money into a pension when I should have been wishing on future governments to sort me out.

It's similar in France, where one in five people rent and long leases are available, with rent caps available in some areas.

So 20% of people in France rent whereas 30.3% of households in Ireland rent according to her figures. And that's one of her examples as these rental heavy countries on the continent.

The new rules - where first-time buyers and those trading up are only able to borrow up to 3.5 times their salary, and the latter category also need a deposit of 20pc to get a mortgage - hinder that.

Sensible rules, to encourage sensible borrowing and less likelihood of the negative equity you keep speaking of in the article.

Besides the house is never really yours.
It mostly belongs to the bank.

wow

beauf

Sleepy wrote: »

I think the greatest motivation to buy is security, other factors imo would be the freedom to decorate/renovate as one sees fit, the likelihood of your mortgage payment being reduced by inflation over it's lifetime versus the certainty of rent increases in the same duration (as benefited the generation who bought in the 80's to a massive extent) and the security of knowing that should your pension fail etc. you'll always at least have a roof over your head once the mortgage has been cleared.

If you look to Europe specifically Germany you have such thing as much larger deposits, unfurnished rentals which all you have to do as return as you got it. Completely empty and newly painted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation#Germany

Consider though, that if you think tenants have poor security, a LL has none and massive risk. There is a danger of making rental unviable for a lot of LLs, which would reduce the supply even further. So it needs more controls and protection on both sides.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

It reads like a first year media student piece. Its awfully written.

beauf

jon1981 wrote: »

I think the discussion is more about why people prefer to buy over rent, which is more the view point of the tenant as to how they see the rental market...

the challenges landlords have in respect to getting paid is a different discussion...no?

Its the same discussion. How can it not be.

beauf

donkeyoaty0099 wrote: »

It reads like a first year media student piece. Its awfully written.

Its typical indo.

hopgog

handlemaster wrote: »

this opinion piece certainly makes sense for the renter brigade. why strap yourself down.

[independent.ie/opinion/comment/far-better-to-be-a-generation-of-renters-than-falling-victim-to-negative-equity-31144042.html[/url]

Not without rent control, I cannot see how renting as a OAP will be feasible.

handlemaster

hopgog wrote: »

Not without rent control, I cannot see how renting as a OAP will be feasible.

I don't think rent control is an overly bad proposal but when tenants are in a place for 20/30 years and paying pennies the Landlord is not going to be encouraged to carry out repairs etc as time goes buy the repairs costs continue to go up but rent remains the same. Also I think Landlords wouldn't mind taking lower rent if actual aggreed rent was guaranteed to be paid and the property was properly looked after by tenants.

witchgirl26

I think that, like others have said, the security aspect of buying is a big thing here. Because generally leases are only for 1 year, it's hard to really invest yourself into a place. Also you can decorate a bit by using curtains etc but you can't really change anything.

Personally when it comes to anything, I would prefer to be paying over my money to own something at the end of the day rather than paying a similar amount not to. I don't want a giant mansion anywhere at all but somewhere in an area I like that I can make my own.

Grandpa Hassan

witchgirl26 wrote: »

Personally when it comes to anything, I would prefer to be paying over my money to own something at the end of the day rather than paying a similar amount not to. I don't want a giant mansion anywhere at all but somewhere in an area I like that I can make my own.

That is the main reason.....to make somewhere your own. I'm in London now, and there is a large market for unfurnished places. Which by necessity would have longer leases. I rented unfurnished and have the place just how I like it. That unfurnished market doesn't seem to exist in Ireland, and needs to develop hand in hand with longer lease terms

donkeyoaty0099

donkeyoaty0099 wrote: »

Give me a binding 10-20 year lease with predictable and capped rent increases and I'd be delighted to rent long term.

There won't be many that would though. The main argument for renting over buying is for people who are not going to stay in a place long term hence why short term leases suit most. Why someone planing to stay in a place 10 or 20 years would want to sign up to a long term lease is beyond me. It's far from impossible to expect to have a mortgage fully or nearly paid off inside 20 years which makes renting for that long madness, especially considering the rent is almost definitely more than the repayment as this stand at the moment.

Milly33

Do you actually really own it in the end.. Like what happens when you can pay the rest of the mortgage or you die and your family member cant take over the payments... Before granted fine but there are too many rules and regulations about what you can and cannot do in this day and age.

