NO!!, The “bad credit” thing with a house is mostly MYTH.
At least I found out it was in my case.
Lemme tell you my little story - the Reader’s Digest version, anyway.
I rented for years and years and years. I loved it, honestly, for a long time. It was great to have no ties, no real responsibilities, etc with regard to repairs, maintenance and so on. I just wrote a check once a month and all was right with the world. Somebody else took care of pretty much everything.
I also had AWFUL credit. In fact, I’ve spent the last ten years working my way out of a series of very bad situations that befell my credit due to job loss, etc. in the mid eighties. I figured that owning a home wasn’t going to be even THINKABLE with the credit I had - after all, I couldn’t get a car loan, I couldn’t even get a credit card that wasn’t secured by $2500 in the bank!
So, when I went shopping for a mortgage, I did it almost more on a “curiosity whim” than anything. I knew I there was no way any bank or mortgage company would have me.
Boy, was I wrong. What I discovered was that lenders understand that most people will pretty much allow themselves to STARVE rather than risk the roof over their heads. People can do without a car, they can get by with cash when they have no credit cards, and so forth. But most people, once in a home, will do pretty much anything they have to do to make sure that mortgage gets paid on time. The lenders know this.
My mortgage was the EASIEST credit I ever got! To drive the point home, after I bought my house, my credit was still in recovery, and even though I was a homeowner, I still had a hugely hard time getting a credit card, car loan, etc. for a couple of years.
I will NEVER go back to renting ever again. I have a nice house that I own and can do with anything I wish. I’ve never had so much fun painting walls and hanging pictures. I’ve discovered that I actually like yard work (although I do hire someone to come cut the grass and do similar chores.) Jeez, I BUILT A GARAGE!! Most of all, I’m not beholden to some slimey landlord or management company that keeps upping the rent every year. My mortgage payment is the same today (excepting the property taxes) as it was five years ago and it’ll actaully be LOWER before the end of the summer as I complete refinancing at a lower interest rate.
Here’s the way I look at it in the end. By renting, I was paying my landlord for the privelage of living under his roof. The rent would go up every year, the rent would have never ended and I had no equity in the property - an imporant thing when you want to have a little extra cash to travel to England on short notice, for instance. I had no tax relief, etc. etc. etc.
By owning, I live by my rules, I have a stable housing cost that, over time, actually becomes a much SMALLER percentange of my monthly expenses and I get a nice little write-off every April 15th on tax day - for BOTH the mortgage interest AND the property taxes! Eventually, there will be no more mortgage and my annual expenses for a house will be property taxes and maintenance only.
I was a staunch “rent-til-you-die” dude before. Now I no longer see any value in renting at all, unless, like others have said, you move frequently. If that’s the case, then you really are better off renting - but that’s about the only case that I can see where it makes much sense.
