Top Ten Reasons Why Renting Is Better Than Owning

10. When they build a strip club (or insert whatever loud or obnoxious business) right across the street from you, you can move.

9. I love interior designs from 10-15 years ago. New and nice things like granite and stainless steel are a waste of money (who am I kidding I love those things).

8. You can give in to the constant pressure to trade up. Everyone I know who has lived in their house for 25 years or more has seen a significant decline in their neighborhood over time. People with money move on to the bigger and better.

7. The American dream is overrated. We are brought up to believe in order to be successful in life you must own a home. We are also brought up to believe in order to be successful in life you have to get a college education. 10 years later and tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and bachelor's degree later I am here to challenge both these assumptions.

6. Property taxes are someone else's problem.

5. Homeowners can't do crazy stuff like move across the country for a job with 2 weeks notice. Oh wait, some of you would never consider this, really???

4. Speaking of moving. If your neighbors suck you can move. Not that mine do, I actually love my neighbors. Or if you kids' school sucks you can easily move to a better school.

3. The price of a home is astronomical. A house our size, in our area is at least 5 times my hubby's annual salary, yikes! We will just disregard that fact that we pay more in rent monthly than a lot of people pay for a mortgage.

2. There is no guarantee your investment is going to go up in value over the short term. This is one of the biggest changes in my thinking. While everyone was making crazy money in the real estate market in the early 2000's the tide has changed and millions of homeowners are now upside down on their mortgages. That is a scary possibility for me, especially since if we owned a home we would've put little or no money down.

1. You don't have to deal with repairs! We have been in our house for almost a year and the landlord has replaced the garbage disposal, repaired the washer twice, sent a plumber and then two roofers to fix a mysterious leak in the laundry room ceiling, repaired the heater, and now the upstairs tub drain needs repaired, the washer is leaking water again, and the shed roof collapsed. I don't know if we could've afforded all that this year.


On a serious note we do want to be homeowners someday but have realized over the past year or two that waiting until we are ready both career wise and financially is a much better way to go for our family. Especially since making money when you sell a home is no longer a guarantee I am OK with renting and going with the safer, more flexible bet. I know some of you homeowners out there may disagree but we are young, we have plenty of time to own a home in the future.