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