Buying or Renting Property | Guest Post from Anca at Anca’s Lifestyle

Hi. I would like to thank Rebecca for giving me the opportunity to share with you my thoughts about buying or renting a property. My name is Anca and I am an expat living for the last 4 years and a half in the UK. I wanted to keep in touch with friends and family and this is how www.ancaslifestyle.co.uk started.

I have experience both in renting and owning a property. In the last 10 years I’ve rented then got into home ownership, moved back to rented accommodation before buying a house 1 year and a half ago. There are good and bad aspects with every option.

buy-or-rent

Moving

Deciding to move to another city or even in the same city, in another neighbourhood is so much easier when you are renting. While moving can be quite stressful, if you plan to change your job in a couple of years, a rented property is a better option. Unless you live in a very sought-out location, selling a property can take up to a year or even more. Also, if you don’t get along with your neighbours, it’s an additional headache.

Home decoration

It is obvious that home ownership allows you to decorate as you like. Even though having a bold colour scheme or changing the house layout can sound like a good idea, if you want to sell, you need to make the home appealing for future buyers. Of course, some buyers would love a low maintenance garden while others are looking for lots of grass and plants to be an appropriate outside space for the kids or dogs.

In a rented property, painting the walls bright green means you’ll have to paint them again in neutral before leaving or you might lose the deposit. You can’t change the kitchen cabinets or the garden and so on.

Money

It’s better to give your hard-earned cash a mortgage because in a “few” years the house will be yours. But, at the same, so many other expenses arise from home ownership, like insurance and very expensive repairs. As a home owner, if you get a 20-25 years mortgage, it’s likely you will have to change the boiler, fix some pipes and repair a leaky roof before you end up paying for it.

In the end, I can say that as life changes, buying and renting are more or less attractive. But it’s good to keep in mind all the aspects before committing to one or another.

Do you want to buy or rent?

~ Anca

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