I just saw this post about landlords being parasitic. While I agree in some points - mainly that by owning more property than you need for yourself, you’re driving up the price for others who want to buy a property. However, I don’t want to buy property when I move. I don’t have the funds for it, and I’m happy with a rented flat. Sure I want to get my own property at some point, however I’m also sure I want to move at least two more times in my life. Buying and selling each time sounds like a lot of hassle. Also, I live in a shared flat, that just sounds like a legal nightmare if the ownership changed every time someone moved out. How does this fit together? Are there solutions to this that don’t require landlords to exist?
There are many reasons why renting is better for some people and buying is better for others.
Renting gives you the flexibility to just up sticks and leave at a known notice period. You don’t have to worry about the boiler breaking, or mould/damp, or the roof coming off (or like I’m about to have to deal with, a fence panel getting blown away in a storm) because your contact with the landlord says they’ll fix that for you.
There should absolutely be that choice available.
The problem, at least in the UK and probably elsewhere, is that renting is just SO expensive that it’s not possible to rent and save money, meaning that if your goal is to buy, you can’t because you can’t raise the deposit, even if paying a mortgage on a similar sized property would actually be cheaper on a monthly basis.
Sure, you read stories about people who are wonderful landlords, they don’t raise rents, or at least, by less than market rates, they’re quick to fix any problems the tenants have, all that good stuff.
Equally, you read stories about people who are basically renting from Satan and all the things I mentioned above take months or years to get fixed, if ever. (Slumlords are definitely people who should be put up against the wall and shot come the revolution)
I’m assuming the vast majority are somewhere in the middle.
But the fact that you’ll probably rent for at least some of your life shouldn’t drain all your money into someone else’s mortgage. As I said in that other post, housing of some form should be a basic human right. And the fact that individuals or companies can buy many houses and leave them empty because they can afford to have rents set so high that most people can’t afford them? That’s just wrong.