Renting comes with advantages. You are only committed to stay in place for the length of time you agreed to in your lease, you don’t have to manage the maintenance of appliances, and you get to live somewhere for a cost.
However, there are several reasons why this may not be enough. Maybe you want to remodel the kitchen, paint the walls, or re-tile the shower, but you either don’t have permission, or you know it would be throwing money away. Below are just a few reasons why home owners enjoy more privacy and more security than renters.
Your Own Private Space
When you live in home you rent, you don’t have exclusive right to property access. This means that the landlord, or an employee of the landlord, may enter your home at any time. How secure does that feel?!
When you own your own home, you alone make the rules of entry. Your home isn’t owned by someone else, and no-one has the right to enter without your permission. With nothing more than a simple modern home security system, you can rest easy in the security of your belongings when you’re out.
Control The Noise
Do you have noisy neighbors? Does the apartment above you sound like a herd of elephants? Is there a constant party below you? Are you tired of hearing the movie next door, or hearing details about your neighbor’s relationship as their yells echo through the wall of your apartment?
No more unwanted sounds, when you have the luxury of living in your very own detached house. When you live in your own home, you can even soundproof the bedrooms, if that’s what you want to do. Familiar sounds are part of what makes home feel like home. Keep the unwanted noise out, and enjoy the sonic ambiance that feels like home.
Shelter Your Vehicle
No-one likes climbing into their car that’s been open to the elements in the heat of summer, or in the cold of winter. What about exposure to hail? Have you ever walked out to your car and discovered a new mystery dent/scratch?
When you own a house, you can park your car in your garage, or maybe under your carport. At worst, you can park in your own driveway. If you don’t have a garage or carport at the home that you own, you have the option of building one, if that’s what you want to do. Have other priorities?
If you have a garage, you can use it for almost anything. Tired of paying for a self-storage space? Use your garage! Need a shop for your woodworking hobby? Set up shop in your garage! Want a personal gym? Why not set one up in your garage? Have family moving in and need an extra bedroom? You can convert your garage.
If this isn’t enough, wouldn’t it be better when you’re not walking through the rain, groceries in hand, from your car to your front door? If your schedule means that you are sometimes getting home late, wouldn’t you feel safer with a shorter distance between the car and your entryway? This is an often overlooked benefit of home ownership. Don’t miss it!
Your Private Secret Garden
Though many apartments include a balcony in their floor plans, trying to enjoy it can feel like being a public spectacle. If you have a family with young children, having room to play outside is probably a higher priority. What about cookouts, summer gatherings, or planting the garden you always dreamed of?
When you own a house, the odds are good that you have a private outdoor space. You also have the option to turn this space into your own personal paradise.
Love lounging leisurely by the pool? Buy a house with a pool or pool access, and soak up the sun in peace.
Do you prefer lounging in a hammock in the shade with a good book? Nothing is stopping you.
Do you want to grow your own greens, tomatoes, flowers, or a butterfly garden? You can make it your own.
If you have children, you can build a swing set, a play house, a sandbox, or set up a volleyball net, soccer goals, or whatever your family enjoys. Even if you rent a house, your landlord has the final say, and your dreams effectively become subject to their whims.
When you own, you can enjoy the outdoors in the comfort and privacy of your very own outdoor space.
Be Your Own Landlord
If you have ever lived in a place owned by a landlord who just didn’t care, this is probably high on your list of reasons you might want to own instead of rent. Tired of waiting for maintenance? You have your entire local market of independent trade pros to choose from. Tired of the buzzing refrigerator? You probably don’t want to buy a shiny new french door refrigerator for your landlord’s place, but you might reconsider when you are the landlord of your own home.
Landlord’s sometimes sell their properties. When that property is where you live, you risk being kicked out of your home on a whim. Landlords are humans, and if yours were to default on the loan backed by the property you live in, you could be evicted by the lender, having never heard from your landlord.
When you own your own home, you cannot be evicted on someone else’s whim. You are responsible for making your own mortgage payments, rather than relying on, and helping, your landlord to pay theirs, which they could potentially fail to do.
Being your own landlord adds a layer of security and permanence to the place you call home.
Control Your Cost Of Housing
Has your rent gone up? The odds are good that it has. From 2000 to 2018, rents have increased 3.11% per year on average.* What if there was a way to lock in your cost of housing for the next 30 years? How will rent look in 10 more years? 20? Locking this down now could save you big over the long term.
If that isn’t enough, what have you gained for all the rent you’ve paid? The right to live in someone else’s property for the length of the lease agreement. When you own, your “rent” is really a mortgage payment. When your mortgage is paid off, your balance owed drops to 0. What is your housing cost then? Your home, if you own, is an asset, and contributes to your net worth. Owners build equity in their home, and renters build their landlord’s equity. Best of all, your “rent” never goes up with a fixed rate mortgage. Even with an adjustable rate mortgage, the interest rate may rise, but the principle payment never will.
*http://www.in2013dollars.com/Rent-of-primary-residence/price-inflation/2000-to-2018?amount=1000
Are You Ready To Be Your Own Landlord?
We get it. Benchmark has been helping turn renters into homeowners since 1999. Whatever your reason for wanting to buy, we’re on your side. We work with you to find the perfect loan for your financial goals.
Find your Benchmark branch and contact them today for more information.Give us a call or contact us today. At Benchmark, we’ve got your back.Give me a call, send me an email, or request a call today. My team and I got your back.
Benchmark brings you home.