I wish - I'm currently renting a house for 1200 pounds/month(so...1900 USD per month) and the agency took $1000 just to take the property off the market("admin fee" - non-returnable, doesn't go towards the deposit, it's just money down the drain really), then 1 month rent as deposit, and 1 month rent in advance. So really, I spent nearly $6k just to start renting a place.
I'm really considering a mortgage, but don't have money for the downpayment. Our mortgage payments would be actually less than what we pay for rent now.
Re:Is it better to buy or rent?
by fluidcruft on Friday June 19, 2015 @11:32AM
(#9745439)
Rent pays maintenance costs, too it's just forcibly amortized and externalized. Higher-density housing like apartments and condos do have scale efficiencies reduce per-unit/occupant maintenance costs. But the difference between renting and buying is somewhat apples to oranges if you're comparing renting an apartment to buying a house.
Ref - transaction costs. You have to figure it will cost you around ~8% of the value of a property to both get into and out of it. This does not include the cost of movers. With a rental your transaction costs might be $50 for the apartment application fee.