10 Reasons Why Renting is Better than Buying

1. You can live in a way better house.

Say you can afford to spend around $550 a week on rent or a mortgage. For that amount of money you could make loan repayments on a house worth around $400,000, or you could rent something worth $500,000 or $600,000 (depending on the suburb).

So you could rent something like this:

Some of my best work

Or buy something like this:

Notice how subtle I am?

(The last pic was supposed to have a sad face, but somehow it came out angry. It's an angry door. I think I'm a little afraid of it).


2. You don't have to pay for repairs. If the oven/air-conditioner/toilet breaks, it's someone else's problem. Which is great, because these days plumbers charge more than lawyers.

My apologies to plumbers everywhere

3.You don't have to pay council rates.

Money

4. And you don't need a down payment, or need to pay bank fees, stamp duty or conveyancing costs.

Money, Money, Money and ... Wait for It...

5.You're not affected by downturns in the housing market. (In other words you're not the 80% of people currently trying to sell their house and having a dog-gone time of it).

6. Interest rates may go up without warning, changing your mortgage repayments from one fortnight to the next. Your rent, on the other hand, is fixed for the term of the lease.

(Mr Interest Rates turned out totally blind - I'm thinking that's my subconscious' final word on the chaps at the Reserve Bank).

7. You have greater flexibility to move. You know definitively when your lease is coming to an end and can plan your movements accordingly, without having to wait for an uncertain property market to catch up with you.

8. There's no pressure to renovate. No guilt over not having spruced up the second bathroom, because it's not your house.

9. You'll inevitably end up shopping at tenant-friendly IKEA, which I consider to be the home of AWESOME (but more on them later).

Wow, the scale on this one is way off.

10. There's nothing to stop you from buying another house to rent out (to stay in the market, for tax purposes, etc) while you yourself live in a rental. You'll have the best of both worlds.

Don't ask why you're a penguin. Just go with it.

In The News 18-24 July 2011

18 July
Rates may drop and the market rise.

20 July
Quest Brisbane West questions whether the sale of this heavenly piece of real estate reflects a decline in faith.

21 July

Go Gecko Going, Going, Gone? Many agencies are feeling the pinch.

The 48 hour Rental Application Badger

If you think that all property managers are slackers, then you've never sat in their office during tax time, or during mid / end of month payments, or on a day ending with 'y' (you could also have formed this opinion if you've ever met a Business Development Manager masquerading as a property manager, but more on them later. Needless to say, if you meet one of these charming and attractive specimens, you'll never see or hear from them again, so take a picture).

One of the many labours of the humble property manager is processing rental applications. I've read alot of criticism on the internet about PMs being slackers about this (I enjoy googling 'I hate real estate agents/ property managers' so much, it's a sickness). And yes, there are some woeful slackers who will keep you on tenterhooks waiting for a response, but then there are the basic facts of life. We can process and process and process, but in the end we're waiting for responses too, from your boss, your HR manager, your previous property manager, and the owner of the property.

I've been on the ulcer-inducing end of a waiting process often enough that when I say I understand the frustration, it means I'm getting acid-reflux flashbacks. As a result, WebNet has a 48 hour clock on applications, so that if we can't plead or badger our way to a response in that time (which is very rare, I badger like you wouldn't believe), we'll still ring you and give you an update, and then go back to badgering.

                 
                  Cute, no? But you should hear their phone manner.

In the News 11-17 July 2011

Keeping an eye out for the good, the bad and the really, really bad in real estate during the past week.

15 July
As expected, the floods have affected property values in QLD.

16 July
But all hope is not lost.

16 July
Red Hill apartment sells for whistle-worthy price.

17 July
1 in 5 property investors are "failure to launchers" (just google it, don't watch the movie. You're welcome).

17 July
28% of property buyers are single women. Really shouldn't say anything. Obvious bias. Oh well. Yeah for women homebuyers! I'm humming Aretha Franklin as I type. "Sisters are doin' it for themselves..."

17 July
Just. Shoot. Me.