Great read on the pros and cons of renting versus owning…..
4 Questions to Ask When You’re Deciding Whether to Rent or Buy
© Michal Besser/Getty Images Couple outside large home
Buying a home can be an alluring proposition: When you buy a home, you have an asset that you hope will appreciate in value over time. For some, there’s also an emotional payoff from having the freedom to renovate or expand their property as they see fit. Renting, in contrast, is often compared to “throwing money down the drain.” It’s gone and it’s not coming back.
But renting can have its own allure — particularly for those who want flexibility and the ability to move without being tied down to a house, or for those who want the security of a fixed payment, with no risk for unexpected, large home repair costs. These days, buying a house is far from an obvious choice. As the recent housing bubble showed, there’s no guarantee home values will rise.
The country’s homeownership rate fell to 62.9% in the second quarter of this year, matching an all-time low reached in 1965, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Many people — especially millennials — are too burdened by student loan debt and high rental costs to become homeowners. High rental costs, coupled with student loan payments, can make it difficult to save up for a down payment. And for some, even if they have the money saved, their student debt load may leave them with too high a debt-to-income ratio to gain approval for a mortgage.
At the same time, lenders remain cautious about offering mortgages to home buyers with lower credit scores. But that doesn’t mean that the desire to own isn’t there. About 79% of millennial renters want to own a home, according to an April survey by Apartment List.
But since a home purchase is often the single biggest investment many people will ever make, it’s important to give the question, buy or rent, serious consideration. If you are wondering what is right for you, here are four questions to ask yourself. Telluride, Real Estate, Dan Henschel, Telluride Real Estate, Realtor, Dan henschel, Telluride