To Buy or to Rent, that is the question!

By John Fisher

Think about the future, some good and sound reasons to make the choice.

In my opinion, if you are young, and want to move around the country, then rent, if you are older, in an established job with no reason to move then buy. Another good reason to buy, could be that you’re young, living at home with few expenses, then give up the pubs and clubs and buy anything. Get your mortgage paid by the rent. Seven years down the line you will have accumulated a load of equity.

Example: Buy a minimum ‘studio’ flat at Ł124,500, rent it out at just enough to cover your mortgage and expenses. Now seven years on it should be worth Ł249,000, re-mortgage the equity say Ł120,000, now in seven years time you have effectively created yourself a cool Ł17,142 a year for doing nothing. Then leave home, and look for that dream place of your own with the spare Ł120,000!!!

If you desire a trendy lifestyle, if you want the ‘fashion’, the ‘hi tech’ lifestyle then rent, long term it will be to your demise, but you are only twenty something for ten years, so you may want to make the best of it. You can always buy later, the sums are always the same, but unfortunately your day to day expenses will probably be at their peak.

If you choose to buy then your long term future is secure, if you can stand all the problems, if you can ‘do without a bathroom’, and live in a ‘building site’ for weeks then buy, if you want to find some real wealth in life then buy.

If you want to ‘break away from the herd’ then buy.
If you have no fears in life then buy.
If you are confident about life then buy.
If you have savings earning 4.5% interest then buy.
If there is any way you can do it, then buy.
If it is at all possible to do so then buy.
If you have none of the above reasons then buy anyway.
If you have aspirations to join ‘the property club’ and become a millionaire then buy.

However if you choose to work forty hours a week, and be busy all your life, fifty two weeks a year, rent a home and get nowhere financially, then that is your CHOICE so rent. If you wish to remain a pauper all your life then that is your CHOICE, what we all do in life are our CHOICES, it is not the choice of anyone else.

It may be knowledge and/or hard work that earns income, wheeling and dealing - buying and selling that makes money, or property investment that creates money, again your choice. Most choose the first, many supplement it with the second, apparently only about 5% of the population choose the third.

You will have problems, we all do, there is no way to avoid problems, but buying property should be the least of them, after all whatever else happens in life, you know that property will double in value every seven years, it always has, so it always will, at least for the past three hundred years, a pretty reliable indicator.

So however you buy, whatever the reason, do not make an excuse NOT to buy, if it means mortgaging yourself to the limit then ‘so what’, if it means borrowing more than you thought possible, well ‘so what’, why worry, borrowing is your income!