Rent, Lease Or Own... Which Is Best For You?
Here are the most important factors to consider when deciding the answer
to this question:
- If your finances are stable, you should almost always own rather than
rent or lease. This will allow you to build equity in your home that you can
later resell, whereas your rent money is gone forever. The home loan
payments may seem large, but you can deduct the mortgage interest from your
taxes. As your income grows and inflation progresses, each year will
make your mortgage payments seem lower and lower, whereas renters
will need to make higher and higher payments to their landlords.
You should usually rent if your job is shaky, if your investments are
thin or risky, or your credit is damaged. If your credit is bad, try
to rebuild your credit before you buy a home.
- If you don't have much money, you may be eligible to receive rental
assistance from the Federal government's Department Of Housing And Urban Development. You might
also try to get free rent by offering your services as a house-sitter for people who go on
extended vacations, or who have two homes. It's possible to house-sit in
Arizona in the summertime, and/or North Dakota in winter. You could also
look into becoming the resident manager of an apartment building. Many
owners don't actually live on their properties and offer free or reduced
rent in exchange for having a reliable tenant who will be responsible for
light cleaning and serving as a contact person. Often times the resident
manager does not need to be on-call and can easily hold down a full-time
outside job.
- What will your new home's value be in 10 years? The Internet
used to have predictive calculators that estimated how much a home would be
worth in 5-10 years, but they were taken down because of problems with
inaccuracies.
You never know if home values are going to keep going up in your area:
if you can't afford a housing price drop, maybe it would be better to
rent instead. You may also want to rent or lease if
your home town looks like it's at the top of a "boom-bust cycle"
lately. If the economy cools off, the housing market may actually lose
value and you can then buy a home more cheaply. Here's how to use this
page:
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Rent, Lease Or Own... Which Is Best For You? 
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Time to complete:
| 5 minutes |
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Money you'll spend:
| $0 |
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What you'll get:
| Good advice on whether to buy, rent or lease. |
Step-by-step instructions:
- Click here: Whether To Buy? (a BankRate.com article.)
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Further Reading:
 If you don't have much money, you may be eligible to receive rental
assistance from the Federal government's Department Of Housing And Urban Development.
 Homes Magazines, 90-day risk-free trials available.
 No Credit Required : How to Buy a House When You Don't
Qualify for a Mortgage, a top-rated book available at Amazon.com.
- Not One Dollar More!: How to Save $3,000 to $30,000
Buying Your Next Home, 2nd Edition, a top-rated book about home buying
available at Amazon.com.
- Buying & Selling a Home,
a top-rated book about real estate by the editors of Kiplinger magazine, available at Amazon.com.
- Homesurfing.Net : The Insider's Guide to Buying and Selling Your Home Using the Internet,
another top-rated book at Amazon.com.
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