Strewth.
I paid off my mortgage with no pain in 20 years and now I own a house.
All the pleasures of true home ownership!
Both as a long time renter and now as someone who does some dwelling rehab I’m going to second this - you can’t assume a condo is better built, better insulated, or better soundproofed than a rental. I’ve seen utter crap construction for both rentals and condos, and really good construction for both rental and condos. No guarantees on which is better maintained, either.
Again, as a long time renter I have not had a problem doing this sort of thing, particularly if you’re moving within the same building to a unit that costs more per month, but if you’ve been a good tenant and the landlord can accommodate you this is entirely possible. They’d rather move a good tenant even to a cheaper unit than lose a good tenant.
I don’t want to get into the merits of renting vs buying here. (I’ve often thought of starting a thread, so if you want to, you’re welcome to.) I never said writing the rent check was fun, but there are signficant advantages to renting.
I am simply suggesting an alternative for the OP, and one that has worked tremendously well for me and made me very happy. I love renting my little house.
I appreciate you mentioning an alternative, since that’s helpful.
However you came across as an **extreme advocate **of renting:
The massive advantage of buying a house is that you not only get a return on your money (unlike renting), but that you own an asset that will appreciate in the long run.
My parents turned £2,500 ($3,700) into £250,000 ($370,000) in 50 years simply by buying.
My super house cost £60,000 ($89,000) 20 years ago. Even after the recent house value drops it’s worth about £180,000 ($267,000). And the mortgage wasn’t much more than renting.
Maybe. What’s the guarantee?
I admit I am a extreme advocate of renting. Buying a house has been shoved down my throat so many times by nearly everybody…but I don’t see home-owners as being substantially happier or more content than me. People often look down on renting as being immature, or unnecessary, and buying a house as the mature option. Which is not true. The mature option is to look totally honestly at your finances and where you want to be in 20 years and decide what is best for you. Myself, renting is best.
Me too, and that includes a few people that got absolutely soaked. My brother lost a ton on his upstate NY house.
I know it’s comparing apples to really expensive apples, but what do you pay for your house? My microscopic apartment is $910, and I consider that an excellent deal.
That’s not a pen!
I don’t know how anyone lives in an apartment. I like to make noise whenever I want whether it be 8:00 at night or 3AM. When I want quiet I don’t want that intruded on by other people. And all the cooking smells, crazy neighbors, there’s just no appeal there.
I’m not sure what this means. Has **Anaamika **been seen picketing mortgage lenders, or blocking sidewalk access to realtors, or begging her legislator to “Think of the children held hostage to mortgages!!11!” or something?
An excellent point has been made that the neighbors in a communal building are not less likely to be bothered by Quasi’s treadmill just because the units are owned and not rented. If Quasi is more concerned with privacy and autonomy than with ownership, renting a house makes more sense than buying a condo.
Home ownership is completely unappealing to me. It’s not that I don’t **understand **the benefits, it’s just that they aren’t worth it to me. I prefer being able to call the landlord when the furnace dies, or pick up and move to Key West on a whim. Clearly, these things are NOT preferable to many people, and they choose home ownership. I would never presume that they’re just too stupid to get it.
A condo is no less private a noise-free than an apartment, as has been pointed out – and it’s far easier to break a lease than sell a noisy condo.
You made me laugh. Thanks. 
To be honest, I don’t even think I mention it that much on the boards.
I am also not a fan of buying. I’m only 33 years old. I may not want to live in the Albany area all my life… I may want to move somewhere warmer. And yet I get most of the benefits of home ownership - a garden, a house to myself, ability to make noise. It’s a great alternative, renting a house, and I wish more people would consider it - both the renters and the rentees.
Sure, I’ll tell you, but I don’t think you’re going to love me anymore. I rent a nice little two bedroom house in a nice neighborhood, with my own yard and a shed, for the princely sum of $800 a month + utilities.
Well, usually.
But you can buy an apartment in some places, like NY. And you can certainly rent a condo (I’m doing so right now);you rent it from the owner of the unit, rather than the owner of the building.