I don't get why people are in such a rush to buy, fine it is great to be able to do what you want with a place but also you take on a lot more than that.. Think it is ruining young people today

hopgog

Maeve Tiny Jeans wrote: »

There won't be many that would though. The main argument for renting over buying is for people who are not going to stay in a place long term hence why short term leases suit most. Why someone planing to stay in a place 10 or 20 years would want to sign up to a long term lease is beyond me. It's far from impossible to expect to have a mortgage fully or nearly paid off inside 20 years which makes renting for that long madness, especially considering the rent is almost definitely more than the repayment as this stand at the moment.

They expect to break the lease if it suits them. To the renter the lease doesn't matter if they want to go.

beauf

handlemaster wrote: »

I don't think rent control is an overly bad proposal but when tenants are in a place for 20/30 years and paying pennies the Landlord is not going to be encouraged to carry out repairs etc as time goes buy the repairs costs continue to go up but rent remains the same. Also I think Landlords wouldn't mind taking lower rent if actual aggreed rent was guaranteed to be paid and the property was properly looked after by tenants.

No offence but its an idea with serious flaws.

A tenant is not qualified to carry out repairs. They may even cut costs and the LL has no idea what has been done to electrics, plumbing etc. They may even cause damage that the LL then has to fix to meet regulations, or for the next tenant. Damage that exceeds the deposit. They may not even have insurance if they get injured doing the work.

Something simple as painting can be done badly. What happens if a tenant paints over a varnished door in some mad colour that no other tenant wants. What if it starts peeling after a few months because it wasn't done properly.

There will be disagreements about the value of such work, the tenant will over estimate, the LL under estimate. In short its not a normal LL/Tenant relationship and is fraught with difficulties for both parties.

Its hard to get qualified tradesmen to do a job properly never mind an amateur.

hopgog

Milly33 wrote: »

Do you actually really own it in the end.. Like what happens when you can pay the rest of the mortgage or you die and your family member cant take over the payments... Before granted fine but there are too many rules and regulations about what you can and cannot do in this day and age.

I don't get why people are in such a rush to buy, fine it is great to be able to do what you want with a place but also you take on a lot more than that.. Think it is ruining young people today

You have to take life insurance to cover the house value if you die, your next of kin get the house if you pass. If you can't pay the rest of the mortgage you can leave if it's half way through you won't be in neg equity so it's like you have rented but might get some money back. If in neg equity bankrupt and it's justlike you rented for those years

beauf

Even if you inherit a place you may not be able to afford the up keep, or pay the taxes without selling it. People will start to move way from large properties (and mortgages) that attract crippling taxes and costs.

How many people with pyrite issues, or flooding, or Priory hall or simply bad building standards wish they were renting so they could move away from the problem and not be robbed of their life savings because the govt does not protect them.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/victims-of-abysmal-building-practices-awarded-1-09m-1.1682551

Milly33

hopgog wrote: »

You have to take life insurance to cover the house value if you die, your next of kin get the house if you pass. If you can't pay the rest of the mortgage you can leave if it's half way through you won't be in neg equity so it's like you have rented but might get some money back. If in neg equity bankrupt and it's justlike you rented for those years

Still crap though in fairness you are putting a lot of pressure on family if this is the case... Honestly speaking I think people who are adamant to buy haven't looked at the pros and cons or both first

beauf

Maeve Tiny Jeans wrote: »

.... It's far from impossible to expect to have a mortgage fully or nearly paid off inside 20 years which makes renting for that long madness, especially considering the rent is almost definitely more than the repayment as this stand at the moment.

That's ignoring a whole load of things like need to save the deposit, get approval for a mortgage, not have a change of circumstance over that time period.

The Spider

Nonsense article, reads like it was written by someone in their twenties, fact is inflation means that mortgage payments reduce over the long term, for example in 1995 I rented a room in a shared flat between two of us on the northside of Dublin for 250 a month that was 500 for the flat, that 500 is now the equivalant of 964 euros a month, however the mortgage repayments would have remained at 500 a month roughly half the cost of renting.

And that flat was the top of a house with no seperate door to the couple renting the downstairs flat, it was literally the upstairs of a house with a kitchen shoehorned in, an apartment was way out of our budget.

http://www.hargaden.com/enda/inflation/calculator.html

rent will go up over the long term, mortgage repayments will go down, (if only I'd had the sense in my early twenties to come to this conclusion).

Why does everyone bring Germany into it? The reasons Germans rent is because World War 2 demolished 20% of the housing stock, that sparked on a social housing boom to house a country that's currency was in tatters as well as it's property.

http://qz.com/167887/germany-has-one-of-the-worlds-lowest-homeownership-rates/

We are not Germany, it arrived at it's situation after over fifty years, read the above link, it has not and will not apply to Ireland unless there's a war that demolishes the country, it's a red herring every time someone points to what they do in Germany, it's arguable that they may have a better policy, but that policy was borne out of a country destroyed by war and inflation, really can't see how you'd apply that to Ireland.

