General Chat

My parents were offered the chance to buy their council house at a very reasonable rate back in the early days of 'right to buy'.

As it was on the Surrey/Greater London border, in the height of commuter land, with nice sized garden and lovely fields and woods out the back, it shot up in value.

It meant that after my father's early death (he had worked with asbestos in his youth), Mum was able to sell up and buy a nice little bungalow in Broadstairs, near family, and still have a bit left over.

For her, it was an excellent decision, but everyone's situation is different.

We bought ours and are now mortgage free but what we didn't know at the time is we didn't have to buy the house we were living in and had we known that we would have bought a bigger one.

We looked at buying ours a while ago but our village is quite expensive for property so we continue to rent. Also a good point made by Maggie is that we don't have to pay for any repairs and updates to rooms.

I looked in to buying my house when I was 40.
I was told I didn't have enough working years for a 25 year mortgage.

However, I DID have enough years, the next year, as they raised women's pension age. I re-applied, and was turned down again, because, although women's pension age had gone up, they were unaware of it, and in any case, if this was the case, I 'only had' 24 years left.
Then they raised women's pension age AGAIN!

However, the advantage of renting is that I don't have to pay for repairs, or to renew the boiler
A disadvantage was that I was unemployed when the pandemic started, and employers weren't employing, and they definitely didn't want temp staff.
The council only paid a bit towards the bedroom tax, then stopped.

I had to move during a lockdown in the pandemic.
I had 2 weeks to move from somewhere I had lived for 30 years, to a smaller place. The dump had decided people had to book to go, and they could only go once a week, so I ended up bringing stuff I didn't need/want, and I'm still going through it, 6 months later!
It also meant I have had to try to shift stuff around/put furniture back together, (stuff it took 2 young men to move/dismantle) on my own - or just leave it until someone comes around.

Their council/social housing house or flat or are you happier paying rent?