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Discussions about correlation vs causation aside I would say that I would not find such a relationship to be surprising. Having grown up in socially rented hou

Discussions about correlation vs causation aside I would say that I would not find such a relationship to be surprising. Having grown up in socially rented housing (i.e. "council housing") and then lived in private rents as an adult, I suspect the biggest factor here is security of tenure. You have a different outlook on life when your tenancy might well not be renewed in 12 months, depending on the whims of your landlord. Medium term investments like DIY or redecorating are just not something worth undertaking if you might not be there in a few months. And that's even assuming you're allowed to. Imagine needing to get someone's permission to repaint an internal door or (in some extreme cases) hang a picture on a wall. That's without touching on the performance/behaviour of small private landlords which I think it's fair to categorise as "uneven".

jwells89 3y ago
Potential price hikes are also a factor. Back when I was still renting, even though I had more than enough income to cover increases, I'd feel immense stress every time the months leading up to lease renewal rolled around. Keeping housing costs below a certain threshold is a critical part of being able to stick away some cash for a rainy day or even having anything left over, and accomplishing this usually meant moving every few years, which meant periodically returning once again to the grueling search for something with vaguely not-horrible value for the price, which is exacerbated if you're anything but a perfect model renter who doesn't have pets or kids — even making substantial use of the kitchen is prohibited in some rentals. A lot of landlords seem to want tenants who only ever come home to sleep and are otherwise ghosts. Ever since I bought a house a couple of years ago, mental bandwidth I'd lost to this stress has been coming back to me. Housing costs being essentially fixed in perpetuity and there being no possibility of being forced to move has done wonders for cutting down on stress and anxiety.

jwells89 3y ago

Potential price hikes are also a factor. Back when I was still renting, even though I had more than enough income to cover increases, I'd feel immense stress every time the months leading up to lease renewal rolled around. Keeping housing costs below a certain threshold is a critical part of being able to stick away some cash for a rainy day or even having anything left over, and accomplishing this usually meant moving every few years, which meant periodically returning once again to the grueling search for something with vaguely not-horrible value for the price, which is exacerbated if you're anything but a perfect model renter who doesn't have pets or kids — even making substantial use of the kitchen is prohibited in some rentals. A lot of landlords seem to want tenants who only ever come home to sleep and are otherwise ghosts. Ever since I bought a house a couple of years ago, mental bandwidth I'd lost to this stress has been coming back to me. Housing costs being essentially fixed in perpetuity and there being no possibility of being forced to move has done wonders for cutting down on stress and anxiety.