h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Perhaps the problem is that people view a house as something more than just a place to live - the expectation is that it's an investment, too.

There's also the British mania with owning, where a more European attitude is one of being happy to rent. (Many Europeans look on the British mania to own with amusement or bewilderment).

Why is it so bad to rent? If I rented I'd have less to pass on to my heirs when
accumulating it was, well, wasted effort.

Is part of the stigma of renting that it might be associated with failure? The association of "rented housing" in the UK is with council estates - it is easy to see why many people would view the prospect with horror and consider these to be "housing of very last resort", or "not for people like me". I've lived on two fairly rough council estates in the past and I can see why people who are perhaps used to better might not fit in. A lot of the horror stories are exaggerated, but there is just enough truth in the idea of the "chav", the "underclass", and the "neighbour from hell" to support the received image. Yes, if you subscribe to the more intelligent middle-class values, work for a living and aspire to improvement, then you would be out of place on a council estate, sorry to say. For me, it was the best available at the time and I made the best of it: I got on OK with the neighbours but the longer I lived there, the more I realised I didn't fit. It's a shame to have to say that, but social housing shouldn't be this way, as nothing more than a last safety net for the unemployable or for those who are struggling in insecure and unskilled work. (I did wish the local council could have some BETTER housing to offer - to people who might meet eligibility criteria that would exclude chavs - in more upmarket parts of town, though, where the only thing that stopped me fitting in among people I felt more in tune with was that I didn't have the money to rent or buy!)

Private rented housing is unregulated and something of a lottery - fine if you have a decent landlord, but abomonable if you're renting from a prize $hit, as I have in the past. So I can see another reason to buy - the security of knowing that as long as you can keep up with the mortgage, you are not living at anyone else's whim or mercy.

Again, if we followed a European model, cf Germany, private rents/lets would be tightly regulated and controlled (Thatcher took away many forms of rent and tenancy regulation - New "Labour" is yet to restore these). Again we do not do this because the rights of the property owner are seen as sacrosanct, more so than those of the tenant. Time for a rethink!

This is a fair question- do people NEED to buy? I would like to own a house, although I accept that it is a long way in the future, is ever, for the following reasons:

1) Security. Yes, alright, I could have my mortgage foreclosed or something, but, basically, once I own the place, it's pretty unlikely I'll ever get turfed out. Whatever I loose, I've still got a home.

2) I want to find somewhere, settle and stay there til I die.

3) I can smash the walls in without having to bloody well ask.

4) It seems to me that if I take out a mortgage I can pay, say £400 a month for 30 years and have a house, or I can pay the same amount in rent for the same period and still have nothing.

I agree with your point, though, the way private/council rented accomodation is does not encourage me. Wife and I have been given some anxities by our previous landlord who was bad and then turfed us out when he wanted to charge more rent, so you are certainly right there.

In Europe do they have different laws on renting?

The reason I ask is that the whole renting thing seems all very short term here unless you are in a council property. A shorthold assured tennancy only guarantees tenancy for six months after which both parties can give pretty short notice of termination.
It strikes me as being not very secure and therfore fairly undesirable in the long term.
Not that I've tried renting one house long term mind you, maybe longer term deals do exist in the UK...?

Just wondering aloud...(ish obviously)