Part One - in this part of the world CONDO = lifestyle facilities such as pool, gym, bar-b-que pit etc that an apartment doesn’t have. Apartment is the dwelling only.
Part Two - I remember reading many years ago that financially renting is more sound than buying, the argument went something along the lines that the interest on the price of a house comes to more than the monthly rental if you invested the money.
I don’t buy into this - afterall if, as a landlord I was losing money by renting then why would I do it (excepting the expectation of capital gains)
My wife bought our house before we met for a little less than $150,000 the current value (around 13 years later) is circa $350,000 - our mortgage stands at a little less than $30,000. Current mortgage payments are handled by the tenant, we just top up by around $2,500 per year for rates (property tax) and insurance.
Our second house (an apartment) we paid $206,000 - current value is about $350,000 (less than five years later) so how is buying not a good thing?
OK, I believe you. I will also say that I have live in 3 different states in the US in apartments/rental units where those exact same amenities were available. Indeed, when I was a child my parents sought out apartments with those amenities precisely so we children would be able to use them.
As it happens, I have also lived in apartments that don’t have those.
Can I also add that my husband and I were both playing bagpipes at one point while living in a 40 unit apartment building? We were reasonable about practicing, spoke with near neighbors saying we were willing to negotiate practice times, and agreed to tolerate their noise and parties. We lived there 6 years while playing and no disputes or complaints. A lot of issues can be solved by being polite and adult.
Whether to buy or rent really does depend on one’s personal situation. Absolutely buying makes sense for a lot of people. Renting makes sense to another bunch of people. Personally, I don’t care which you do, I just hope you do it with some intelligent thought.
As a transplanted Northerner to the American South, I got a ground-floor apartment – a “terrace apartment” where you can walk out sliders to a garden at the back, but it’s half a story underground at the front and you walk down seven steps to the front door. Now I have bugs from the garden and a flooded bedroom. Literally, right this minute, one of the two bedrooms has soaking wet carpet from all the rain. And it happens to be the bedroom I live in, so I guess I’ll be sleeping in the guest room tonight.
I had never so much as seen a cockroach until I moved into this allegedly “luxury” complex; now, due to throwing a series of escalating hissy fits in the rental office, they spray my apartment for them every other week. (They had trouble grasping that, for this Yankee girl, any amount of roaches, living or dead, in any location in the apartment, was unacceptable.) And this is the second time in a not-particularly-wet winter that the bedroom has been flooded.
I will NEVER live in a ground-floor apartment (condo, townhome) again, at least not in this climate. If you’re anywhere South of the Mason-Dixon Line, I suggest you reconsider that as your solution.
Me, I’m going to have a final talk with my rental company. As much as I hate the thought of packing up again, if they don’t relocate me to another unit in the complex, I think I’m breaking my lease and leaving. And then I’m suing them for the cost and inconvenience. “Luxury complex,” my ass.
To me, being told that my rent is being jacked up by yet another 10% is not fun.
But to each, his or her own I suppose.
I live close to Quasi - that’s exactly what’s happening here. There’s a rental crisis because everyone is turning their apartments into condos. There’s a less than 1% vacancy rate in my city. Everyone is just cashing in on a boom here.
Now, the market is expected to stabilize in the next few years, so renting is a good idea right now because we can get a better deal later. But my rent is going up faster than my income!
Most apartments I’ve lived in have those amenities.
What part of the world? Does your current worth include the recent collapse in prices? i.e., if you had to sell today, you could get that much for it?
That’s true in the US. But lots of condos are rented out, and it’s not uncommon for apartments to convert to condos without a whole lot of improvement. Maybe some upgrades to the appliances and plumbing fixtures, but improved insulation between floors? Not likely.
Man, there is a lot more to owning a house than paying the mortgage. For some, even most, it can be a good idea, but I’m with Anaamika. I rent my house and I’m happy to do so.
Besides, I live in the Bay Area, and ownership of a house I’d want to own would cost the earth. Which I ain’t got.