I have said it before, but I think we are a nation of people obsessed with homes. There are so many property programmes on the television. We like to renovate and decorate and it seems we are forever wondering if people are owning a home or are renting it. Whenever we meet new people, somehow the conversation always comes up; are you renting?
We are in quite a lucky position in that we own our home. There are many great things about owning a home. We can decorate as we please, knock through walls and put as many pictures up as we would like. We renovated the whole of our house when we moved in. Lots of blood, sweat and tears; literally! The biggest benefit of home ownership, though, is that the home is yours. You are paying for a home and you are investing in it. At the end of the day, it is yours and if you needed to, you could sell it, take the money and run.
One thing that the husband is good and doing is checking up on property prices. As a northerner in the south, I can’t quite believe it sometimes. The Southeast and London prices are rather ridiculous, buying or renting! But that is one of the benefits too; the price might increase and then you can use the equity to move to a bigger home. Or cash in, downsize and live rather comfortably. There is more about buying a house over at www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk.
There are of course a few downsides to home ownership, so you need to weigh up the good and the bad. The biggest bane of my life is when things go wrong. If there is a leak or something gets damaged, you are the ones that need to pay and sort it. You can’t just call a landlord. In the storms over the Easter weekend, we have had our garden fence damaged. In the small print of our home insurance, it says that storm damage to fences isn’t included. So it is such a pest having to arrange time and money to sort this all out. We once had a massive leak in our kitchen and needed to call out a plumber. All at our own cost. Something like that can’t be left, though, as water damage can cause a lot of problems later on if it is left. There is more about water damage at www.elitewaterdamage.com. All things to be considered when you want to buy a home. So it is something that you do have to look into and make sure that you can afford it all.
You should also bear in mind that you can’t always just sell up. It depends on where you live and what the market is doing at the time. So don’t go into home ownership with the attitude that you can just sell up ‘whenever’. Annoyingly, it isn’t always that simple.
Do you buy or rent? I know a few people that are happy renting. For some, depending on jobs and contracts, that works well.
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