Collaborative Post
As you may already know, Steve and I have rented together for 11 years now, one year into our relationship. We’ve talked about buying many times but something has always got in the way – either our credit scores aren’t quite good enough or we didn’t have a decent enough deposit. Right now we have good credit scores and a decent deposit but Steve is currently studying full time and I am self employed. However, in the next few months, Steve will be qualified and should be able to go into full time employment in a well paid – much better paid than he’s ever had before. So buying has come up once again.
The problem is knowing what we can afford. We love the county we live in but I’m not going to lie, the prices are extortionate. Even the place we are renting at the moment is taking so much money out of our pocket and we aren’t even in the village we used to live in anymore. We hope to be able to move back there as soon as possible – especially as family are there and the kids go to school there – but should we rent or buy?
We’ve been looking at websites like Rightmove and their rental trackers and sold house prices to get a good idea of the best areas and the money we would need. I’ve also been using different resources such as the Citizens Advice website and this mortgage calculator from Mortgage Calculator UK to work out what we can realistically afford. With us not moving for at least another six months due to being tied into a contract, this gives us some time to add to our deposit – and of course, Steve to sort out his employment.
But if we do get back into the village we want to, we need to decide whether we should rent or buy. For now, either would do me as we would like to remain there and sometimes rentals come up more often than properties to buy. However if the right property came up to purchase, then of course we would look into that!
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Here are some pros and cons for each:
Renting –
PROS – Can give us more time to save for a deposit, no commitment apart from an initial contract, can give us time to find the perfect property
CONS – Throwing money down the drain on renting which could be spent on our own property, won’t be our perfect property, can be expensive
Buying –
PROS – Our own property, can do what we want with it, can have exactly what we want from it – after all, we have specific wants from a property, can utilise Help To Buy, should get a good deal based on our finances
CONS – Can be tough to get a mortgage in the area we want for a decent price, can be expensive
There are far more pros and less cons to buying a property so this is definitely something we will be looking into in the next few months once everything we know that is coming has happened. We will of course be looking into Help To Buy as first time buyers and looking into other things to make the house buying process easier.
So the answer to should we rent or should we buy is definitely buy – but for us, this will have to be in a few months when we are in a better position to do so!
Do you rent or have you bought a property?