A huge aspect of family life is being comfortable in your home. It makes it harder to raise a family if you don’t have a nice family home to live in. There are two main ways you can go about finding a house for you and your kids; you could buy one, or you could rent one.
Most families are keen to take the first option, but is it always the best choice? Well, the best way to find out is to have a look at why buying a house is good for your family, and where some of its downfalls may lie.
Positive: You Own Your Home
The most appealing thing from your family’s viewpoint is that you own your home when you buy it. This gives you free reign over everything, from the way your children decorate their room to the style of your kitchen. When you rent a home for your family, it doesn’t grant you control over everything.
Some landlords are very picky and don’t want you to alter the appearance of the rooms and mess with the paintwork. This is because, in their mind, you’re not going to be there forever. Eventually, you’ll move out, and if you’ve made big changes to the interior design, they have to pay to change them back for new tenants.
Plus, when you own a home, it kind of roots your family into one place. You don’t have the need or urge to get up and move, particularly when you have such a large asset. With renting, you may be forced to move by the landlord, meaning your family may move around a lot, which isn’t great for the kids. They need a stable household that they can get used to and call their home.
Negative: Costly Mortgages
Buying a house is not a simple transaction. You can’t just walk up to any house with a ‘for sale’ sign and buy it like that. For starters, there are loads of legal technicalities involved and a bidding process, etc. However, your main concern is financing the house itself. It will be costly, and in the majority of cases results in a mortgage helping you out. While this is good as it helps people afford homes, a mortgage does have a few negative issues to contend with.
Mainly, they’re massive loans that put you in debt. So, although you might own the house, you’ll still be paying back your mortgage for a very long time. In some ways, this is similar to paying rent, only you have control over your house. In other ways, it’s possibly worse than rent as you already owe a lot of money. At least when you rent a home, you have the choice to leave after your contract ends. With a mortgage, you’re tied up in a big loan for – potentially- decades.
Positive: Freedom To Expand
This next positive builds on the first one in that, when you own a house, you have the freedom to expand it. The benefit of this is that you can create more space for your family to live in. For example, you may move into a little bungalow when there’s just you, your partner, and one child.
There’s more than enough space for everyone, but then another child is on the way. Now, you might not have enough room to comfortably fit your family, so what can you do? If you’re renting, you can’t do anything other than finding a new home
But, if you’ve bought your house, you have the freedom to expand and build upon it. There’s scope for you to extend your home by building an extra room or even building a whole new floor on top of it. As long as you get the planning permission for this, there’s nothing that can stop you.
Consequently, you’ve created more space in your home to accommodate more children. Everyone remains comfortable & happy, and you don’t have to go through the stress of moving home. Again, you can’t do this when you rent, which makes it a significant positive of buying a family home.
Negative: More Responsibility
All of this freedom comes with a price; you have a lot to be responsible for. In a rented home, if there are issues with plumbing, gas, electricity, or general appliances, your landlord takes care of it. They own the property, it’s their responsibility.
When you buy, all the responsibility falls on your shoulders. There’s no landlord to contact tradesmen and pay to have things replaced/fixed, it all comes out of your pocket and is done on your time.
This is potentially an issue for families with young children as they can often wreak havoc in the home. All it takes is for one of your young kids to accidentally break something, and it ends up costing you a fortune.
Final Thoughts: Is Buying The Best Option For Your Family?
Having looked at some of the positive & negative aspects of buying a house, we can decide whether it’s the best option or not. For me, it’s a great option if you plan on raising a big family and are pretty stable in your life.
You’ve got a steady job, you plan on staying in the same area for a long time, and you’re ready for the responsibility of homeownership. If you fit this description, then buying a home is definitely the best option for your family.
Renting is a good option in some scenarios. Personally, I think it’s good before your children are old enough for school, and if you have a small family. It’s also a handy option if you don’t have a steady job and can’t commit to mortgage payments.
At the end of the day, do what feels right for your family. I’m not here to tell you how to live your life, I simply provide the best advice I can possibly think of. If stability is what you’re after, then buying a home is certainly for you.
