Buy or rent?

Hubby and I have just sold the house we were building (well thats presuming it confirms so fingers crossed) but anyway now we are trying to decide weather we should buy a house in todays market or just stay renting. There are so many pros and cons for both.

Renting: no insurance, rates, maintenence, lower weekly cost than mortgage. BUT its not ours, I worry about the kids or us spilling things and breaking things etc... hate having inspections every 3 months, feel like someone is critising my housekeeping etc.. just feels like an invasion of privacy and of course rent is dead money but the lower weekly payment means we get to do more things as a family and have a better lifestyle.

Buying: Its mine, everything I do to it will increase value therefor be a good investment for me. I dont have someone coming through every 3 months, i can do what I want to it when I want and its security for us and the kids. BUT its going to be almost double the weekly payment we are making now once you include insurance rates etc but then its money towards my mortgage not someone elses and we couldnt afford a flash house, just run of the mill 3 bedroom etc...

So what has everyone else done/thought about renting vs buying and why do I have it in my head its so important to own my own home?

Edited by my2angels

We rent and have no immediate intentions to buy.

Yes renting is dead money but for us to get into the house market now i would HAVE to go back to full time work. My pay would have been the mortgage payments even on a "cheap" place.

We decided that I would much rather be at home than always having to work to make ends meet.

Owning our home would be nice but i do count myself lucky that we have amazing landlords (what house inspections?? You want to do what to the place? Ok just let us know how much!!!Another cat....of course you can, awwww and ain't he a cutie???") Yeah they rock! Helps make our decision easier.

My personal choice is buying. Rent is dead money but if the kids are young and you have to go back to work to pay the mortgage it can be worth renting for awhile.

I also find when the kids are little (as opposed to when you were single and had a disposable income) you are happier to stay home and do without the extra's. When my daughter was little we spent lots of weekends home doing stuff around the house. Once this one arrives we'll buy something a bit bigger and do it all again.

When we sold up a year ago we considered renting vs buying a bigger place. We brought.

When we sat down and thought about it, yes it would be more money per week/fortnight however there will come a time when we will own the house outright. Yes it would be a long time away but it will be worth it in the end.

DH also liked the thought that if something ever happened to us that our kids would have something. The house could be sold or kept. It gave them options.

We also enjoy being able to do stuff to our house whereas in renting what would be the point?

we were very very lucky and bought just before the market went nuts back in '02.

We've got a fairly large bungalow (3 bedrooms + office) in an ok area, corner site, large garden etc and we only paid $212K

The place we were renting before that was on a par with the weekly repayments on the house so we cashed in and bought.

In our area the rental rates are so high you'd be nuts not to try to buy, but you have to be able to save that deposit

Also, we wanted somewhere secure to live, we went through 3 rentals in a year because the landlords wanted to sell up (should have mentioned that BEFORE we moved in! )

I can see the value in renting, especially if it gets you into a school zone that you couldn't afford to buy in, or if you will pay substantially less than your mortgage thus alowing you to stay home.

Personally we bought. We weren't prepared to pay more in rent to get a decent place (our rental was nicknamed the Pit of Despair), and while our mortgage is high, you could get a slightly nicer place for not too much more $$ in Auckland. At least this way the place is ours.

If you have a great landlord, then that is awesome - but you can also have sucky landlords.
Sorry - this is about as much help as a poke int he eye, I am sure! If it were me, i would do a PMI - pllus, minus and interesting (or a PMS, plus minus solutions to the minuses) for buying v. renting as you can personalise that to your exact situation. It's how I decded to come back to NZ rather than stay in the UK!

We rent as at the moment we just cannot afford to buy and we are happy renting because we can get other things like house appliances, furniture etc to put into our house which we will someday buy.

I work for a Mortgage Broker and will tell you what we are telling clients. If you have a house and are selling buy another one because if you get out the property market now you may not get back in. By the looks of things everything is just going to get more expensive. (Don't quote me on any of this ) Just what we tell our clients.

But at the end of the say it is personal choice. Do what you are happy doing.   

I second the idea of buying a house that needs new paint etc. We brought this place as it was very bland and everyone who came through the open home when we did said it was boring but that was fine because it lowered the price a little and with new curtains and repainting rooms it doesn't take long to make it look so much better and you get more money back in the end.

We also did this with our last place. Put in about $3,000 for decorating and made a hell of a lot more for it.

We sold two years ago, and are now renting. We are lucky in that our landlords have never increased our rent which is good considering the rents around our area have gone up so much in that time.

We are like Paws our landlords are amazing and let us do what we want and they pay for it within reason of course. I don't think we'll ever be able to afford to buy in the Auckland market again.. It is personal choice.

We own and are fortunate at the moment because if one of us was not working (ie when we are lucky enough to get pregnant ) then we are still able to cover the mortgage/rates etc... But things might change as we would love to have a lifestyle block (hopefully not too far from Auckland). We have friends who are renting a 10 acre block in West Auckland for only a tiny bit more than we pay on our mortgage.
I'm the same as everone else - personal choice and like Miss said already, there are pros and cons to both options.