(on travel and forgot to bring my spreadsheets to crunch the new sales numbers!! argh...)
While many bubble bloggers are proud renters, I want to take a minute to highlight some of the downsides for those of us “waiting it out.” I certainly don’t consider these insignificant, and can see how they might push the pendulum, which is clearly in favor of renting, back toward a more neutral ground.
1) Neighbors who own nearby often treat you like a second class citizen (this might be worse for us since we live in El Dorado Hills).
2) Re-establishing relationships with local services. If you move too far away when you buy (or rent another place), you may have to find a new hairstylist, doctor, pediatrician, mechanic, daycare, babysitter, church. For those with school age children this is especially difficult. This is no small chore since quite a bit of leg work goes into finding places you like and meet your standards. Your location can even affect how often you see different friends (depending on their relative distance).
3) Anti-Nesting. The female nesting instinct is thwarted by renting. In our current rental we don’t have a single wall hanging up, because the walls are textured and would be difficult to putty when we leave. The rental is rather impersonal as I do not want to purchase décor items for this house that may not get used in our next place. While I am not exactly one for doilies, and flowered wall paper, I still yearn to to add some personal touches. I am sick of unobtrusive rental colors like beige!
And for the record....I don't necessarily consider myself a renting bubble doom and gloomer.....I am more of a pro-affordability advocate.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
8 comments:
The not being able to nest thing is killing me! I am convinced that "builders beige" walls will result in mental illness if you are exposed to them over a long period of time.
In my current rental, nothing is off-white anymore. I can prime and paint the entire place in a day so I treated myself to some great color. When I move, I buy a 5 gallon drum and cover it back up.
Fixing the plaster is easy. Just need a spackling, a decent float, and a steady hand. Even I can retexture the standard builders wall now.
Now none of the other problems effect since I'm only looking at rentals very close to where I work and I have no children.
Yes, you're right, renting does have downsides, which are difficult to quantify and plug into a spreadsheet. My wife and I owned for 12 years and are now "watching and waiting" from a rented house. She definitely has more of the nesting instinct, but there are things I miss about being in my own place:
Small repairs that are needed go undone. I won't do them - it's not my place and not my problem - but it's annoying to have to look at them every day. Likewise we tolerate ugly lighting fixtures, cheap appliances and hardware. if this were my house, I would upgrade these things.
I do without my "shop," that is, setting up my tools and machines, because it's not worth the trouble if I might be taking it all down in 6 months. We've left a lot of our belongings in storage, because we can get along without them, and don't want to have to repack them when we move again.
I don't feel like the neighbors shun us, they are really very nice; but everyone understands that we are not vested. This leaves us out of neighborhood politics (wait, that's a good thing!).
Also, we don't know when we might be asked to leave. Even inside the period of the lease, in some circumstances (like a foreclosure) we might have to be out in 30 days.
If we don't buy this year (and more or more that seems like the smarter option) we plan to at least console ourselves with a really nice rental next go-round . The idea is to suffer at little now to "buy" a lot of security/prosperity later now. Delayed gratification.
We still have boxes that are unpacked in the den (which we use as the computer room, and in which we spend most of our time) and the garage.
An argument could be made that anything you haven't used in a year you probably don't really need -- but my SigOther doesn't see it that way.
I struggle with myself all the time to avoid getting stuff to decorate the house, because it may not work out in my own house when I buy.
There are very compelling reasons to own, vs. renting. I am relieved that I have the option of renting a very nice home, but I'd much rather have my own home.
Gia,
The little repairs comment and the shop hit home for me. I see stuff like that everyday and if it's small, we do it. Our current landlord is useless but that was why our rent was cheap. We're definately returning this property better then we found it.
As to the shop, we won't invest in power tools until we own. This drives me nuts! I love HGTV's shows that do room makeover for $1000 or less. I'm not happy unless I have a project.
We're currently looking for another rental and I now have two excellent candidates. Both are FBs who know they can't get out of their investments so they're renting them out. We can stay there for another 2 yrs or more easy.
Now that I think about it, one more downside to renting. Don't buy stuff you don't want to move.
I've been downsizing our life by selling on ebay and CL for about 2 yrs. We're now a 2 trip small uhaul family.
Gwynster-
Yes, we're living on about 2 Uhauls-worth ourselves (the furniture we rent from CORT). By the end of the summer, we will re-access, and if it looks like we'll still be renting well into 2008, we may move to a bigger nicer leased place and treat it more like our home (and unpack more of our stuff). It's an option (and isn't it NICE to have options!).
Speaking of decorating, there is a place called Consign-it on Folsom Blvd. between Sunrise and Hazel. They've got all sorts of higher-end stuff and most of it is reasonably priced. They also sell furnishings from model homes. They're a lot cheaper than the consignment place on Bidwell, near the Lowes.
OK, hold it right there.
You're all busted for letting illogical nesting instincts play a part in the purchase vs rent decision.
I'm telling on you!
Sippn.
"And for the record....I don't necessarily consider myself a renting bubble doom and gloomer.....I am more of a pro-affordability advocate."
There is a lot of effort put into framing renters as "doom and gloomers". I could care less about doom and gloom or whatever else, but I do care about affordability based on traditional measures. The thing is, if you believe in traditional affordability or waiting for it to come back around, you're a doom and gloomer by the measurement of people who think everything is normal right now. Of course, it's not normal, but I don't really care what I'm labeled.
Post a Comment