Nucular Arms

Another thing i've considered about mortgages is that how many people, once they own the place stay in it for good?

Most people I would assume have several mortgages through their lives. They pay off one and then will rarely move to a cheaper home home than one they are currently in. The tendency would be to 'move up'.. It's called a property ladder for a reason.

And so no sooner have you paid off one house, or even still be in the middle of paying one off, when you decide to move to a bigger / nicer / more expensive place and just end up paying down more mortgage payments.

I often wonder how much different this is than renting.

Though I would concede that you probably end up with nicer homes in general if you are trading up the property ladder for long enough, or from a position of moderate wealth.

Milly33

With renting you see this would be possible... You can move up and you don't have to worry about things like the property tax, septic tank charge or this crap they came up with. A lot of rental properties pay for bins etc and they have to upkeep most of the appliance's its a win win

The Spider

Nucular Arms wrote: »

Another thing i've considered about mortgages is that how many people, once they own the place stay in it for good?

Most people I would assume have several mortgages through their lives. They pay off one and then will rarely move to a cheaper home home than one they are currently in. The tendency would be to 'move up'.. It's called a property ladder for a reason.

And so no sooner have you paid off one house, or even still be in the middle of paying one off, when you decide to move to a bigger / nicer / more expensive place and just end up paying down more mortgage payments.

I often wonder how much different this is than renting.

Though I would concede that you probably end up with nicer homes in general if you are trading up the property ladder for long enough, or from a position of moderate wealth.

It's called equity, if you sell the house for more than the price you bought it then the difference can be used to make a bigger down payment on the next property, so you own more of the next house you buy and if you're downsizing you may own the entire property, granted this only works in a couple of scenarios, house prices rising and being prepared in all likelihood to move further out.

witchgirl26

Grandpa Hassan wrote: »

That is the main reason.....to make somewhere your own. I'm in London now, and there is a large market for unfurnished places. Which by necessity would have longer leases. I rented unfurnished and have the place just how I like it. That unfurnished market doesn't seem to exist in Ireland, and needs to develop hand in hand with longer lease terms

If there were unfurnished places with long term leases, I would consider renting for longer. Yes ultimately I'd want to still own my own place but might put it off a bit & save more.

Milly33 wrote: »

Do you actually really own it in the end.. Like what happens when you can pay the rest of the mortgage or you die and your family member cant take over the payments... Before granted fine but there are too many rules and regulations about what you can and cannot do in this day and age.

I don't get why people are in such a rush to buy, fine it is great to be able to do what you want with a place but also you take on a lot more than that.. Think it is ruining young people today

I know my mam owns her house outright now & she's only in her early 60's. It means she feels secure as she's on a pension & doesn't have to worry about rental costs increasing or where she'll live. Also means she has an asset she can sell without liens should she need to cover nursing home fees. For her it's not about passing it on to any of her children but more security for her future.

As for trading up - the way I understand it can work (excluding negative equity issues currently), is that it's almost a transfer of the mortgage from one property to another. Therefore you really only take out one mortgage but the payments may increase a little if you increase the size of your property by moving to a larger one. I know that's what my parents did.

I don't think it's ruining young people today at all. I think with the boom, it was forgotten to a degree just what a commitment it is to own a house. Our attitudes just have to change a bit & see it as a commitment and investment rather than something we have to do. And understand that jumping on the property ladder with a 1 bed flat might not be the smartest plan. The need to think further ahead & go "if I did get stuck here for 15 years before I could sell, would it work".

hopgog

Nucular Arms wrote: »

Another thing i've considered about mortgages is that how many people, once they own the place stay in it for good?

Most people I would assume have several mortgages through their lives. They pay off one and then will rarely move to a cheaper home home than one they are currently in. The tendency would be to 'move up'.. It's called a property ladder for a reason.

And so no sooner have you paid off one house, or even still be in the middle of paying one off, when you decide to move to a bigger / nicer / more expensive place and just end up paying down more mortgage payments.

I often wonder how much different this is than renting.

Though I would concede that you probably end up with nicer homes in general if you are trading up the property ladder for long enough, or from a position of moderate wealth.

As long as you mortgage free by retirement it's all good. But I like small houses so am not planning to extend my mortgage.

Nucular Arms

The Spider wrote: »

It's called equity, if you sell the house for more than the price you bought it then the difference can be used to make a bigger down payment on the next property, so you own more of the next house you buy and if you're downsizing you may own the entire property, granted this only works in a couple of scenarios, house prices rising and being prepared in all likelihood to move further out.

