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> What's the difference between buying a house, and buying an annuity that pays the rent on that house? Security of tenure. In the UK, the advantage is also th
by soVeryTired 8y ago
> What's the difference between buying a house, and buying an annuity that pays the rent on that house?
Security of tenure. In the UK, the advantage is also the ability to repaint your walls, put up shelves, or install e.g. a functional, non-bottom-of-the-barrel shower without asking your landlord.
- esotericn 8y agoLiterally _the_ reason to buy a home. In London, with rare exception, you don't get to live in a nice place unless you buy it. There are some luxury developments with porters and whatnot for trust funders which are fitted well. (They're not necessarily unaffordable, but they're a waste; a labourer will save and buy instead). But generally, a privately rented flat is going to have multi-decade old everything, walls in the wrong place, crap carpets, bad or no storage, and just generally be suboptimal. Every flat I'd lived in as a renter I could have trivially made far better if I owned it. It's not a matter of permission; it's about ownership; no-one is spending five grand on doing up their landlord's kitchen; no-one's installing high end shelving or fitted wardrobes and taking them to the next place that's a different physical size in 8 months. Renting (as a majority thing rather than an option) is pernicious because it reduces investment in one's surroundings. It's not only internal stuff; you won't know your neighbours in six months, you don't care about the outside of the house or the lawn or whatever, etc.