After all this talk about buying houses

I have worked out how much us buying a house is really costing us this last 6 months versus renting.

So I took our bond payments for the last 5 months, plus our insurance rate increase (to cover the house itself too) and the rates and then subtracted the rent payments we would have made.

I didnt include water and those things as we had to pay that before as well. And we moved out so our petrol for the motorbike is a bit more but we are saving on other things and those things is more related to location.

And guess what. We are paying $501 more to have our own house. That is per month.

However our rent was a bit cheaper and never got an increase in rent ect. So if we take current rent price they are getting for it now it is only $300 a month extra.

That is it. I really expected it a bit more. However I didnt include things we are spending to make the house ours and no maintenance or repairs is included in the above.

Just some useless information for anyone that is bored and just reading every topic.

I don't even think about it, but our mortgage is really little compared to what people have to get into a first home now. We have fully renovated ie right from new gib ( don't recommend!!) Just painting to go but sorta run out of money!

But our house is ours & we can't get kicked out by anyone except the bank

Ours costs between $200-300 pm which is fab. Granted we are doing some minor alterations (new kitchen, french doors) but is a very liveable tidy bungalow on a decent section.

There's really no comparison if you have the means. They did a study recently (it aired on TV), with flatters, life-long renters and mortgage holders, no matter what way they looked at it, the mortgage holders came off better in the long run. Unfortunately, it's just so damn hard for people to get into the housing market in the first place

we are going to be worse off renting - our mortgage was less than any rent we will have to pay...

i hate the thought too that if anything goes wrong - like with mamanee and her sewerage problem - that you are at the mercy of someone else to fix it. And if the kids damage it then i have to pay - and that could cut into your bond!

Our mortgage maybe more than rent would be, however we now have an asset worth 350k plus that we only owe $170k on, in the last 4 years we have effectively saved 40k in reducing our original loan down from 210K.  There is no way we could ever imagine to have achieved that level by renting.

We are about to relocate to Akl and will be putting our house into property management, rent from tenants will cover the mortgage repayments. Effectively getting our mortgage paid for us for the next 3 years. 

In the end we figured we have to pay to live somewhere it may as well be our own home. No one can kick us out cause they want to sell the place, the only increase is when interest rates go up and we know when they're coming. 

By the time we return we'll have over 200k in equity we can use towards the purchase of our next property. There's a reason the richest people all have property investments. Cause they work.

We are paying about $200 more a month than we were renting. In saying that we were renting a 1 bedroom flat out the back of my parents so we could save up to buy.
I know if we were to rent I don't think we could ever find a house for a little as what we are paying in mortgage, rates and house insurance etc.
I was thinking just the other day that if we ever got really stuck for money we could just rent out our house and easily make more than what would cover payments and just move back to my parents flat.

The tricky thing is getting into the market, I know we were incredibly lucky to get in to the house we are in when we did.

Yes, very true... and don't expect to become a mogul overnight, because adding value to a house takes a lot of time and work, and usually quite a bit more money. But if you are patient, and you don't mind living in a dive for a wee while, property investment is the way to go!

Our costs are exactly double (buying instead of renting). Its pretty scary.

SMoody wrote: Ouch Azza. But at least in the end of the day it is yours. OUr landlord (also ex SA) told us that SA'cans apparently only settle really well if they get their own place even though it is so difficult to just get into the market. We wouldnt have been able to afford in Howick. It is just too expensive. Luckily both of us wanted to get out of the city as such.

Your landlord probably has a point... we are pretty dreadful about needing our own space.

It'd be different if we bought a cheaper place in a different area but we're pigheaded. Not sorry about it, we absolutely love our home... it just means that things are very tight financially.