I get that alright, but I just meant in terms of the actual 'ownership' of the home being the main thing people will claim is attractive about buying over renting, when it seems to to me that in a large majority of cases people never actually finsih paying off mortgages due to constantly using the equity to pump straight into a bigger mortgage.

I totally agree that it's cheaper etc. I just wonder about some peoples reasons or how they view it as different if you're still spending your life paying monthly for accomodation. (in a lot of cases)

The Spider

witchgirl26 wrote: »

And understand that jumping on the property ladder with a 1 bed flat might not be the smartest plan. The need to think further ahead & go "if I did get stuck here for 15 years before I could sell, would it work".

Agree with this, a lot of people bought these without thinking about the future. However location is key in a purchase like this, fo instance a 1 bed apartment close to Stephens Green wouldn't be a bad purchase, a one bed apartment in Jobstown would be ill advised.

ABC101

I think there are plus points and minus points to both sides of the coin.

However... I don't trust the Govt with the economy, or management of most public services.

IMO... it is only a matter of time before the economy gets thrown off the cliff again.

It could be 15 years time... however if you are renting, and well qualified... with a number of languages.... when the economy tanks... you can just up sticks and get out / emigrate.

I know of two young doctors.... who deliberately rented and last year emigrated to Ozz.

In addition conditions of employment appear to have changed, gone are the days of defined benefit pensions, jobs for life, Globalisation of the workforce etc etc.

There is a lot more uncertainity in life these days.

So perhaps.... leaving your options open is better than putting down roots? Although I accept leaving your extended family behind is easier said than done.

Whlie renting is not cheap in Dublin... it is still possible to rent a 3 bed semi for 700 / month in rural areas.

As a tenent... certain costs have to be provided by the land lord... service charges for apartments, property taxes, repairs to furniture, replacement of certain items i.e. washing machines etc.

I'm surprised that the Govt has not decided to impose benefit in kind taxes on tenents... and get Revenue to enforce it.

However I would be very critical of the Labour party, by shutting down bedsits... it forced something like 10,000 units to close... which put a lot of pressure on the rental market... which drove up rents for everybody. Then cutting rent allowance. FF who implemented taxation on a loss for private landlords... who are trying to get out of the market. This leaves the provision of rental property to larger corporations... who have more favourable taxation treatment by Revenue.

It also leaves the tenent.... at the mercy to foreign Boards of Management of these Corporations, who decide income has to be increase as the shareholders are demanding a better dividend.

I think Karl Deeter had an article in the SBP recently about it.

hopgog

Nucular Arms wrote: »

I get that alright, but I just meant in terms of the actual 'ownership' of the home being the main thing people will claim is attractive about buying over renting, when it seems to to me that in a large majority of cases people never actually finsih paying off mortgages due to constantly using the equity to pump straight into a bigger mortgage.

I totally agree that it's cheaper etc. I just wonder about some peoples reasons or how they view it as different if you're still spending your life paying monthly for accomodation. (in a lot of cases)

You are not going to get a mortgage that goes past 68, so they all are meant to finish then. As you become an OAP you will own outright your house and there is a huge security in have at least a roof over your head without having to pay rents that might increase forcing you out of your support area when you are most vulnerable

Nucular Arms

witchgirl26 wrote: »

I don't think it's ruining young people today at all. I think with the boom, it was forgotten to a degree just what a commitment it is to own a house. Our attitudes just have to change a bit & see it as a commitment and investment rather than something we have to do. And understand that jumping on the property ladder with a 1 bed flat might not be the smartest plan. The need to think further ahead & go "if I did get stuck here for 15 years before I could sell, would it work".

Agree completely. My brother was looking at buying some tiny ****hole recently and I asked him why he would want to live there. He looked at me like I had two heads and said it would just be an investment, you'd probably rent it out..

To my mind one of the only reasons you would buy a house is if you found somewhere you genuinely loved and intended staying in for the rest of your life.

witchgirl26

ABC101 wrote: »

I think there are plus points and minus points to both sides of the coin.

However... I don't trust the Govt with the economy, or management of most public services.

IMO... it is only a matter of time before the economy gets thrown off the cliff again.

It could be 15 years time... however if you are renting, and well qualified... with a number of languages.... when the economy tanks... you can just up sticks and get out / emigrate.

But that is the nature of economies world wide throughout the ages & can't be solely blamed on governments. The economy is a cyclical thing & what goes up will go back down. Now there are times it crashes harder than others but why live your life in sole preperation for the next economic downturn? Coz it is coming, I agree with that but I'm not putting my life on hold for it.