Life considerations to rent or buy a house

Homeownership has become a status symbol in many social circles. While there are great reasons to buy a home, there are also many responsibilities and lifestyle changes associated with owning a home. It is not all independence, wall painting, and freedom! Here are some lifestyle considerations to ponder while you are deciding if you should rent or buy a house. 

I covered the financial considerations in my previous post (click to read). Today, let’s chat about the lifestyle considerations to decide on before you move ahead with deciding to purchase a home. 

Life changes with homeownership 

• What would change about your life if you were a homeowner? Dream a little and write it down! What is motivating you to make this investment? Do you foresee your quality of life increasing or decreasing?
• How will you handle the upkeep of the home? Maintaining a home takes an eye for detail, some handy skills, and cash money! Where is your expectation level as to what your house will look like? If you want the best yard on the block, you need to be willing to put in the time and effort to keep weeds down, lawn mowed, bushes pruned, or pay to have a landscape company take care of it.
• What would be a deal-breaker for you in this house? Some common ones are:
  • Pool/hot tub
  • basement/multi-level
  • Long commute
  • A large amount of land to maintain or land includes a pond or specialized high maintenance feature
  • Not close enough to friends/family (or too close to certain friends/family!)

Write it out! Be really clear with these deal-breakers and don’t let yourself get talked into something that you know you will be miserable living with. Share your list with your realtor and anyone you have helping you make this decision so they can help ensure you get what you want! 

• Have you accounted for the time, skills, and money needed to maintain the property to the standards you set earlier? These could be tasks like:

Outside

• • Regular yard maintenance such as mowing, pruning trees or bushes, managing pests.
  • The exterior of the house repairs and maintenance like cleaning the gutters, watching for water damage, repainting. 
  • Are there improvements you want to make? Do you have the skills to do them yourself, or will you hire those out? 

Inside

• • Repairs/maintenance such as painting, plumbing, appliance maintenance.  What level can you handle yourself and will you need to outsource any? 
  • Are there any improvements or significant changes to make inside? Will you hire or do it yourself and how urgent is this change? 

Being the “responsible one”

How comfortable are you with the unexpected? With a house, things happen at the worst time and there is no landlord you can call to deal with it. It’s your problem, homeowner! 

Storytime!

How about the night before you leave for a two-week Christmas vacation, the handle to the kitchen sink faucet breaks, and the water in the sink won’t shut off. Ok, just turn off the water to the house. Simple! Except, your roommate is staying home for Christmas and probably wants water while you are gone for two weeks. How quickly can you change the mechanism in the faucet? 

You are sleeping peacefully when all of a sudden there is a huge crack and thud followed by your house shaking and creaking. Yep, one of the 100-year-old trees which provide such nice summer shade just blew over and is now resting on your roof. Who are you going to call because your hand saw isn’t going to be able to handle cutting this up!

Or you are at home relaxing on a Saturday evening, movie on, popcorn popped when there is a large thud on the side of your house. You check outside, assuming maybe a neighbor kid bounced a ball off your house accidentally, but instead find a very injured duck laying on the ground. The duck flew into the side of the house, breaking their neck, and cracking a few pieces of your siding. Now, how do you deal with the injured duck? 

Homeownership is fun, right?

A house has so many complex systems, and many of them are actively moving which means they will also break. Usually at the most inconvenient time. 

A homeowner needs to be resourceful and flexible to be able to respond to those unexpected events as they may occur. You don’t necessarily need to know how to completely fix all of them. However,  you need to be able to figure out the first step to resolve it and prevent or minimize any additional damage. 

Lifestyle changes

• Determine how much house you actually need vs how much house you want. Just because your mother-in-law comes to visit for a week once a year, does not mean you need a dedicated guest room. If finding a house with an extra guest bedroom pushes you outside of your budget, plan to pay for a nice Air BNB down the street for her annual visit. It will be cheaper, I promise!
• Will you have to give up anything in your life because of this home? Frequent travel is more difficult with a home to maintain. Will you miss city life if you are now in the suburbs? Are you spending so much money on this house, that you will be unable to continue to afford the lifestyle you had before? Many people find themselves “cash poor and house rich” for the first few years of owning their home because there can be so many expenses that come up.

What next?

Well, take some time to think about your answers to these questions. Talk it over with trusted friends or family in your life and ask for their opinions. Consider those opinions, but don’t forget to trust your gut too.

Deciding whether to rent or buy a house is both a financial and emotional decision. There is a huge pride of ownership when you walk through the door of the home you own. Buying a home is an accomplishment you should be proud of, but it also comes with a huge responsibility.

Let’s chat! If you are a homeowner, what other tips do you want to share with someone looking to buy their first home? If you are considering buying a home, what do you want to know? Ask us questions! Leave comments or share thoughts over on our Instagram page.