Rental VS Purchase
To Rent or To Buy – That is the question?
In real estate this topic comes up quite often. Now remember real estate professionals get paid a commission for helping to complete the transaction. In most cases the agent will make a larger commission from selling a house to a family instead of finding an apartment for the family to rent.
We don’t mean to make you think that real estate professionals only think about the money. Most will work with you no matter what the commission is or which decission you decide to make. Realtors® have to treat you fairly and follow their Code Of Ethics.
But when you go to them you must think of which way to go “rent or buy”. We’re going to break them down, give you the pros and cons of each.
Renting
Pros – No tax or water bills, this is a great thing because you can lose your property if the tax bill isn’t paid. If you don’t pay the water bill the water is shut off and a lien can be placed on your property (most counties).
Pros – You’re not responsible for county inspections (some states do inspections on rental properties). The inspector comes and checks smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, emergency lights, alarms and more. Usually it’s the landlords responsibility to maintain and keep in good operating condition of these items.
Pros – You’re not responsible for maintenance of the property. Lawn care, painting, water damage, pavements, security, lighting and most other general concerns.
Cons – Here is the first and most important negative thing about renting – you’re helping someone else build equity. That equity could be used to buy another property, take vacations, pay for children’s education and more.
Purchase
Pros – You can build equity. As you own a home and pay your regular monthly payments after a while you’ll start building equity. If you take a mortgage for say $200,000 and you start making your regular monthly payments and in time the value goes up to $300,000 then you have $100,000 in equity.
Pros – You can use your property for credit.
Cons – You are responsible for all bills from the property. Look above in the renting “Pros”. Yes that’s all yours.
